a content analysis of librarianship research

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Journal of Information Science

DOI: 10.1177/0165551504044668

2004; 30; 227Journal of Information Science Denise Koufogiannakis, Linda Slater and Ellen CrumleyA Content Analysis of Librarianship Research

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A content analysis of librarianshipresearch

Denise Koufogiannakis and Linda Slater

John W. Scott Health Sciences Library, University of AlbertaLibraries, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Ellen Crumley

Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton,Alberta, Canada

Received 10 December 2003

Revised 1 March 2004

Abstract.

Objective: To conduct a content analysis of library andinformation studies (LIS) literature published in 2001 andtest the domains developed by Crumley and Koufogiannakis. Methods: A comprehensive list of refereed library andinformation studies journals was compiled and reviewedindependently by two researchers to derive a list of includedjournals. Articles published in 2001 from included journalswere independently assessed for relevancy by two

researchers. Researchers separately extracted and checkeddata from included articles. Results: 217 LIS journals were reviewed and 107 wereincluded; 91 journals provided data. 2664 journal articleswere examined, with 807 (30.3%) classified as research. TheTop 10 journals for research published in 2001 were: 1)JASIST, 2) Scientometrics, 3) Info Proc & Man; 4) Coll & ResLib, 5) Tie: J Lib Adm/Bull Med Lib Assn, 7) Libs & Culture,8) J Doc, 9) Tie: J Info Sci/J Acad Libr. For the period studied,descriptive research (329 out of 807 articles) was publishedfar more frequently than any other type. The domainInformation Access & Retrieval had the highest number of

research articles (314/807), followed by Collections (193/ 807), Management (135/807), Education (95/807) andReference (77/807). Two new possible domains wereidentified: Library History and Professional Issues.Conclusions: Because 36 articles fell into the domain of Professional Issues, a case can be made to add this domainto Crumley and Koufogiannakis’ taxonomy. Library Historywas not added as a domain because historical research isnot used for evidence-based decision-making. There was noevidence to support keeping the Marketing & Promotiondomain. LISA provides the best coverage of the top 10 LISresearch journals identified in this study.

Keywords: content analysis; evidence-basedlibrarianship; library and information studiesresearch; library and information studies periodicals;research domains

1. Introduction

The recent emergence of the evidence-based librarian-ship (EBL) movement – the term ‘evidence-basedlibrarianship’ was first used in the literature byEldredge [1] in 1997 and defined by Booth [2] – hascreated an awareness among library professionals of thevalue of their research literature and the role it can playin informing their practice. One of the main goals of EBLis to produce and identify evidence that librarians canuse to inform their professional practice and supporttheir library services and positions, thereby furtheringthe profession. With this in mind, the present studyaims to contribute to the knowledge base by identifyingcertain attributes of librarianship research literatureand starting points for accessing that literature.

To determine the characteristics of research pub-

lished in library and information studies (LIS) jour-nals, we conducted a content analysis of LIS literaturepublished in 2001 to determine: the percentage of research versus non-research articles; the topics being

Correspondence to: Denise Koufogiannakis, John W. ScottHealth Sciences Library, 2K3.17 Walter C. Mackenzie HealthSciences Centre, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R7 Canada.E-mail: [email protected]

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researched; the journals that publish research; and theindexing and abstracting services that cover journalsidentified as highly productive for LIS research. Inaddition, we attempted to identify what if anycorrelation exists between the research method usedand the subject (‘domain’) of research.

In 2002, two of the authors proposed a classificationscheme of six subject domains [3] to encompasspublished research; thereby making it easier to mapsources, study types and search strategies pertaining toeach domain. The six domains were: Reference/Enquiries; Education; Collections; Management; Infor-mation Access & Retrieval; and Marketing/Promotion.This taxonomy generated considerable interest withinthe evidence-based librarianship community, having been frequently showcased in the Health Informationand Libraries Journal research column, incorporatedinto an online EBL course [4], and used as anorganizational structure for a forthcoming text onevidence-based information practice [5]. However,there remained a pressing need to validate thistaxonomy empirically against the published body of research in LIS.

