Library and information science research in Pakistan: A bibliometric analysis,1957

Abstract

This article reviews 62 years (1957–2018) of research in library and information science in Pakistan. A comprehensive bibliometric study was conducted using the four leading databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Library and Information Science Abstracts, and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts). The researchers found a positive upward trend. Library research is on the rise in Pakistan. The Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab is the major contributor to the library and information science literature. Forty percent of the total publications were published in two Pakistani journals. Older and well-established institutions like the University of the Punjab and the University of Karachi have taken the lead in publishing research. The Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces require more focus and funding.

Keywords

Library and information science research bibliometrics research productivity Pakistan overview

Introduction

Research plays a crucial role in the growth of any profession. It enables professionals to share their findings through publishing with their wider professional communities. Library education and research has a long history in the region which is now called Pakistan. The earliest library research programme started when Asa Don Dickinson wrote the first textbook in the discipline outside the USA in 1916, which was published by the University of the Punjab. Lahore is hence known as the cradle of the library movement in this region. This pioneering activity contributed to the development of library research, and many library and information science (LIS) professionals have subsequently regularly (albeit slowly) contributed to the LIS literature (Haider, 2007; Mahmood, 1996; Naseer and Mahmood, 2009a).

LIS researchers in Pakistan have produced a significant number of publications. A review of the literature reveals that many bibliometric studies related to the LIS literature have been conducted in different parts of the world. However, in Pakistan, only a few bibliometric studies related to LIS research have been conducted, and these have been with a restricted scope, relating to a specific journal, covering a specific time period, or limited to a province, an institution or the terms of the databases consulted. In contrast, the present study was conducted using four leading databases of global literature and including all aspects of LIS research carried out by Pakistani LIS researchers from 1957 to 2018. It is therefore intended to fill a gap in the research. The study focused on the following research questions:

What are the research trends in LIS in Pakistan during 1957–2018?

Which are the most productive organizations, library schools and LIS researchers?

What are the authorship and collaboration patterns of Pakistani LIS researchers?

Which are the most preferred journals where Pakistani LIS researchers would like to publish?

What is the subject distribution of the publications?

Literature review

Bibliometrics – the measurement of the productivity of scientific publications with their citation counts – is gaining popularity among researchers of all disciplines. According to Belter (2018), bibliometrics deals with four major themes: productivity, collaboration, research topics and citation impact; he terms it ‘a science of science’. It has earned the prestige of being a methodology that focuses on quantifying the level of research outputs, collaboration patterns and the impact of scientific research. Bibliometric analysis provides valuable information and extends systematic comparison among institutions, countries and regions (Singh and Chander, 2014).

Bibliometrics is used to measure not only the research output or productivity of individual authors, organizations and countries, but also the extent of collaboration among them. Research and development are the core activities in any scientific field, the social sciences and LIS. In response to this need, LIS researchers have contributed a significant amount of research on all aspects of LIS profession (Sethi and Panda, 2012).

Evaluation and assessment play a pivotal role in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of any field, which helps in making the right decisions and developing policies. Over the years, researchers have adopted quantitative techniques like bibliometrics to investigate the productivity and impact of different aspects related to LIS (Erfanmanesh et al., 2010).

Bibliometrics, scientometrics and informetrics have been given a variety of definitions by many authors working in the field. These definitions specify a substantial overlap in the meaning of the terms, appear to be related and are all used to describe the discipline wholly or in part; however, they cannot be considered as synonyms of each other. Interestingly, each of these terms has a distinct and documented historical origin (Hood and Wilson, 2001).

