The dynamics of research subfields for library and information science: an investigation based on word bibliographic coupling

Tsung-Ming Hsiao () and Kuang-hua Chen ()
Additional contact information
Tsung-Ming Hsiao: National Taiwan University
Kuang-hua Chen: National Taiwan University

Scientometrics, 2020, vol. 125, issue 1, No 30, 717-737

Abstract: Abstract Uncovering research topics, manifesting the relationships, and revealing the structure in a discipline are major and important research issues in library and information science (LIS). To understand the evolution of research subfields in LIS during two periods, 2009 to 2013 and 2014 to 2018, this study proposes and applies a novel method, word bibliographic coupling, to measure the relationships between different feature words extracted from 21,066 research articles published in 44 LIS journals. According to the results of factor analysis, the top 25 subfields are identified for each period. The results show that core research subfields in LIS remain relatively stable, but new subfields replaced old ones due to the change of society or the development of technology. The subfields identified in this study can be further categorized into six main research trends, including Scholarly Communication and Scientometrics, Information Behavior and Information Retrieval, Applications of Technology, Library Services and Management, Health Information and Technology, and Computer Science Techniques. Most subfields related to the same research trend correlated to each other, but the subfields of Library Services and Management scatter over the networks. This study depicts the recent development of research subfields and significant research trends in LIS.

Keywords: Library and information science; Bibliometrics; Citation analysis; Bibliographic coupling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03645-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:125:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03645-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03645-9

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().