2. Literature review

A search of Library and Information Science Abstracts(LISA) 1969-Aug 2003 and Library Literature and Information Science Full-Text 1984-Sep 2003 wasconducted to identify previous content, citation and bibliometric analyses of the LIS research literature.Search strategies are available from the authors uponrequest. The literature search retrieved several contentanalysis studies of LIS research, many of whichfocused on a particular specialty or subject area withinLIS, such as: public libraries [6], special libraries [7–9],and academic libraries [10]. Other studies focusedupon geographic areas, including: Africa [11–13],Spain [14, 15], Brazil [16], Eastern Europe anddeveloping countries [17], Scandinavia [18], China[19, 20], Turkey [21], Qué bec [22], Canada [23], India[24] and Australia [25]. Three other studies analyzedthe content of specific LIS journals [26–28].

General content analyses of research articles pub-lished in LIS periodicals, where analysis was notrestricted to a particular geographic area, specialty orsubject area, have also been conducted. Peritz [29]

examined a core list of 39 LIS journals over eightdifferent years to determine the subject of researcharticles as well as the research methods used. Kumpu-lainen [30] surveyed 30 LIS journals and analyzed the

research according to eight variables: 1) organizationalcontext; 2) library and information science topic; 3)phase of information dissemination process; 4) aspectof activity; 5) social level; 6) method; 7) method of selecting the data; and 8) type of analysis. Feehan et al.[31], analyzed a sample of research articles from 91 LISjournals and categorized them by research method,subject, library type and analytical method. Järvelinand Vakkari [32] looked at 37 LIS journals anddetermined the topic, research methods and approachtaken for articles published in 1985. In a later study,they replicated their work by analyzing earlier years of a similar set of journals [33]. Nour [34] analyzedresearch articles in 41 LIS journals, identified theirresearch methodologies and classified them by subject.Williams and Winston [35] examined the researchpublished in five LIS journals to determine theresearch methodologies used as well as authorshipcharacteristics. Other studies of this nature have also been conducted [36–38].

The methods used to identify journals for inclusionvary across studies. Some authors [29, 31, 34, 37]identified a ‘core’ list of journals by examining titles

indexed by Library Literature, LISA and Social Sciences Citation Index and selecting journals thatwere covered by at least two out of three of theseindexing services. These authors excluded journalspublished outside North America or Europe. Buttlar[36] selected journals she felt were ‘general’ in scopeand ‘not only represent the profession as a whole butalso include at least some research articles’. She usedthe core lists identified by authors such as Peritz [29],Nour [34] and others to identify suitable titles. Atkins[38] chose journals from the list identified by the Kohland Davis [39] study of library directors’ and library

school deans’ rankings of the most influential andprestigious journals in LIS. Järvelin and Vakkari [32]and Kumpulainen [30] describe making a ‘purposive’selection of LIS journals ‘having a wide distribution,an international editorial board and publication policy,and that have been characterized as central by others’,while excluding ‘professional’ journals. Williams &Winston [35] selected the top five library sciencejournals appearing on the 2002 Journal CitationReports Information Science and Library Science listfor inclusion in their study.

While differences in the number and titles of journals surveyed, and variation in the interpretation

of what constitutes a ‘research’ article, occur betweenstudies, the percentage of research articles versus non-research articles reported by the authors is comparable.From 1960–2003, the rate of research articles ranges

A content analysis of librarianship research

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from a low of 15% [29] to a high of 57% [33]. Table 1outlines the reported rates of research articles for thecontent analysis studies by the year of publication of those journals examined.

Nour [34] attributes the lower percentage of researchpublished in 1980 to ‘changes in editorial policies,

increased emphasis on publishing by professionals(which is less likely to be research), the differentjournals included, a stricter interpretation of research,etc.’ Feehan et al. [31] initially included weeklypublications as well as state and regional journalsamong the journals surveyed and identified 23.6% of articles as research articles; after eliminating thesetitles, they report a research rate of 27.7% for 1984.They also suggest that their rates may be due to the fact‘that library science may be concentrated in a smallercore of journals than the 91 used in the study.’ Thishypothesis is echoed by Järvelin and Vakkari [32] whoattribute the higher rates of research they report to thefact that they used a ‘purposive’ selection of journals(i.e. they included scientific journals and excludedprofessional journals). Feehan et al. also suggest thatthe definition of research might not have been ‘inter-preted in a uniform manner’ across studies thusaccounting for the variation in rates of researchreported. This is a strong possibility, as there appearsto be no attempt in other studies to account for possiblevariations in interpretation between researchers. Fee-han et al. assessed inter-observer agreement at 85%.However, in the other multi-author studies, neitherinter-observer agreement is reported, nor is there any

description of whether items were assessed by a singleresearcher or double-checked by another reviewer. Insingle-author studies, it is assumed that all assess-ments were made by the sole author.

