Role of libraries in promoting education: a bibliometric analysis (2012-2016)
| Published date | 02 January 2018 |
| Pages | 1-8 |
| Date | 02 January 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/CC-01-2018-001 |
| Author | Archana Sahu,Puspanjali Jena |
Role of libraries in promoting education:
a bibliometric analysis (2012-2016)
Archana Sahu
Library, National Law University Odisha, Cuttack, India, and
Puspanjali Jena
Department of Library and Information Science, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, India
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate the authorship patterns and the relationship between them based on some statistical indices
for the role of libraries in promoting education at the global level.
Design/methodology/approach –The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database was searched for the peer-reviewed and full text
available journal articles that contained specific words related to either libraries and education or libraries and e-learning in. Data were analysed
based on certain statistical calculations to find out the degree of collaboration, collaborative coefficient, Shannon index, Simpso n’s indices,
Spearman’s coefficient and co-authorship pattern.
Findings –The criteria were met by 262 publications by 517 authors. The highest number of articles related with the role of libraries in education
was published in the year 2013, and the highest numbers of articles were authored by a single author rather than multiple authors. The degree of
collaboration was found to be highest in the year 2015 and 2016 with a value of 0.66, whereas the collaborative coefficient was highest in the year
2016 with a value 0.42. The Shannon’s diversity index was found to be 2.73705 with an evenness of 1.24568. The Simpson’s index, Simpson’s index
of diversity and Simpson’s reciprocal index were found to be 0.299, 0.701 and 3.3444, respectively. The Spea rman’s coefficient was found to be
highest with a positive correlation of value 0.95 in the year 2013. Furthermore, six co-occurrences by eight authors were found.
Research limitations/implications –Only the ERIC database was chosen for the study and only articles published from the year 2012 to 2016
were included in the analysis.
Originality/value –This study will be useful for researchers to get an insight into the collaborative research patterns demonstrated by the authors
in understanding the role of libraries in education using different statistical approaches.
Keywords Bibliometric, Co-authorship, ERIC, Diversity index, Shannon index, Simpson’s index, Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient
Paper type Technical paper
Introduction
Educational endeavours over severalyears have seen a positive
role of libraries in education as they offer their referralservices,
information and teaching resources.Library is a treasure house
of information and knowledge that employs trained
professionals to protect, systematize and manage resources, so
that they can contribute effectivelyto continuing education and
self-improvement of its users by providing meaningful
assistance in finding, extracting and disseminating proper
informationfrom the materials available.
Education cannot flourish without a library support, and a
library is no longer useful if it cannot pass on education.
Boucher and Lance (1992) identified three sets of roles that
libraries play in education, namely, giving access to education
by teaching informationskills, ensuring equity in education and
impacting academic achievement of individuals. A paper
presented by UNICEF (2000) at the meeting of The
International Working Groupon Education Florence, Italy, on
Defining Quality in Education stated that learning can occur
anywhere, but the positive learning results generally soughtby
educational systems occur in quality learning environments,
and children whose schools lack classroom materials and have
an inadequate library are altogether more likely to show lower
test scores and higher grade repetition.Bundy (2002) discussed
the significance of information literacyfor lifelong learning and
the need for cooperation between public libraries and school
libraries and teacher librarians by doing a survey of Australian
schools and public libraries.Again in the same year 2002, Apeji
(2002) discussed the role of school libraries in the learning
process and suggested that the libraries should also encourage
students’readinghabits.
The evaluation of scientific research is an essential task where
the purpose of evaluation is to decide and, where possible,
enhance its productivity. Given that, the result of scientific
activity is only known when the authors communicate their
findings in a publication distributed among the scientific
community (García-López, 1999). The research paper studied a
total of 405 papers, which were found in IME, published in
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
37/1 (2018) 1–8
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2514-9326]
[DOI 10.1108/CC-01-2018-001]
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Received 18 March 2017
Revised 31 July 2017
Accepted 22 August 2017
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