Visibility and growth of LIS research publications: a Scopus based analysis of select open access journals during 2001 to 2015
| Published date | 02 September 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-05-2019-0035 |
| Date | 02 September 2019 |
| Pages | 1-11 |
| Author | Nilaranjan Barik,Puspanjali Jena |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Library & information services |
Visibility and growth of LIS research publications:
a Scopus based analysis of select open access
journals during 2001 to 2015
Nilaranjan Barik and Puspanjali Jena
Introduction
Open access publications are gaining
in popularity day by day in every sphere
of knowledge. Open access, which
provides free access to information
content, is widely expanding its domain
because of enormous benefits acquired
from it. The Budapest Open Access
Initiative (2002) defines open access as
the free availability of articles for the
public; permitting any user to read,
download, copy, distribute, print,
search, or link to the full texts of these
articles. In addition, readers can crawl
them for indexing, pass them as data to
software, or use them for any other
lawful purposes, without financial,
legal, or technical barriers other than
those inseparable from gaining access
to the internet itself. Similarly, the
Association of Research Libraries
(2004) defined open access as any
dissemination model created with no
expectation of direct monetary return
and which makes works available
online at no cost to the readers.
Particularly in the field of Library and
Information Science (LIS), open access
publications are gaining in popularity
among authors as most leading publishers
like Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, Springer
and others have introduced open access
journals in a big way. It is seen that, at the
end of 2018, the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ) has registered 12766
journals with 3833928 publications
contributed by 128 countries. The numbers
of open access journals in the subject area
of LIS is 157. In the same way Scopus,
Elsevier’s indexing and abstracting
database, has also registered a total of 272
LIS journals in which 39 journals are
published as Open Access. The present
study “Visibility and growth of open
access LIS research publications from
2001 to 2015” attempts to analyze the
different bibliometric aspects of 10 LIS
open access journals. A total numbers of
5208 publications, which are published by
the covered 10 LIS open access journals
and indexed in Scopus database during the
study period 2001 to 2015 are the base of
the study. The full names of 10 selected
journals are listed in the scope and
limitations part of the study; however
abbreviations are used to represent the
journals to show their results in the tables.
The findings of the data have been
presented through tables, graphs, pie charts
using some statistical methods like
percentage, mean and average for clear
understanding of the results.
Mukherjee (2009) views that open
access journals in LIS are rapidly
establishing themselves as a viable
medium for scholarly communication.
Linear growth is the best fitting curve of
open access journals. Rufai et al. (2011)
reveals that LIS open access journals are
exponentially growing as some of the
commercial publishers have joined their
hands as open access market players.
Open access titles in LIS need to be
restructured and low income nations
have to be involved in the open access
bazaar. Xia (2012) reveals that open
access journals have gained momentum
supporting high-quality research and
publication, and some open access
journals have been ranked as high as the
best traditional print journals. Scholars
need to make more contributions to
open access journal publications, and
also librarians and information
professionals to make continuous
efforts for library publishing. Author
versions of articles in institutional
repositories is yet another ways scholars
can access high-quality research
information.
Jamdade and Jamdade (2013) analyzed
a total of 137 LIS journals based on their
subject heading, country wise distribution
and language pattern and revealed that the
USA is the leading country to publish most
in open access LIS journals. The study also
found that Computer Science and LIS were
interlinked disciplines. Grandbois and
Beheshti (2014) reveal the development of
open access practices amongst the LIS
authors and show that 60 per cent of LIS
authors use open access publications. Also
the study show that there is linear growth
of open access publications and the rate of
access is quite lower in comparison to its
publication rate.
Gunasekaran and Arunachalam
(2014) opine in their study that moving
to an open access platform has proven
to be advantageous to research from
developing countries. Publishing in
open access platform has helped a large
number of Latin American and Indian
journals to improve their Impact Factors
(IF). Tzarnas and Tzarnas (2015) note
that open-access journals are growing
each year. Many traditional printed
journals are also sponsoring hybrid
open-access models. So, authors and
researchers need to be aware to select
the right journals for publication of their
work. In the context of publications in
open access journals, Mondal (2016)
finds that India and Pakistan have added
many open access journals in
comparison to the rest of SAARC
countries. Afghanistan and Maldives
are still far away from the open access
movement. In low income SAARC
countries, it is important to create
awareness about the benefits of open
access. Hrynaszkiewicz (2016) reveals
in his study that researchers are quite
interested in open access publishing.
Across the disciplines the growth of
open access journals has increased in
the field of Life Sciences followed by
Social Sciences and Humanities. Ghane
and Niazmand (2016) attempt to
identify the status of open access (OA)
LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 7 2019, pp. 1-11, V
CEmerald Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/LHTN-05-2019-0035 1
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