Türkiye Kütüphanecilik ve Bilgibilim Literatürünün Entellektüel Haritasının Çıkarılması: Bir Yazar Ortak Atıf Analizi Çalışması

Abstract

Mapping/visualization studies reveal the characteristics of intellectual structure and scientific communication of research fields such as the most prominent studies, the most important subfields and the most frequently cited authors. Although the number of studies on mapping and visualization in the international literature is on the rise, there is as yet no mapping/visualization study carried out on a national level. This study aims to map the Turkish Library and Information Science (LIS) literature to find out the most prominent authors and subjects in the national literature between 1974 and 2009. Accordingly, the main hypothesis of this study is that “The author cocitation analysis of the Turkish LIS literature shows that the research carried out in this field is mainly concentrated on general subjects”. To test the hypothesis, we gathered the reference lists of a total of 648 master’s/PhD theses and refereed articles and performed author cocitation analysis, clustering and multidimensional scaling analysis on data. Findings indicate that the most frequently studied topics in the Turkish LIS literature between 1974 and 2009 have been Public Libraries, University Libraries and Electronic Information Services. A small number of authors are highly cited in the Turkish LIS literature. As usual, master’s and PhD theses contained more citations than those of refereed articles and Turkish authors were cited much more often. Some highly cited or co-cited authors did not seem to influence the formation of clusters because of the general nature of their contributions. Also, Turkish authors tend to carry out research on several subjects rather than specializing in a few. Thus, the topics studied in the Turkish LIS literature seem to differ to a certain extent from those (e.g., bibliometrics and information retrieval) of the international LIS literature. This study is important to show the implementation of cocitation analysis and visualization studies to the LIS literature of Turkey and the results of author cocitation analysis. The results of such author cocitation analyses can be used to determine the prominent or underdeveloped research fields in a country so that funds for research and development can be allocated on the basis of more informed decisions.

DÜZYOL, Güleda. Mapping Intellectual Structure of Turkish Library and Information Science Literature: An Author Co-Citation Analysis Study. Master’s Thesis, Ankara, 2011. Mapping/visualization studies reveal the characteristics of intellectual structure and scientific communication of research fields such as the most prominent studies, the most important subfields and the most frequently cited authors. Although the number of studies on mapping and visualization in the international literature is on the rise, there is as yet no mapping/visualization study carried out on a national level. This study aims to map the Turkish Library and Information Science (LIS) literature to find out the most prominent authors and subjects in the national literature between 1974 and 2009. Accordingly, the main hypothesis of this study is that “The author cocitation analysis of the Turkish LIS literature shows that the research carried out in this field is mainly concentrated on general subjects”. To test the hypothesis, we gathered the reference lists of a total of 648 master’s/PhD theses and refereed articles and performed author cocitation analysis, clustering and multidimensional scaling analysis on data. Findings indicate that the most frequently studied topics in the Turkish LIS literature between 1974 and 2009 have been Public Libraries, University Libraries and Electronic Information Services. A small number of authors are highly cited in the Turkish LIS literature. As usual, master’s and PhD theses contained more citations than those of refereed articles and Turkish authors were cited much more often. Some highly cited or co-cited authors did not seem to influence the formation of clusters because of the general nature of their contributions. Also, Turkish authors tend to carry out research on several subjects rather than specializing in a few. Thus, the topics studied in the Turkish LIS literature seem to differ to a certain extent from those (e.g., bibliometrics and information retrieval) of the international LIS literature. x This study is important to show the implementation of cocitation analysis and visualization studies to the LIS literature of Turkey and the results of author cocitation analysis. The results of such author cocitation analyses can be used to determine the prominent or underdeveloped research fields in a country so that funds for research and development can be allocated on the basis of more informed decisions. .