Interlending & Document Supply: A bibliometric study from 2001 to 2010

Dillip K. Swain
Ph.D., Librarian, KIIT University, Bhubaneswr, India. E-mail: swaindk_69 (at) yahoo.co.in

Kamal Lochan Jena
Ph.D., Librarian, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar, India. E-mail: kljena (at) rediffmail.com

Rabindra K. Mahapatra
Ph.D., Chief Librarian, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, India E-mail: rkm_02 (at) yahoo.com

Received October 6, 2012; Accepted December 15, 2012

Abstract

The study intends to evaluate journal of Interlending & Document Supply (ILDS) from 2001 to 2010 using different bibliometric indicators and to find out various dimensions of publication trends of this journal. In accordance with the objectives of the study, the bibliographic citations appended at the end of each article were copied and stored in a separate MS-Word file. The details with regard to each published article such as type of papers, number of articles in each issue of the journal, number of references and their forms in each article, number of pages, number of authors, and the name of journals, etc. were recorded and analyzed. The study applied Lotka's law to assess authorship productivity pattern, and Bradford's law to ascertain the scattering of journals. In analyzing 315 scholarly articles published in ILDS for a period of 10 years ranging from 2001 to 2010, the study reveals that the highest numbers of articles are found to be single authored contributions, followed by two-authored contributions. The authorship productivity pattern partially complies with Lotka's Law. In regard to country productivity, UK leads the table, followed by USA, and France. Moreover, ILDS authors are found to have fairly cited recent literature in their papers which is evident from the half life period of documents. Furthermore, the study concludes that ILDS can enrich its standard if it can fine tune its editorial policy.

Keywords

Bibliometric; Interlending & Document Supply; Journal analysis; Citation analysis; Document delivery

Introduction

Bibliometric analysis of quantity and quality of journals is a key element in scholarly communication. When a single journal is studied bibliometrically, it creates a portrait of the journal, providing a description that offers an insight that is beyond the superficial. It can indicate the quality, maturity and productivity of the journal in any field, in any country or a region. It also informs us about the research orientation that it supports to disseminate and its influence on author's choice as a channel to communicate or retrieve information for their research (Anyi, Zainab, & Anuar, 2009). Moreover, Single journal bibliometric study is identified as one of the most key and exciting area of LIS research which primarily promises to divulge scholarly communication trends and publication traits of an individual journal which in turn helps the librarian to decide why should he select that particular journal for his library and for his scholarly users' community. Contextually, the authors select to study Interlending & Document Supply (ILDS) for a period of ten years ranging from 2001 to 2010. ILDS is an international peer reviewed quarterly journal hosted by Emerald Management Xtra and it carries scholarly articles on acquisition, storage and photo duplication of stock; networking; the supply of documents between organizations in developed and developing countries; worldwide developments in new technology and similar such issues. ILDS has got wide appreciation and global recognition by LIS professionals, teachers, students, and research scholars throughout the globe for its rich and scholarly contents expressed through ages. Therefore, a bibliometric study on scholarly communication in ILDS carries vital significance to the LIS professionals, its contributors and readers as well.

Objectives

The paper aims to measure the publication traits of ILDS for the stated period and keeps the following objectives in the ambit of study:

• To ascertain year wise distribution of articles published in ILDS during the period taken under study;
• To study distribution of articles by their types of publication;
• To study authorship pattern;
• To find out authors' most bibliographic forms of documents that have been reflected in ILDS' publications;
• To identify the leading journals that have been most frequently cited by ILDS authors;
• To analyze country wise share of contributions of articles to ILDS; and
• To find out half-life period of documents.

Literature Review

Several studies have been conducted on single journal bibliometric studies by scholars of LIS all across the world. In this direction, Jena (2006) conducted a study on Indian Journal of Fibre and Textile Research and revealed different facets of publishing trends of this journal from 1996 to 2004. Coleman (2006) studied the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science and revealed some of the essential values of the journals citation pattern, subject coverage and geographical distribution of cited journal distribution.

Liu (2007) in their bibliometric study on Educational Psychology unfolded six different clusters of journals and found that a small number of journals accounted for a relatively high percentage of intra-disciplinary citations. Rao and Bhusan (2008) in their comparative study of JASIST with Scientometrics found that there was an increasing trend of citations towards two or more authored works in both the journals. Chaurasia (2008) undertook a bibliometric study of Annals of Library and Information Studies (ALIS) from 2002 to 2006 and revealed authorship pattern, degree of collaboration, subject coverage of articles and some other facets. Zainab et al. (2009) in their single journal bibliometric study on Malaysian Journal of Computer Science revealed authorship, co-authorship pattern of the journal, and journal impact factor.