Bibliometric methods have been used to resolve different issues related to all aspects of library functions. LIS researchers all over the world have conducted bibliometric studies to analyse the productivity, collaboration patterns, subject areas and citation impact of the research in this field. Different studies have compared the publications of faculty and librarians to discuss the divide in the choice of research topic, productivity and preferred journals (Adkins and Budd, 2006; Weller et al., 1999; Wiberley et al., 2006). Erfanmanesh et al. (2010) conducted a bibliometric study to analyse the productivity of world scientific LIS researchers during 1998–2007 and limited the scope of the study to Web of Science-indexed journals only. Yazit and Zainab (2007) provided a picture of Malaysian LIS research publications by applying bibliometric techniques. They only included publications of Malaysian researchers between 1965 and 2005 in Malaysian or foreign journals.

Sethi and Panda (2012) conducted a bibliometric study to explore the research trends of two core LIS journals: Library & Information Science Research and the International Information & Library Review – both of which are indexed in ScienceDirect. They focused their analysis only on those articles that were indexed in the ScienceDirect database between 2006 and 2010. Similarly, Singh and Chander (2014) applied bibliometric techniques to reveal research trends in LIS articles and restricted their analysis to one LIS journal – Library Management.

Slutsky and Aytac (2016) selected two journals – Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship and Science & Technology Libraries – to analyse and compare the articles published in both from 2005–2014. The main goal of the study was to report the findings to LIS professional colleagues in order to enable them to compare the journals as potential future publication venues. Slutsky and Aytac (2014) also conducted a bibliometric analysis of science librarianship research studies published in four LIS journals – Science & Technology Libraries, Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, the Journal of the Medical Library Association and the Health Information and Libraries Journal – covering the period from 2008–2012. Hildreth and Aytac (2007) examined articles that they deemed to be original empirical research published between 2003–2005. For this bibliometric study, they purposively selected 23 journals and included all issues in the analysis.

A review of the literature reveals a good number of bibliometric studies by Pakistani LIS professionals. Mahmood (1996) reviewed 97 articles published in foreign journals and excluded all scholarly publications in Pakistani journals, even those that were indexed in his four chosen indexing services, thus limiting the scope of the study. Conversely, he included the publications of foreign researchers who merely mentioned Pakistan somewhere in their study. Among the 97 reviewed articles, 69 were on Pakistani librarianship; the remaining 28 were on South Asia and included the word Pakistan. Khurshid (2013) examined and compared the quality of Pakistani authors’ publications in foreign journals with and without an impact factor. He excluded the majority of the articles published in the Pakistani LIS journals that are the preferred source of Pakistani LIS authors for their research publications.

Zameer Hussain Baladi is the most prolific Pakistani LIS professional, who has added 16 articles to the bibliometrics literature within the last four years. He has limited his research mainly to health-related topics and journals. Four bibliometric studies have been conducted by Pakistani expatriate research students while pursuing their PhDs in Chinese universities. One of the important features of these studies was the use of visualization tools in the research. The studies were mainly focused on the productivity and collaboration patterns among LIS professionals in China (Ahmad et al., 2018; Jabeen et al., 2015, 2016, 2017).

Naseer and Mahmood (2014) conducted a comprehensive study of LIS subject dispersion. They analysed 5195 publications in Pakistan over a period of 62 years and revealed that the majority of the Pakistani LIS research was focused on a few subject areas, thus paying less attention to many important areas related to the field. In a different study, Naseer and Mahmood (2009b) reviewed the use of bibliometrics in Pakistani LIS research and found bibliometric methods to be very useful in addressing diverse issues; their application, however, was not common in Pakistan. The study recommended comprehensive bibliographical control and better access to LIS literature, and urged for the sharing of best practices related to the use of bibliometrics.

In bio-bibliometric studies, in-depth analysis of an author is carried out and their research contributions are highlighted. In this regard, Pakistani LIS professionals have contributed four bio-bibliometric studies. Three are on LIS researchers and the fourth is on Dr Ata Ur Rehman, an eminent researcher in chemistry, who acquired and spent a large sum of money on the promotion of science and technology as chairman of the Higher Education Commission.