Due to the variation in systems used by differentresearchers to categorize research methodology, it isnot possible to compare findings regarding the fre-quency of use of specific research methods. However,one finding that is consistent among studies is thatnon-experimental research is carried out much more

frequently than experimental research (descriptiveresearch, including surveys and questionnaires, isconsistently one of the more frequently reportedmethodologies). Variations in the subject classifica-tions used by different authors makes it impossible tocompare findings regarding the frequency of researchpublished by subject. Different authors use differentsubject classification systems ranging from fairlysimple with a few broad categories to more elaborateones that define very fine distinctions between sub-jects.

The present study builds upon results of previouscontent analyses in that we seek to identify the amountof research published and analyze the subject matter of that research. This study diverges from previouslyconducted research in that it tries to identify patternsthat exist between research methods used and thesubject categories (domains) of research. With theexception of the studies carried out by Kumpalainen[30] and Järvelin and Vakkari [32, 33], both of whichdrew correlations between the subjects of research andthe research methods used most frequently, none of theprevious content analyses of the general body of LISresearch have attempted to draw correlations betweenvariables. We also seek to identify the journals within a

particular domain (subject category) that publishresearch most frequently. Of the reviewed research,only Kumpalainen has conducted a similar analysis,although it was published almost 30 years ago.

Table 1Percentage of research articles identified in previous studies, 1960–2003

Buttlar [36] Feehanet al. [31]

Järvelin andVakkari [32]

Kumpulainen [30] Nour [34] Peritz [29] Williams & Winston [35]

1960 15%1965 30% 16%1970 24%1975 57% 56.8% 31%1980 24.4%1984 23.6%

1985 54%1987–89 38.35%2003 50.42%

D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.




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3. Project overview

The objectives of this study were to:(1) Examine published research in library and infor-

mation studies to determine where research of relevance to librarians is being published;

(2) Test a taxonomy developed by Crumley andKoufogiannakis [3] for classifying LIS research;

(3) Determine what type of research is being con-ducted within LIS, and the relationship of

research type to publication and classification by subject; and(4) Identify resources that facilitate access to LIS

research literature.To expand upon point #2, Crumley and Koufogian-

nakis [3] proposed that most librarianship questionsfall into one of the following six general categories or‘domains’: Reference/Enquiries; Education; Collec-tions; Management; Information Access & Retrieval;and Marketing/Promotion. Originally formulated bypractitioners of evidence-based medicine (EBM),‘domains’ provide a framework into which clinicalresearch can be classified and analyzed [40]. Research

from a particular clinical ‘domain’ (e.g. therapy,diagnosis, prognosis, etiology) has its own character-istics and methods, and requires different approachesin terms of information retrieval and critical appraisal[41].

Crumley and Koufogiannakis’ taxonomy provides astructure for LIS research which parallels that beingused in EBM. They hypothesized that placing aquestion into one of the six domains would aidlibrarians in determining where the answers to theirquestions may be found and ultimately assist them inconducting a better search for information. It was also

hypothesized that this research would identify anycorrelation between where research is published andthe domain into which it falls. If such a correlationwere established, it would enable identification of indexing/abstracting services that provide access to theliterature of specific domains.

Classification schemes for content analyses of libraryresearch have been created as part of the methodologyfor previous research [29, 31, 32, 34]; however, theseschemes were primarily designed to describe results.The current study attempts to use the domain structureas a tool to assist in framing questions related to librarypractice, with the primary goal being the retrieval of

research evidence.This content analysis seeks to provide information

regarding the volume of research being published in

2001 and the types of research methods being used. Italso seeks to identify publication patterns for articles by domain, showing the relationship between domainsand journals. In addition, the utility of the domainclassification developed by Crumley and Koufogianna-kis is assessed and revisions are suggested.

4. Methodology

Library and information studies literature published in2001 was examined using content analysis methodol-ogy. The year 2001 was chosen because it was the mostrecent full year of journal content that was available.The process included several steps: determining whichjournals met the inclusion criteria; selecting theresearch articles from the included journals; andextracting data from the relevant articles. See Figure1 for a flow diagram of the inclusion/exclusion process.