Park (2010) revealed author collaboration, authors' affiliations, and geographical distribution of authors and assorted parameters of first 13 years publication trends of D-Lib Magazine. Swain (2011) in his scientometric study on Library Philosophy and Practice revealed that journal articles were the most frequently cited materials followed by books and web resources. Kumar and Moorthy (2011) conducted a bibliometric analysis of DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology and revealed various parameters like, growth pattern, content coverage, authorship pattern, and subject-wise distribution of articles of DJLIT. However, the present study on ILDS provides yet again another nice portrait to the world of literature on single journal bibliometric study.

Materials and Methods

The paper analyses 315 scholarly articles published in ILDS for a period of 10 years ranging from 2001 to 2010. The bibliographic citations appended at the end of each article that appeared in Emerald Management Xtra (EMX) were copied and stored in a separate MS-Word file. The details with regard to each published article such as type of papers, number of articles in each issue of the journal, number of references and their forms in each article, number of pages, number of authors, and the name of journals were recorded and analyzed. Keeping the objectives of the study in mind, the gathered data were fed into MS Excel spread sheet parameter wise for convenient analysis.

For the sake of convenience, only major forms of citations consisting of journals, books, and web resources were taken up into the purview of research while, conference/seminar proceedings, reports, theses, notes, lectures, press releases, news items, personal communications, and such other substances were clubbed up together into other category. Moreover, web resources were differentiated from electronic journals. The study employed Lotka's law and Bradford's law of scatterring of journals.

Results and Discussions

After analyzing the gathered data, the authors have tried to present the observation under different heads. The detail results of the analysis of the journal Interlending & Document Supply from 2001 to 2010 is depicted in the succeeding sections:

Year wise distribution of articles and cumulative pages

Table 1 reveals the year wise distribution of articles and corresponding cumulative pages that were required for the presentation of those scholarly articles. It is evident that ILDS published highest number of articles (36 articles; 173 pages) for the year 2005 and the lowest numbers of articles (23 articles; 146 pages) were published in the year 2001. However, the year 2010 has reported to have accommodated maximum number of pages in its content may be due to presentation of some big scholarly papers. On an average ILDS has brought out over 31 articles per year with an approximate length of 6 to 7 pages per article.

Types of paper

Table 2 depicts the broad categories of papers that have been published during 2001 to 2010. It is found that, maximum number of papers are research papers (101 articles) followed by general review (77 articles), and case study (70 articles) while, articles published under technical paper category are found to be minimum (5 articles). It is evident that majority of ILDS authors have expressed their scholarly thought contents through research papers may be due to the potential impact of research papers in the scholarly world.

Bibliographical forms of documents

One of the crucial aspects of bibliometric study is to evaluate the bibliographical forms of documents that have been frequently referred to/cited by authors. For the sake of convenience, only three major bibliographical forms like, books, journals, and web resources have been comprehended. The other different forms like, proceedings, reports, theses, newsletters, pamphlets, white papers which were found to have been less frequently cited were clubbed up in others category. Table 3 shows that majority of ILDS authors have taken citations from journals (67.17 per cent; 2603 citations), followed by web (16.72 per cent; 648 citations). However, references to books (7.61 per cent; 295 citations) have witnessed a decreasing trend may be due to the fact that the authors of ICT era have gradually shifted their focus towards easy availability of e-journals and web resources.

Authorship Pattern

Table 4 shows that the highest numbers of articles (209 articles, 66.35%) are found to be single authored contributions, followed by two-authored (78 articles, 24.76%) contributions. Thus it is evident that the publication output of ILDS is dominated by single authors throughout the publication phase of 2001 to 2010.

Authorship productivity pattern

A total of 342 authors contributed 315 articles published in ILDS during 2001 to 2010. Table 4 shows that 292 (85.63%) authors produced just one article. Only 29(8.50%) authors produced two articles, 13 authors contributed three articles, and 8 authors produced more than three articles. The authorship pattern of ILDS is examined here in the light of Lotka's Law. According to Rolands (2005), Lotka's Law describes the frequency of publication by authors in a given field by using the formula yx= c/xⁿ, where 'y' is the number of authors credited with x (1, 2, 3, …) papers, 'c' is the number of authors contributing one paper and 'n' is a rate (usually n=2). Application of Lotka's Law to the existing data set provides the following results depicted in Table 5.

It is evident from Table 5 that the authorship productivity pattern of ILDS partially complies with Lotka's Law. Because of the sheer domination of single authors at the top, Lotka's distribution is partially affected. However, it satisfies the bottom line distribution, since one author has all alone contributed 34 articles.

