Mapping research output on library and information science research domain in South Africa: a bibliometric visualisation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-10-2021-0115 |
| Published date | 20 October 2022 |
| Date | 20 October 2022 |
| Pages | 194-212 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
| Author | Javaid Ahmad Wani,Shabir Ahmad Ganaie,Ikhlaq Ur Rehman |
Mapping research output on library and
information science research domain in South
Africa: a bibliometric visualisation
Javaid Ahmad Wani, Shabir Ahmad Ganaie and Ikhlaq Ur Rehman
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to examine the research output on “library and information science”(LIS) research domain in South Africa. It
also highlights the top LIS research organisations, authors, journals, collaboration types and commonly used keywords. This research will aid in the
identification of emerging concepts, trends and advances in this subject.
Design/methodology/approach –The Web of Science (WoS), an indexing and abstracting database, served as a tool for bibliographical data. By
applying advanced search features, the authors curated data from 1989 to 2021 through the WoS subject category WC = (Information Scie nce &
Library Science), limiting the scope to the region, CU = (South Africa), which resulted in 1,034 articles. Moreover, the research focuses on science
mapping using the R package for reliable analysis.
Findings –The findings reveal that the publications have considerably grown over time, indicating significant attention among researchers in LIS.
The findings indicate the critical operator’s performance, existing thematic choices and subsequent research op portunities. The primary topical fields
of study that emerged from the bibliometric analysis are impact, information, science, model, management, technology, knowledge and education.
Pouris and Fourie are the most productive citations, h-index and g-index. The influential institute was The University of Pretoria.
Research limitations/implications –The use of the WoS database for data collecting limits this study. Because the WoS was the only citation and
abstract database used in this study, bibliometric investigations using other citation and abstract databases like “Scopus”,“Google Scholar ”and
“Dimension”could be interesting. This study presented a bibliometric summary; nevertheless, a systematic and methodical examinat ion of highly
cited LIS research publications could throw more light on the subject.
Practical implications –This paper gives valuable information about recent scientific advancements in the LIS and emerging future academic
subject prospects. Furthermore, this research work will serve as a reference for researchers in various areas to analyse the evol ution of scholarly
literature on a particular topic over time.
Originality/value –By identifying the standard channels of study in the LIS discipline, and the essential journals, publications, nations, institution s,
authors, data sources and networks in this subject, this bibliometric mapping and visualisation provide new perspectives into academic
performance. This paper also articulates future research directions in this realm of knowledge. This study is more rigorous and comprehensive in
terms of the analytical procedures it uses.
Keywords Library and information science, Bibliometrics, Science mapping, VOSviewer, Bibliometrix-R, South Africa
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In keeping with the development paradigms of post-2015, the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
raise significant challenges about how African development
aspirations and requirements are standing on a more
comprehensive global agendaand their effect on the well-being
of Africans (Ramutsindela and Mickler, 2020). However, the
engagement of state and non-state agents in scientific
discussions and policy endeavours in the field of development
in Africa remains low. Huckle and Wals (2015) and Harris
et al. (2017) acknowledge that thinkers, administrations and
contributors agree that institutions of higher learning are a
critical resource for sustainable development. Ramutsindela
and Mickler (2020) noted that the contribution of research
centres and universities to achieving the SDGs ranges from
streamlining SDGs to familiarising the curriculum. While
bridging the link between researchand social goals, the need of
the hour is the triangulation of governments, academia and
The current issue and full text archiveof this journal is available on Emerald
Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
51/2 (2023) 194–212
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-10-2021-0115]
The authors would like to express special thanks of gratitude to
anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions. Moreover, authors
thank Mr Khan Mohmad Shafi(Assistant Professor, Computer
Applications –University of Kashmir, India) for his technical support and
suggestions. Mr. Khan holds teaching experience of ten years at university
level; the interested research areas of Mr. Khan are “natural language
processing”,“machine learning”, and “deep learning frameworks”.
Received 16 October 2021
Revised 24 January 2022
14 March 2022
21 April 2022
7 August 2022
Accepted 21 September 2022
194
stakeholders (Hassan,2001). Every nation wants to construct a
better education framework(Ramutsindela and Mickler, 2020)
by focusing on the emerging economies of the globe and
considering the scientific and technologicalhype to accomplish
SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation
and Infrastructure). Enhancing research productivity and
efficacy are the well-known strategies used to conceive these
capacities (Confrariaet al.,2020).
Research is vital to the development of any nation.
Developed nations are always involved in determiningthe new
horizons of scientific knowledgeand enriching their intellectual
portfolio. There arises a need for the “collection, storage,
retrieval and dissemination”of research outcomes. Hence,
attention towards galleries, libraries, archives, and museums
escalates because of their primary objective to “collect, store,
retrieve and share”information (Siddique et al.,2021).