4.1. Journal inclusion

Investigators compiled a comprehensive list of poten-tial journals for inclusion in the study. This listincluded titles from the 2001 Journal Citation Reportssubject list for Information Science and LibraryScience (information science titles containing articlesthat were clearly not relevant to librarians and libraryresearchers, such as Telecommunications Policy , were

Fig. 1. Flow diagram of journals and articles considered forinclusion.





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excluded); journals identified as peer-reviewed on thejournal list of the index Library Literature and Information Science; and titles retrieved from a searchof Ulrich’s International Periodical Directory for activeEnglish-language journals with LIBRARY-AND-INFORMATION-SCIENCES in the descriptor field. Aresearch assistant was hired to organize the data fromthe researchers and photocopy journal articles.

Once the list was compiled, each researcher inde-pendently reviewed 2/3 of the titles from the initial listusing standardized inclusion/exclusion criteria; alljournals were reviewed by two researchers. A journalwas included if: it was published in 2001 and bothresearchers separately identified it as a peer-reviewedjournal containing research articles on LIS topics.Discrepancies between researchers were resolvedthrough discussion. Where a decision could not bereached, the third researcher reviewed the journalindependently and decided whether or not it would beincluded. Journals were excluded if: they were notpublished in English; did not contain articles of relevance to LIS (archival science journals were notconsidered LIS journals and were therefore excluded);

ceased publishing before or during 2001; or if they hadan interrupted publishing run where no issues werepublished in 2001. Where it was unclear whether ajournal was peer-reviewed or not, or if the subject areaof its contents could not be determined, the publisheror editor was contacted by the research assistant forclarification.

4.2. Article inclusion

For each of the included journals, all articles publishedin 2001 were examined. The criteria for articleinclusion was that the article be research-based andthe content pertain to library and information studies.Articles were excluded if they were not in English orwere a grouping of conference proceedings within ajournal. To differentiate between research and non-research articles, we used Peritz’s definition of research: ‘an inquiry, which is carried out, at least tosome degree, by a systematic method with the purposeof eliciting some new facts, concepts or ideas’ [29].

Article inclusion/exclusion was done independently by two researchers using a standard inclusion/exclu-sion form. Each researcher reviewed 2/3 of the total

number of articles and all articles were reviewed bytwo researchers. Articles were not assessed on the basis of quality, relevance or generality. Again,discrepancies were resolved through discussion.

4.3. Data extraction

Each researcher extracted data from approximately 1/3of the included articles and a second researcherchecked the data. A standardized form was used tocapture data about: the domain; research method(s);study objective; author affiliation and country; abstractinclusion and whether the abstract was structured;literature review inclusion; and research funding.

5. Results

In total, 217 library and information studies journalswere assessed for inclusion. Of those, 107 (49%) wereincluded in the study. Ninety-one of those journalsprovide data for this article (see Appendix A). We wereunable to obtain full-text copies of the other 16 journals(see Appendix B).

A total of 2664 journal articles from the Ninety-onejournals were examined during the inclusion/exclu-sion process. Of these, 807 (30.3%) were included aslibrary and information studies research articles. The

overall agreement between all three reviewers wasrated as excellent [42] (92% agreement; kappa¼0.81)with a confidence interval of [0.78–0.83].

The 10 journals which contained the highest numberof research articles (see Figure 2) were:

(1) Journal of the American Society for InformationScience and Technology (JASIST)

(2) Scientometrics(3) Information Processing and Management(4) College and Research Libraries(5) Journal of Library Administration(6) Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (now

the Journal of the Medical Library Association)

Fig. 2. Top 10 journals: number of research articles pub-lished in 2001. Top 10 journals contribute 37.5% of the totalincluded research articles.





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(7) Libraries and Culture(8) Journal of Documentation(9) Journal of Information Science

(10) Journal of Academic LibrarianshipMajor databases (Library Lit, LISA, ISTA, Web of

Science, ERIC and Inspec ) were checked to determinewhere the top 10 journals were indexed. LISA is theonly index with full coverage of the top 10 researchjournals. ISTA indexes all the journals, but onlyselectively, and Library Lit indexes eight of the ten.

The authors of the majority of research articles werefrom the United States. Authors of research articlesrepresented 61 countries from all areas of the world,and 57 articles involved collaboration between two ormore countries. Authors of 18.6% (150/807) of articlesindicated their research was funded. Funding wasprimarily from organizations, research councils orgovernment agencies that provide grants. Other fund-ing bodies included universities and private business.