Altmetrics stands for alternative metrics, which measure the impact of publications through their usage, number of mentions, downloads, number of reads, tweets and other usage in social media tools and websites. In a recent article, Ali and Richardson (2017) analysed the research performance of Pakistani LIS professionals through ResearchGate altmetrics. They carried out another bibliometric study which was limited to articles published by LIS professionals in national LIS and other social science research journals (Ali and Richardson, 2016). Anwar (2004) conducted a study of 1995 American graduates in LIS. He reported that the mean number of publications, which were extracted from their doctoral dissertations, was 0.85. Moreover, he reviewed only 251 items indexed in Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and excluded the quality publications of Pakistani LIS professionals indexed by other indexing services.

Although this literature review reveals a good number of international bibliometric studies, they are limited to specific journals, disciplines, periods and source databases. Similarly, only a few studies have been conducted on LIS research in Pakistan, and these have had a limited scope with regard to the databases consulted, time periods and domains. No study has been specifically conducted on current research trends in Pakistani LIS or the productivity of organizations, library schools and provinces. What are the most preferred journals for Pakistani LIS professionals, their collaboration patterns, types of publications and frequently used keywords? In view of this, an attempt is made in this research to fill in the gaps.

Research methodology

For this study, four data sources – the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, LISA, and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) – were used to gain the maximum coverage of the scholarly publications of Pakistani library professionals working in Pakistan or abroad. The search criteria for the two leading LIS-specific databases (LISA and LISTA) used the advanced search ‘Pakistan’ anywhere or in all fields for academic or scholarly journals published from 1947 up to 31 December 2018. Similarly, the two largest multidisciplinary databases of peer-reviewed literature (Web of Science and Scopus) were selected for high recall and precision. The authors used ‘Pakistan’ and ‘library’ as search keywords with the same criteria. A total of 10,796 records were retrieved from the four databases (LISA = 2556, LISTA = 1405, Web of Science = 1062, Scopus = 5773) and imported to Endnote Desktop software. In order to identify the relevant records, each record was checked twice by the authors; 1257 duplicate and 8234 irrelevant records were then deleted. Finally, 1305 records, including journal articles (1252), conference papers (32) and book chapters/sections (21), were included in the research study. Reports, editorials, professional news items and correspondence were excluded (see Figure 1). The 1305 refined records were exported to Microsoft Access. The authors added some fields, such as database name, author affiliation, gender and authorship types, in the Microsoft Access database. Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access and Endnote software were used for the data analysis.

Figure 1.

Data extraction and refining process.

Data analysis

Chronological distribution of publications

The chronological distribution of publications by Pakistani researchers from 1957 to 2018 is presented in Figure 2. The whole time period was divided into its three most important phases. It is instructive to highlight that there was no regular doctoral programme with coursework available in the LIS domain in Pakistan during the first phase (1957–2003). The most productive year in that era was 1998, when 19 publications appeared.

Figure 2.

Chronological distribution of publications in LIS in Pakistan (1957–2018).

In the first year of the 2004–2009 period, there were 33 publications, and the number of publications increased year on year. The most productive year was 2009, with 51 research publications. The third most remarkable period was from 2010 to 2018, when 690 publications appeared. In this period, the most productive year was 2016, with 90 research publications.

Most productive organizations in Pakistani LIS research

The top-20 most productive organizations in LIS research are shown in Table 1. It highlights that there were only three organizations with over 100 publications from 1957 to 2018. The University of the Punjab was the most productive organization in LIS research in Pakistan, with 381 publications, followed by the University of Karachi, with 175, and the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, with 152. In the first period, from 1957 to 2003, the University of Karachi was on top; however, it could not maintain its pace with the passage of time and gradually the number of publications decreased year on year. Pakistani library professionals also contributed a good number of publications abroad, with 95 accredited to Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; 84 to Kuwait University; 40 to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia; 29 to the International Islamic University, Malaysia; and 19 to Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. The researchers also included those affiliated with East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) up until 1971. The University of Dhaka was the most productive organization in LIS from East Pakistan, with six publications.

Table 1.

Top-20 most productive organizations in Pakistani LIS research.

