The Library and Information Science(LIS) is a field-oriented study that has evolved based on the library, and a wide spectrum of studies are conducted according to changing information environments. The purpose of this study is to understand the acade...
The Library and Information Science(LIS) is a field-oriented study that has evolved based on the library, and a wide spectrum of studies are conducted according to changing information environments. The purpose of this study is to understand the academic status and structure of the LIS and to predict the trends of study in LIS. For understanding and predicting, the papers which are listed in the four major journals from 2008 to 2018 and their references were extracted. For implementing a meaningful co-citation network, the scope of the study was limited to authors of papers and references whose h-index is 8 or higher. Author co-citation and document co-citation coupling is created with the extracted and was networked through Netminer 4.3. The core authors and papers of each network were identified by performing a degree-centrality analysis of networks that had been formed. For examining the changes in research trends over time, the study was done by setting sections which are section 1(2008-2012) and section 2(2013-2018).
First, it was confirmed that five authors of the top 10 of the In-Degree centrality, Out-Degree centrality are commonly distributed in the co-citation network of 86 authors covering the entire section from 2008 to 2018. It has been identified that the specific author leads the study of LIS as the center of the study, and the author I, with the highest In-Degree centrality, is the center of the co-citation network. In section 1, the In-Degree centrality of author A appears to be the highest in the author co-citation network. Five authors are in the top 10 in both In-Degree centrality and Out-Degree centrality and they have a common thread of conducting various studies that are not limited to specific subject areas. In section 2, five authors appear in the top 10 list of In-Degree centrality, Out-Degree centrality. Three people conduct research in the specific subject which is information science and Bibliometrics, and two people conduct research in various subject areas. It was confirmed that the academic characteristics of LIS had been lightened from section 1 to section 2. And the study related to information science and Bibliometrics, which had become the major research area of LIS became the center of co-citation relationships.
Second, four global and local networks that depend on the subject area were formed in a co-citation network of 148 papers and its references covering the entire section from 2008 to 2018. In the document co-citation network of section 1, the cluster was formed according to five subject areas. Listing them in order of size, they appear in the order of service quality assessment and multi-cultural service, LIS curriculum/studies and trend researches related to Bibliometrics, Information Commons, LCSH, archive system. In the document co-citation network of section 2, the cluster was formed according to three subject areas. Listing them in order of size, they appear in the order of studies and trend researches related to Bibliometrics, Information Commons, multi-cultural service. It is confirmed that the size and density of the cluster of studies and trend researches related to Bibliometrics are overwhelmingly large and high.
As the analysis of the author co-citation network and document co-citation network, the research of Bibliometrics and citation of trend researches were increasing over time. Following these, it was confirmed that the academic characteristics of studies of LIS were being lightened. The meaning of this study is an up-to-date study to identify the trends of the study of LIS using both author co-citation analysis and document co-citation analysis. However, there are two limits. One is the lack of representation based on being conducted for a specific period of time in the studies of LIS. And the other is the weight was not taken while presenting the results of co-citation analysis. It was suggested that the scope of the study should be expanded and giving weights on citation analysis in the following studies.