Abstracts were included in 91.4% (738/807) of research articles, but only 2.8% (21/738) were struc-tured abstracts. The importance and role of structuredabstracts has recently been discussed in the library

literature [43–46]. The number of research articlesincluding structured abstracts should increase overtime as more publishers require abstracts to besubmitted in this format, thereby improving the qualityand accuracy of article content summaries. While58.5% (472/807) of research articles included literaturereviews, only 2.3% of those listed the resources theysearched. Given that librarians should be acknowl-edging where we search for information, the lack of indication of where background information wasobtained is of great interest for future study.

5.1. Study types and domains

In determining the classification of study types, theauthors consulted research methods texts and selectedstudy types that were the most relevant to librarian-ship. These were further classified into three cate-gories: Evidence Synthesis (systematic review, meta-analysis), Experimental Study (randomized controlledtrial, cross-over study), and Observational Study(bibliometrics, case series, cohort study, comparativestudy, content analysis, cross-sectional study, descrip-tive study, historical study, needs assessment, programevaluation, usability testing). An ‘other’ category was

included for researchers to record other study typesthat were not initially noted.

As shown in Figure 3, the highest proportion of research articles were classified as Descriptive Studies,

mainly using questionnaires/surveys to gather infor-mation. The next most popular study type was thecomparative study, followed by bibliometric studies,content analysis, and program evaluation. Very fewstudies (12 in total) reporting the purported ‘higherlevels of evidence’, as classified by Eldredge [47] andothers [48], such as systematic reviews, meta-analysis,

randomized controlled trials, and controlled trials,were identified. However, further research needs to beconducted to determine the methods appropriate forgathering data that answers library and informationstudies research questions as well as to identifymeaningful levels of evidence for LIS. Some researcharticles incorporated more than one study type. In suchcases, each type was accounted for seperately.

As part of the content analysis, research articles wereclassified according to the six domains being tested. If warranted, an article could be classified in more thanone domain. The domain with the most research wasInformation Access & Retrieval with 314 researcharticles (see Figure 4). The Marketing and Promotioncategory had very little information (seven articles),which led us to question whether this category shouldremain as a domain, or should go elsewhere, perhapsas a subset of Management . Further research analyzingthe quantity of research literature in marketing/promo-tion over additional years of the library and informa-tion studies literature is required to determine whetherresearch in this area exists in the volume necessary tosupport retention of this domain. Since the research inthis study does not warrant the inclusion of theMarketing and Promotion category, we have removed

it from our results. The small amount of research in theReference category was also somewhat surprisinggiven that reference service is a common componentof librarianship work.

Fig. 3. Number of articles by study type.





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Two subject areas emerged as possible new domainsfrom this research. Firstly, 45 articles were classified asLibrary History . While this is an important area of research, the historical nature of the research on topicsin this area does not fit within the structure of EBL.Because Library History is not based on current day-to-day practice, it would not be suitable for use indecision-making. Hence, it was decided that Library

History would not fit as a new domain for EBL practice.Secondly, 36 articles focusing on topics such as thelibrarian’s image, professional competencies, andaccreditation were identified and these were assignedto the new domain Professional Issues. Library and Information Science Education was included in theEducation domain, but stood out as a unique subset; 26of the 95 articles pertained to LIS education.

While testing the domains, we realized that thedefinitions needed to be revised (see Table 2). Based onthis study’s results, the domains were restructured andthe definitions revised slightly. This kept the number

of domains manageable while still reflecting the typesof subjects found in the research literature.

Table 3 shows the most common types of researchmethod reported for each of the domains. Descriptiveresearch studies are prevalent for most domains,reflecting the research methods identified as mostcommon when the articles reviewed are analyzed asa whole. Domains where descriptive studies were notthe top ranked method were Information Access & Retrieval and Collections. In the domain InformationAccess & Retrieval , many of the articles compared twoor more different information retrieval or classificationsystems, hence the dominance of the comparativestudy type within that domain. In Collections, theliterature of particular fields or analysis of usage wasoften studied, lending itself to the bibliometric studydesign, including citation analysis.

As expected, descriptive studies still dominate theLIS research literature. Such studies are used to gatheropinions from a particular group of users, reveal userneeds and preferences, and provide feedback forlibrarians on existing or newly implemented services.The most likely explanations for the ubiquity of

descriptive studies in LIS research are that they areinexpensive and relatively easy to conduct, can becarried out in a short period of time, and the results aregenerally easy to analyze. The authors appreciate thatall types of research have a value and that LIS is notunique in its tendency towards conducting descriptiveresearch.