Ranking of authors

There are a total of 342 authors who contributed 315 articles to ILDS during 2001 to 2010. It is evident from Table 6 that Mike McGrath from the UK who happened to be the editor of ILDS leads from the front with a record number of contributions (34 articles), followed by Joachim Schöpfel from France (12 articles), and Maurice B. Line from the UK (8 articles). Altogether 21 authors have contributed more than 3 articles, and 292 authors have contributed just one.

Ranking of journals and Bradford's distribution

A total number of 399 journals have been cited for a cumulative number of 2603 times. It is evident from Table 7 that Interlending & Document Supply which is the source journal leads the table with a record number of 505 citations followed by Serials (99 citations), Learned publishing (95 citations), Journal of Interlibrary Loan Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve (59 citations), Journal of Documentation (55 citations), and Information Today (52 citations). It is evident that papers of ILDS cite it more than other journals portraying the characteristics of a self-cited journal. The other front ranking journals which have been cited for more than 40 times include DLib Magazine, Ariadane, Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Supply, and The Serials Librarian.

Taking Bradford's Law of Scattering into account that predicts the increasing productivity of journals from one zone to the next (in the expression 1: n: n²: n³), the total numbers of citations can be divided into three equal zones (Bradford, 1985; Zainab et al., 2009). It was found that, on an approximation, the first zone contained 6 journals which are considered as Bradford's core journals. The second quantum of citations forming the second zone contained in approximately next 38 journals, and the last quantum of citations contained in next 355 journals. Hence, the distribution partially complies with Bradford's Law. The zone wise distribution of journals is depicted in Figure 1.

The distribution of journals according to the Bradford's predicted zones (on an approximation) are:
Zone-1: 6 journals (865 citations)
Zone-2: Next 38 journals (849 citations)
Zone-3: next 355 journals (889 citations)

Ranking of country productivity

Table 8 shows the country wise share of contributions made towards ILDS during the stated period. The study employs equal credit methods (Chua et al., 2002; Lowry, et al., 2007; Serenko et al., 2010) for ranking country productivity by scores. In this method each article is assigned one point which is equally divided by the contributors representing different countries. For instance, an article has been contributed by n authors, and then each contributor will earn 1/n points for his country. It is evident from the analysis that UK leads the table (132.664 credit points; 158 occurrences), followed by USA (47.665 credit points; 64 occurrences), and France (16.5 credit points; 32 occurrences). Though Australia and Canada have the same number of contributors; the share of contributions of Australia (9.165 credit points) is slightly greater than that of Canada (9 credit points). Concurrently, the share of contributions of very small countries like, Quatar (0.5 credit points) and Senegal (0.167) are found considerably less. Needless to mention that, UK share of contribution is dominated from all other countries and it stands tall among all other contributing countries.

Age of citations and publication half life

Table 9 depicts the age of citations. Interestingly, it is found that most of the citations of documents of ILDS articles belong to the maiden publishing year (746 citations) and the next year of publication (844 citations) and the half life of citations is 1 year. It is evident that ILDS authors have always preferred to cite recent documents in their scholarly papers.

Findings

The key findings of the study are:

• ILDS published highest numbers of articles for the year 2005 and the lowest numbers of articles were published in the year 2001;
• It is found that, maximum number of ILDS papers are research papers followed by general review and case study while, articles published under technical paper category are found to be minimum;
• It is evident that majority of ILDS authors have taken citations from journals followed by web resources;
• It is found that the highest numbers of articles are found to be single authored contributions, followed by two-authored contributions;
• The study reveals that Interlending & Document Supply which is the source journal leads the table with a record number of 505 citations followed by Serials, Learned publishing, Journal of Interlibrary Loan Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve, Journal of Documentation, and Information Today; and
• The half life of cited documents is found to be 1 year.

Conclusion

Interlending & Document Supply, as evident from the study, is doing exceedingly well by limiting the scope and coverage suiting to the exclusive cause of promoting the quality of inter library loan all around. Moreover, the journal strives to accommodate precise thought contents of the veterans, experts, and renowned library scientists of various countries, which is apparent from one of the major findings of the study that on an average, it accommodates scholarly papers of 6 to 7 pages which speaks volumes about its brevity. It is further evident that ILDS authors have fairly cited recent literature in their papers which is crystal clear from the half life period of document that is just one year. However, if it can manage to reduce the self citation tendency as reflected in the study, it can ensure quality and maturity of its publishing standard.Therefore, it is expected that ILDS will find all possible ways and means to enrich its contents and will strive to serve its target audience in most effective and efficient ways by fine tuning its editorial policy.

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Bibliographic information of this paper for citing:

Swain, Dillip K., Jena, Kamal Lochan, & Mahapatra, Rabindra K. (2012).   "Interlending & Document Supply: A bibliometric study from 2001 to 2010."   Webology, 9(2), Article 103. Available at: http://www.webology.org/2012/v9n2/a103.html