Rank	Organization	Country	Founded	1957–2003	2004–2009	2010–2018	Total
1	University of the Punjab	Pakistan	1882	41	69	271	381
2	University of Karachi	Pakistan	1951	113	34	28	175
3	Islamia University of Bahawalpur	Pakistan	1975	5	23	124	152
4	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	1981	25	38	32	95
5	Kuwait University	Kuwait	1966	25	26	33	84
6	Allama Iqbal Open University	Pakistan	1969	6	18	31	55
7	University of Sargodha	Pakistan	2002	–	1	52	53
8	University of Peshawar	Pakistan	1950	–	4	47	51
9	King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals	Saudi Arabia	1963	29	6	5	40
10	Government College University, Lahore	Pakistan	1864	–	6	33	39
11	International Islamic University	Pakistan	1980	2	15	18	35
12	University of Baluchistan	Pakistan	1970	6	4	19	29
13	Aga Khan University	Pakistan	1983	5	8	13	26
14	National University of Sciences and Technology	Pakistan	1993	–	1	23	24
15	International Islamic University	Malaysia	1983	28	1	–	29
16	University of Education	Pakistan	2002	–	3	17	20
17	University of Sindh	Pakistan	1951	12	1	6	19
18	Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University	Saudi Arabia	1975	–	2	17	19
19	Khushaal Khan Khattak University	Pakistan	2012	–	–	16	16
20	Institute of Space Technology	Pakistan	2002	–	–	14	14

Most productive LIS schools

The top-10 most productive LIS schools offering LIS education, as well as contributing to research, are presented in Table 2. The Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab emerged as the most productive LIS school, with 360 publications. The last period was outstanding for the Department, with 255 publications. The rest of the schools are far behind compared to the University of the Punjab, with the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Karachi credited with 171 publications and the Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur with 152. There were three LIS schools outside Pakistan where Pakistani LIS professionals contributed to the research output: the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore is ranked fourth, with 95 publications; the Department of Library and Information Science at Kuwait University is fifth, with 84; and the Department of Library and Information Science at the International Islamic University, Malaysia, comes in tenth place, with 29 publications. Table 2 shows that all of the LIS schools made a significant contribution to research in the last period – that is, from 2010 to 2018 – except the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Karachi and the Department of Library and Information Science at the International Islamic University, Malaysia.

Table 2.

Most productive LIS schools.

Rank	Department and organization	Province/country	Founded	Publications
Rank	Department and organization	Province/country	Founded	1957–2003	2004–2009	2010–2018	Total
1	Department of Information Management, University of the Punjab	Punjab, Pakistan	1916	40	65	255	360
2	Department of Library and Information Science, University of Karachi	Sindh, Pakistan	1956	112	34	25	171
3	Department of Library and Information Science, Islamia University of Bahawalpur	Punjab, Pakistan	1983	5	23	124	152
4	Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	1992	25	38	32	95
5	Department of Library and Information Science, Kuwait University	Kuwait	1977	25	26	33	84
6	Department of Library and Information Science, Allama Iqbal Open University	Islamabad, Pakistan	1985	6	18	31	55
7	Department of Library and Information Science, University of Sargodha	Punjab, Pakistan	2008	–	1	52	52
8	Department of Library and Information Science, University of Peshawar	Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan	1962	–	4	44	48
9	Department of Library and Information Science, University of Balochistan	Balochistan, Pakistan	1981	6	–	23	29
10	Department of Library and Information Science, International Islamic University	Malaysia	1992	28	1	–	29

Authorship pattern of Pakistani LIS researchers

Single authorship emerged as the top publishing trend of Pakistani LIS professionals, with 588 publications. Joint authorship has developed gradually: the two-author pattern first appeared in 1977 and the three-author pattern in 1988, with 207 publications. Other authorship patterns are rarely seen among Pakistani LIS professionals.