Table 4 shows the top five journals contributing thehighest number of research articles in each domain.The table also indicates where these journals areindexed. The coverage of total articles that fall withinthe top five journals is quite high for most domains.

Fig. 4. Number of articles by domain.

Table 2Librarianship domains

Domain Definition

Collections Building a high-quality collection of print and electronic materials that is useful, cost-effectiveand meets the users’ needs.

Education Incorporating teaching methods and strategies to educate users about library resources andhow to improve research skills.

– LIS Education (subset) – Specifically pertaining to the professional education of librarians.Information Access & Retrieval Creating better systems and methods for information retrieval and access.

Management Managing people and resources within an organization. This includes marketing andpromotion as well as human resources.Professional Issues Exploring issues that affect librarianship as a profession.Reference/Enquiries Providing service and information access that meets the needs of library users.





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The top five journals from each of the Collections,Information Access & Retrieval and Educationdomains published 47%, 45% and 43% of the totalamount of research from these domains respectively.The amount of research published in the top fivejournals from the other areas, Reference (36%) andManagement (28%), is lower, but it is apparent that asizable amount of research is concentrated in relatively

few journals. This being the case, our researchidentifies the journals that will be most valuable forfinding evidence to support decision-making. We alsoidentify those journals that form the core of a collection

that can be used to support the research of Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) programs.

After examining the indexing and abstractingservices that cover the top journals in each domain,we found that LISA is the database of choice whensearching for information on topics from the major-ity of domains. For Reference, Collections, andManagement, LISA is the only database with fullcoverage of the top five journals. ISTA provides onlyselective coverage of the top journals across most of the domains. The journals from the InformationAccess & Retrieval domain are well covered, withLISA and Library Lit both providing full coverage,and ISTA selective coverage. The Education domainis not covered completely by any index, howeverISTA and ERIC both cover all the top journalsselectively.

The Professional Issues domain is not included inTable 4, since the articles in this domain are tooscattered to group or show any journal trends. How-ever, LISA does cover 22 of the 25 journals representedin this category, again providing the best coverage of the major indexing databases.

Not surprisingly, many of the journals that appear inthe Top five lists by domain are specific to that domain(e.g. Reference & User Services Quarterly is #3 on theReference domain list and Journal of Education for Library and Information Science appears at the top of the Education list). However, there are non-domain-related journals that appear in these lists (often at thetop of the list), indicating that the most productivejournals in a particular domain may not necessarily bejournals specific to that domain. Conversely, Journal of Information Science and Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, though appearing in the overall

top 10, do not figure in any of the domain-specific topfive, indicating their more comprehensive cross-domain coverage.

Several journals appear in more than one of our Topfive lists for research journals by domain (see Table 4):College and Research Libraries, which was fourth onthe Top 10 list (see Table 1) is the top journal for boththe Reference and Management domains and appearsfifth in the Education list; JASIST , the top journal onour Top 10 list, is also the top journal in theInformation Access & Retrieval domain and third inthe Collections domain; Journal of Library Administra-tion (fifth on the Top 10 list) appears fourth in both the

Information Access & Retrieval and Management domains; and New Library World appears fourth in both the Management and Education domains. Thesefindings emphasize the importance of College and

Table 3Top three study types by domain

Domain Number of Articles

Study Type

InformationAccess & Retrieval

109 Comparative104 Descriptive

50 Content analysis114 Other

Collections86 Bibliometrics52 Descriptive19 Comparative51 Other

Management 90 Descriptive13 Comparative11 Cross-sectional35 Other

Education

50 Descriptive18 Program evaluation16 Cross-sectional37 Other

Reference54 Descriptive

9 Content analysis5 Comparative

16 Other

Professional Issues15 Descriptive

7 Bibliometrics5 Cross-sectional

12 Other





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Research Libraries and JASIST as major sources of library research while at the same time identifyingjournals that are valuable for their cross-disciplinarycontent.

As Table 4 illustrates, there is no clear difference between domains with regard to the indexing servicethat provides best coverage. LISA provides the best

coverage overall, followed by Library Literature, andISTA which covers a wide range of the journals thatpublish research, but which indexes selectively for themost part.