Information professionals are the human resources that deal
with the handling of information. This approach revolves
around the library and information science (LIS) (Ma et al.,
2009). As a result, no one can disclaim the applicability of the
LIS domain for the development of any nation. Hence, to
envision and embrace the most promising scientific guidelines,
science mapping and the impact of any research field have
evolved (Maurya et al.,2019). The superabundance of
bibliometric studies on diverse knowledge domains is arising
across disciplines. However, the review of past studies reveals
many bibliometric works in the different research areas. In
today’s information age, bibliometric studies are frequently
carried out to assess the literature and discover trends in
research in any discipline (Ahmad et al., 2019).The current
research looked at research articles from 1989 to 2021 that
were found in ISI indexed databases. A bibliometric analysis
has the ability to pave the way for detecting research patterns
and phases in the subject’s growth (He et al.,2012;Whiteet al.,
2016). As a result, we use bibliometrics as a tool to investigate
subfields, developmental stages, historical advancements and
researcher contributions in the corresponding topic of interest.
The study also aids in expanding understanding of published
literature and improvingresearch operations.
Overview of bibliometrics
The application of mathematical techniques to examine published
papers in quantity and quality is known as bibliometrics.
Researchers like Broadus (1987a,1987b)andOkubo (1997)
believe that bibliometrics is an essential and frequent tool used to
evaluate the research activity on a specific subject. Bibliometrics
deals with bibliographic data that portrays the growth,
international collaboration and top-profile nations, institutes and
authors. There is the leeway to present the results visually via
enrichment software like VOSviewer, Pajek and CiteSpace.
Bibliometric analysis was put forward by Pritchard(1969) as
“the quantitative study of physical published units, or
bibliographic units, or of the surrogates for either”(Broadus,
1987a, 1987b, p. 376). While as Glanzel (2003) defined the
term bibliometrics as “the application of mathematical and
statistical methods to books and other media of
communication”.Bibliometrics is studied to assist the appraisal
of published knowledge in a quantitative assessment of written
communication, and bibliographical material. Bibliometrics
accesses the scholarly literature quantitatively (Vitzthum et al.,
2010;Rip, 1997;Broadus,1987a,1987b;Pritchard, 1969)and
provides empirical data for a set of papers. It studies the
evolution and developmentof literature, the links and the usage
among different fields of knowledge, production, patterns of
authorship and collaborations.The cross-disciplinary approach
of bibliometric research takes acquired an enormous
prominence (Morillo, et al., 2001). Firstly, bibliometrics was a
prime research area of information science experts. Later on,
bibliometric science attained a pinnaclein scientific study with
the creation and growth of data science, big data and data
mining. Bibliometrics became extremelypragmatic and widely
available when Eugene Garfield established the “Science
Citation Index”(Garfield, 1964;Garfield, 1972). Since that
date, this subject has blossomed in the widespread use of
bibliometric approaches for the evaluation of “scientist”,
“institution”,“journals”and “country”research performance,
production and efficiency bycreating a plethora of bibliometric
indexes, algorithms and measures for scientific productivity
and deduce research trends and hotspots for a topic category
(Hou et al.,2015;Li and Zhao, 2015;Zheng et al.,2015).
Here, it is pertinent to mention that the first step in evaluating
the literature on the issue or subject is to get published papers
on a given topic. Databases such as “PubMed”,“Google
Scholar”,“Scopus”and “Web of Science”(WoS) would be
used to find peer-reviewed papers on various themes. Then
comes scientific techniquesto drill down the data sets available
for analysis purposes. To execute the process of science
mapping, one should select an approach to perform
the investigation. The two profound approaches are
“performance analyses”and “science mapping”to examine
bibliometric studies (Noyons et al., 1999a;Noyons et al.,
1999b). There is enough evidenceto show the usefulness of the
two primary approaches of bibliometric science in literature.
Researchers like Cobo (2014),vanRaan (2005),Small (1999),
Borner et al. (2003) and Morris and Van der Veer Martens
(2008) argued that “Performance analysis”as a tool for
carrying out bibliometric research evaluates the influence of
academic publications in various areas and inter-disciplines.
The graphically “sciencemapping”may also be used to portray
the social, intellectual,scientific, a conceptual representation of
academic literature. The “Science Map”, known as
bibliometric mapping, helps comprehendmodern academic or
scientific literature connections, patterns, genesis and
dynamics. The ideas of “performance analysis and science
mapping”might be regarded as an analytical method to the
classification of scientific data (Cancino, 2018) based upon
several factors such as “authors productivity”, the “country
count”and “citation linkages”(Tomaszewski, 2017). Besides
expert assessments of scientific achievements throughout the
disciplines, bibliometrics has often been used (Vieira and
Gomes, 2010;Derrick,2011).
Literature review
In almost every domain, bibliometrics approaches are well-
known for quantifying the output and effect of scientific
publications. Bibliometrics describes publishing trends and
contribution patterns within a field of study using quantitative
and statistical methodologies. The information gathered by
Mapping research output
Javaid Ahmad Wani, Shabir Ahmad Ganaie and Ikhlaq Ur Rehman
Information Discovery and Delivery
Volume 51 · Number 2 · 2023 · 194–212
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