Publication trends in literature on eBooks: a Scopus based bibliometric analysis

Pages119-127
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/CC-07-2017-0027
Date02 July 2018
Published date02 July 2018
AuthorShankar Reddy Kolle,Iranna Shettar,Vijay Kumar M.,Parameshwar G.S.
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Collection building & management
Publication trends in literature on eBooks:
a Scopus based bibliometric analysis
Shankar Reddy Kolle
Professor Ram Dayal Munda Central Library, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak, India
Iranna Shettar
Central Library, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India
Vijay Kumar M.
Central Library, Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer, India, and
Parameshwar G.S.
Library and Information Science, Gulbarga University, Kalaburagi, India
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyze the global scientific outputs on eBooks research using Scopus database.
Design/methodology/approach This study collected literature published during 2001-2016 from the Scopus database. Following keywords were
used: “eBook*”, “e-Book*”, “electronic book*” or “online book*” in title or keyword or abstract with time span covering 2001 to 2016. The
authors further restricted their search limit to subject category of social science, computer science and arts and humanities. A total of 2,965
documents were found from the search strategy, including 1,582 research articles. Articles were considered for the analysis using Microsoft Excel
2007. The bibliometric analysis was performed to analyze the document types, language, publication output, citations, authorship pattern, journals,
prolific authors, productive countries and most frequently appeared top words/phrases from the title of the articles.
Findings Literature on eBooks grown exponential and eBooks was the hot topic of the research in recent decade. Most of the articles were
contributed by the single authors, and the USA and the UK were the most productive countries; however, in recent times, Taiwan has also joined
them. The articles published in the year 2009 have recorded highest citation rate. Publishing Research Quarterly was the most productive journal,
which has published 61 articles on eBooks, followed by the Electronic Library (59) and Library Hi Tech News (35). Korat O. was the most productive
author on eBooks research who was affiliated to Bar-Ilan University, Israel. The researchers were keen on investigating the experience of use of
eBooks, reader, impact, challenges, access, reading habits and usage of the eBooks.
Originality/value This is the first kind of study to quantify global research patterns and trends in eBooks, which might provide a potential guide
for the future research.
Keywords Scopus, Bibliometric analysis, Research, Citations, eBooks, Journals
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The idea of e-books is not new – ever since there have been
computers, people have envisioned using them to store and
access individual titles or vast libraries (Rao, 2009). The history
of electronic book (eBook) began in 1971, with the rst steps of
Project Gutenberg, a digital library for books from public domain
(Manley and Holley, 2012). In January 1994, Project Gutenberg
released the Complete Works of William Shakespeare as eBook
which were written between 1590 and 1613 (Lebert, 2009). In
1990s, rapid development in internet technology has created
huge space for eBook publication and market. In 1993, John
Mark Ockerbloom founded Online Books Page which was a
website to facilitate access to books that are freely readable over
the internet (Lebert, 2009). In later near time, some publishers
started publishing eBooks; National Academy Press was the rst
publisher in 1994 to post the full text of some books, and the
Amazon.com was the rst online bookstore (Lebert, 2009).
Springer publishes over 4,000 book titles annually, which are
converted into eBooks almost without exception (Velde and
Ernst, 2009). Morgan (1999) denes eBooks as being the
hardware/software combination specically designed for reading,
in contrast with e-texts written in hyper-text markup language
and viewable on a computer, and Hawkins (2000) states that “an
e-book is the contents of a book made available in an electronic
form”. eBooks are similar to print book, but for a traditional print
book, the medium is paper, whereas eBook is the digital
representation of the printed material (print book), the medium
can vary from a (laptop) computer to digital eBook reader, PDA,
mobile phone or even (through a desktop printer) traditional
paper (Velde and Ernst, 2009). Advancement in computer
hardware and software technologies made eBooks as popular
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2514-9326.htm
Collection and Curation
37/3 (2018) 119–127
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2514-9326]
[DOI 10.1108/CC-07-2017-0027]
Received 5 July 2017
Revised 25 September 2017
Accepted 17 October 2017
119

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