6. Discussion

Of the 2664 articles we reviewed, 807 (30.3%) wereidentified as research articles. This rate is similar to therate of 30% for articles published in 1965 as reported by Järvelin and Vakkari [33], and the rate of 31%reported by Peritz [29] for articles published in 1975.

Buttlar’s study [36] of the research content of libraryjournals published between 1987 and 1989 reported arate of 38.35%, a rate somewhat higher than ours. Ourrates were significantly lower than those reported by

Table 4Top five research journals by domain

Domain Number of Articles

Journal Name Indexed

Information Access & Retrieval – total¼314 articles58 JASIST LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, Inspec (sel)31 Information Processing and Management LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, ERIC, Inspec15 Journal of Documentation LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, ERIC, Inspec (sel)13 Journal of Library Administration LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec12 ASLIB Proceedings LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, Inspec (sel)

12 Cataloging & Classification Quarterly LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA, ERIC (sel)

Collections – total¼193 articles47 Scientometrics LISA, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci12 Collection Management LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA12 JASIST LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, Inspec (sel)10 Serials Librarian LISA, ISTA, WOS:SS, ERIC (sel)

9 Library Collections, Acquisitions andTechnical Services

LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, Inspec

Management – total¼135 articles9 College & Research Libraries LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC9 Library Management LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec (sel)7 Library Review LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), Inspec (began 2003)

7 Journal of Library Administration LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec6 New Library World LISA, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel)

Education – total¼95 articles13 Journal of Education for Library and

Information ScienceLib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel)

10 Education for Information LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec7 Research Strategies LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA, ERIC (sel)6 New Library World LISA, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec (began in 2003)5 College & Research Libraries LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC

Reference – total¼77 articles6 College & Research Libraries LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (selective), ERIC6 Journal of Academic Librarianship LISA, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, ERIC (sel)

6 Reference and User Services Quarterly LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, ERIC (sel), Inspec (sel)5 Library and Information Science Research LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA, WOS:SS, ERIC (sel)5 Journal of Library and Information Science LISA, Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, Inspec (sel)





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Järvelin and Vakkari [33] for 1975 (57%) and 1985(54%) as well as those reported by Williams andWinston [35] for 2000/2001 (50.42%). The usefulnessof these comparisons, however, is questionable due tothe lack of agreement between authors as to whatconstitutes research as well as the variation in thejournal titles reviewed.

While previous researchers [29–34, 36] estimated thepercentage of research published in the body of journals they surveyed as a whole, only Buttlar [36]ranked the journals she reviewed by the amount of research published by title. Kumpalainen [30] did notrank the journals by title per se, but informationcorrelating the frequency of subjects by journalspermitted us to rank and compare the titles hereviewed. Since the lists of journals reviewed byButtlar and Kumpalainen and those reviewed for thepresent study vary in the titles examined, no conclu-sions can be drawn by comparing results. However, itis interesting to note that two titles rank high in allthree studies: JASIST/JASIS (top ranked journal byButtlar, Kumpalainen and the present study) andCollege & Research Libraries (ranked second by Buttlar

and Kumpalainen; ranked fourth in the present study). Journal of Academic Librarianship was ranked third byButtlar and tied for ninth in the present study. Buttlarranked Libraries & Culture fifth while it ranked seventhin the present study. Journal of Documentation wasranked tenth by Kumpalainen and eighth by thepresent study. Because these journals consistentlyappear within the top rankings in studies acrossdifferent time periods, this indicates their ongoingvalue as vehicles for communicating LIS research.

As discussed in the Literature Review, the variationin subject categories used in previous content analysesmakes it difficult to compare our findings with those of other authors. These differences also make it impos-sible to make a comparison between our correlations of subject/domain and research methods, and similarcorrelations reported by Kumpalainen and Järvelin andVakkari. Likewise, our results regarding the frequencyof use of specific research methods cannot be com-pared to previous studies. However, as with otherstudies, we found that descriptive, survey-typeresearch was published much more frequently thanexperimental research. Potential confounders of thisstudy’s results include the frequency of journalpublication schedules, and size of the journal (number

of pages).Findings from this project will assist librarians in:

(1) Identifying the most useful sources of evidencefor LIS decision-making;

(2) Targeting the most appropriate journals in whichto publish research; and,

(3) Selecting the most useful journals for inclusion ina research-based LIS journal collection.

