A CITATION ANALYSIS OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE, 1961-1970

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AuthorBRACE, WILLIAM
metadata.dc.contributor.departmentSchool of Library Science, CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
metadata.dc.date.accessioned2026-09-20T15:54:04Z
Publication date1975
Degree levelDoctoral
AbstractAbstract : The literature of several fields such as physics and speech has been studied by librarians and information scientists in an attempt to identify citation patterns, lists of significant authors, and the forms of materials most frequently cited. However, librarians and information scientists have not studied their own literature in the same manner. In this study, the literature of library and information science in the form of the doctoral dissertation is considered from the point of view of its joint appearance in 14 library schools granting the doctorate. This study uses the citations in 202 dissertations written between 1961 and 1970 at library schools with master's degree programs in library and information science that are accredited by the Committee on Accreditation of the American Library Association. The 20,298 citations are categorized by the type of library studied or the central focus of the dissertation and by the type of activity or the type of service investigated. All of the citations are classed by the form of the material cited. Various statistical measures are made to identify possible correlations. The study attempts to identify a core literature or a group of authors central to the field of library and information science. A core of highly cited authors is not clearly identified, although there tend to be some personal and corporate authors cited more than 25 times. An analysis by title shows a limited number of titles that are cited more than seven times. The Bradfordian distribution applied to the journals in this study demonstrates the absence of a middle core. This absence and the appearance of non-library or information science titles in the journal distribution at high levels of occurrence believes a core of research literature in the traditional sense. Some correlations are shown to exist between the different categories. There is a correlation shown which suggests that a kind of specialization among the several library schools may exist The present study shows the literature of the field of library and information science almost evenly divided between book literature and journal literature. This study shows wide variation in the field. With a different approach, the knowledge base of the field may be shown to be more cohesive than demonstrated here. The doctoral dissertation as the source of the data is assumed in this study to be a mirror of the research productivity of library and information science. The absence of a single core of research literature and the absence, for the most part, of citation patterns demonstrated in this study does not so much suggest that library and information science has no intellectual base as it does suggest that the intellectual or knowledge base of the field is not universally recognized as a specific set of individual titles. The existence of a weak core of significant authors reinforces the possibility of a knowledge base spread over many titles and, hence, elusive using the currently available techniques of citation analysis.
metadata.dc.identifier.otherDrupal node 4563
metadata.dc.identifier.otherhttps://digitalrepository.uob.edu.bh/en/dar/citation-analysis-doctoral-dissertations-library-and-information-science-1961-1970
metadata.dc.identifier.urihttp://165.227.56.122/handle/123456789/7525
Languageen
Linkhttps://digitalrepository.uob.edu.bh/en/_flysystem/fedora/2025-10/a_citation_analysis_of_doctoral_dissertations_in_library_and_information_science.pdf
SubjectLibrary science--Dissertations
SubjectDissertations, Academic--Dissertations
SubjectInformation science literature--Dissertations
TitleA CITATION ANALYSIS OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE, 1961-1970
TypeDoctoral Dissertation

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