Research contribution by authorship type

Teaching faculty were the most productive source of LIS research in Pakistan. The results show that national faculty produced 1097 publications, followed by national library professionals with a significant 543 publications, and 109 publications by national research students. Similarly, expatriate faculty produced 218 publications, followed by expatriate library professional with 79 publications and 36 publications by expatriate research students. It should be noted that the first publications by expatriate students appeared in 1994, before those by national research students in 2007. The gender analysis shows that 884 publications (68%) were by male authors and 196 (15%) by female authors. Additionally, 225 (17%) were contributed jointly by male and female authors. It is worth mentioning that the first publication by a female author appeared in 1977.

Research collaboration among LIS schools

This section provides the pattern of collaboration of Pakistani LIS schools. There was a total of 717 collaborative publications. The Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab occupied a unique and leading position with the highest number of collaborative publications (35% of the total) at the departmental, LIS school, international and interdisciplinary levels. The highest number of collaborative publications were contributed by the Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab (n = 251), Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur (n = 127), and Department of Library and Information Science at University of Karachi (n = 29). The lowest-ranking collaborative LIS schools were the Department of Library and Information Science at University of Sindh (n = 3), Department of Library and Information Science at Kuwait University (n = 15), and Department of Library and Information Science at University of Balochistan (n = 18).

The authors observed that the Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab is the most important collaborator of the Departments of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur and the University of Sargodha. Similarly, the Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur has the most collaborations with the Departments of Library and Information Science at the University of Peshawar and Allama Iqbal Open University. Additionally, the Departments of Library and Information Science at University of Karachi, Allama Iqbal Open University, University of Balochistan and Kuwait University have the highest number of collaborative publications with the Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab.

There was a reasonable trend of international collaboration (n = 82) and interdisciplinary collaboration (n = 99). The authors also explored collaboration at the departmental and LIS school levels. The top-three most collaborative departments were the Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab, Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, and Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Sargodha. It was surprising to note that the Department of Library and Information Science at University of Sindh had only one collaborative publication outside the department.

Most prolific Pakistani LIS researchers

The analysis of the top-20 most prolific Pakistani LIS researchers indicated that six are female and the others are male. The maximum number of publications by these authors is 131 and the minimum 16. There are eight researchers who authored over 50 publications each. Professor Khalid Mahmood was the top Pakistani LIS researcher, with 133 publications to his credit, of which 31 were as a single author, 16 as the first author and 86 as another author. The top-three collaborators with Mahmood were F Shafique, with 23 publications, SJ Haider, with 9 publications, and A Hameed, with 8 publications. Similarly, the second most prolific author was Kanwal Ameen, with 92 publications to her name, of which 22 were as a single author, 11 as the first author and 59 as another author. The top-three collaborators with Ameen were M Rafiq, A Arshad and NF Warraich, with 12, 10 and 10 publications, respectively. Likewise, Rubina Bhatti had 88 publications to her credit, followed by Shaheen Majid with 83, AS Chaudhry with 70, SJ Haider with 65, SU Rehman with 61 and Mumtaz Ali Anwar with 52. The last author in this list was Munazza Jabeen, with 16 publications.

Most productive LIS journals

The top journals in which Pakistani LIS researchers have published are presented in Table 3. It shows that almost 40% of the total publications were in two Pakistani journals. The Pakistan Library and Information Science Journal was at the top, with 411 publications (31.49%), followed by the Pakistan Journal of Information Management and Libraries, with 7.89% of the total publications. The most productive international journal in which Pakistani researchers published was Library Philosophy and Practice (7.13%). Most of the journals in this list are from the USA and UK, with one each from Germany, Malaysia and China. With regard to the publishers, most (7) are published by the Emerald Group, followed by 3 journals published by SAGE USA and the remaining 10 by various publishers (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Most productive LIS journals.