7. Future research

For the second part of this research project, a citationanalysis is currently being conducted to analyze the

references from the 807 articles included in this study.The citation analysis will identify titles and formatsfrequently cited in LIS research articles as well asdetermine where these titles are indexed. This nextstudy will also determine how frequently LIS research-ers cite literature outside of their discipline.

Another area of future research stemming from thepresent study is to analyze key terms used in titles andabstracts of the research articles identified, as well asdatabase controlled vocabulary applied to these arti-cles by the major library and information studiesindexing services, in order to formulate search strate-gies (i.e. search ‘hedges’, that can be used to filter outnon-research literature when necessary). This will beuseful for filtering literature searches in areas wheremuch has been published but little of it is originalresearch.

Replication of the research reported here for addi-tional years (both retrospectively and prospectively)would be valuable. First, it could determine whetherthe subject domains identified will hold up whenapplied to additional years of data, and suggest ways inwhich they can be further refined. Second, replicationwould provide comparative data enabling the identi-fication of trends in the characteristics and publication

patterns of LIS research.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Small Faculties Research Grant at the University of Alberta. We would also like to thank Virginia Wilson,our research assistant, who was hired as a result of theresearch grant we received. Thanks also to the staff atthe Alberta Research Centre for Child Health Evidence,particularly Natasha Wiebe and Ben Vandermeer who

provided statistical advice and assistance. We wouldalso like to thank our anonymous peer reviewers fortheir constructive feedback, which strengthened ourpaper.





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Appendix A: 91 journal titles included in the study

AARL: Australian Academic & Research Libraries

AccessAcquisitions LibrarianAfrican Journal of Library, Archives and Information

ScienceARSC Journal ASLIB ProceedingsAustralian Library Journal Behavioral & Social Sciences LibrarianBodleian Library Record Bottom Line: Managing Library FinancesBulletin of the Medical Library AssociationCanadian Journal of Information and Library Science

Cataloging and Classification Quarterly Collection Building Collection Management College & Research Libraries

Community and Junior College Libraries

Education for InformationEducation LibrariesElectronic Green Journal Ethics and Information Technology Government Information Quarterly Health Information and Libraries Journal IFLA Journal Information Processing & Management Information ResearchInformation Society Information Technology and LibrariesInforming Science

INSPEL Interlending & Document Supply International Information and Library Review International Journal of Information Management





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Internet Reference Services Quarterly Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications

and Policy JAMIA: Journal of the American Medical Informatics

Association Journal of Academic Librarianship Journal of Chemical Information and Computing

Science Journal of Digital Information Journal of Documentation Journal of Education for Library and Information

Science Journal of Government Information Journal of Information Science Journal of Librarianship and Information Science Journal of Library Administration Journal of Southern Academic and Special Librarian-

ship Journal of the American Society for Information

Science and Technology Knowledge OrganizationKnowledge Quest Libraries & Culture

Library & Archival Security Library & Information Science ResearchLibrary Collections Acquisitions & Technical ServicesLibrary Hi TechLibrary History Library Management Library Philosophy and PracticeLibrary Quarterly Library Resources & Technical ServicesLibrary Review LIBRES: Library and Information Science ResearchLibri Malaysian Journal of Library and Information ScienceMedical Reference Services Quarterly New Library World New Review of Children’s Literature and LibrarianshipNew Review of Information and Library ResearchNew Review of Libraries and Lifelong Learning North Carolina LibrariesOCLC Systems & ServicesOnline Information Review Performance Measurement and Metrics

portal: Libraries and the Academy ProgramPublic LibrariesReference and User Services Quarterly Reference LibrarianReference Services Review Research StrategiesSchool Library Media ResearchScience & Technology LibrariesScientometricsSerials LibrarianSerials Review Social Science Computer Review South African Journal of Library and Information

ScienceSoutheastern LibrarianTeacher LibrarianTechnical Services Quarterly Transforming Traditional LibrariesUrban Library Journal

Appendix B: included journals for which

articles could not be obtained

Art Reference Services Quarterly College and Undergraduate LibrariesDESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology Herald of Library Science Journal of Agricultural and Food Information Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship Journal of Hospital Librarianship Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery and

Information Supply Journal of Library and Information Science

Journal of Religious and Theological InformationMusic Reference Services Quarterly Quarterly Bulletin of the International Association of

Agricultural Information SpecialistsResource Sharing and Information NetworksSerials: The Journal for the Serials Community The Electronic Library World Libraries


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a content analysis of librarianship research

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