Rank	Journal	Number of publications	Percentage (%)	Publisher	Impact factor	Cite Score
1	Pakistan Library and Information Science Journal (formerly known as Pakistan Library Bulletin)	411	31.49	Library Promotion Bureau, Pakistan	N/A	N/A
2	Pakistan Journal of Information Management and Libraries (formerly known as Pakistan Journal of Library and Information Science)	103	7.89	Department of Information Management, University of the Punjab, Pakistan	N/A	0.26
3	Library Philosophy and Practice	93	7.13	University of Idaho Library, USA	N/A	0.34
4	Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication (formerly known as Library Review)	60	4.44	Emerald Group, UK	N/A	0.94
5	International Information & Library Review (formerly known as International Library Review)	51	3.91	Routledge, USA	N/A	0.45
6	The Electronic Library	42	3.22	Emerald Group, UK	0.886	1.47
7	Libri: International Journal of Libraries and Information Services	41	3.14	De Gruyter Saur, Germany	0.553	0.71
8	Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science	29	2.22	Faculty of Computer Science and Information, University of Malaya, Malaysia	1	0.77
9	Information Development	23	1.76	SAGE, USA	1.265	1.33
10	Information and Learning Sciences (formerly known as New Library World)	22	1.69	Emerald Group, UK	N/A	0.99
11	Library Management (incorporates Librarian Career Development)	15	1.15	Emerald Group, UK	N/A	0.98
12	Education for Information	15	1.15	IOS Press, The Netherlands	N/A	0.8
13	Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal	15	1.15	Internet Chinese Librarians Club, USA	N/A	N/A
14	Data Technologies and Applications (formerly known as Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems)	15	1.15	Emerald Group, UK	0.868	1.3
15	Journal of Academic Librarianship	11	0.84	Elsevier, UK	1.608	2.1
16	Library Hi Tech News	11	0.84	Emerald Group, UK	N/A	0.45
17	Collection and Curation (formerly known as Collection Building)	11	0.84	Emerald Group, UK	N/A	0.6
18	IFLA Journal	10	0.77	SAGE, USA	N/A	0.93
19	Journal of Librarianship and Information Science	8	0.61	SAGE, USA	1.203	1.1
20	Health Information and Libraries Journal	8	0.61	Wiley-Blackwell, UK	1.179	1.08

Frequently used keywords by Pakistani LIS researchers

The most frequently used keywords by Pakistani LIS researchers from 1957 to 2018 are presented in Table 4. There are 40 keywords in this list. ‘Academic libraries’ was the most frequently used keyword (n = 222) by Pakistani LIS professionals; it was first used in 1978 and last used in 2018. Similarly, ‘LIS research’ was used in 162 publications. The keyword ‘digital libraries’ was used in 103 publications and was mostly used in the 21st century by Pakistani LIS professionals. The least used keyword in the list was ‘special libraries’, which was used in only 11 publications.

Table 4.

Frequently used keywords.

Rank	Keyword	Number of publications	First year	Last year
1	Academic libraries	222	1978	2018
2	Library and information science research	162	1978	2018
3	Digital libraries	103	2003	2018
4	Technical services	83	1977	2017
5	Library services	82	2008	2017
6	Information literacy	78	2003	2018
7	Information-seeking behaviour	77	2000	2014
8	Social media	76	2010	2018
9	Bibliometrics	73	1987	2018
10	Public libraries	55	1969	2018
11	Information technology	45	1992	2018
12	Research collaboration	42	2005	2018
13	Computer science	40	1957	2018
14	Information services	39	1977	2018
15	Information professionals	39	2004	2018
16	Library curricula	39	1987	2016
17	Knowledge management	37	2003	2018
18	User services	34	1977	2017
19	Library automation	33	2004	2018
20	Information resources	32	2006	2018
21	Information work	31	1977	2002
22	Library staff	30	1977	2015
23	Electronic information resources	30	2006	2018
24	Information storage and retrieval	23	1981	1991
25	Library anxiety	22	2012	2018
26	Classification schemes	22	1981	2013
27	Information needs	21	2007	2015
28	User satisfaction	18	1994	2018
29	Library and information science competencies	18	1997	2018
30	Library associations	17	1988	2016
31	Service quality	17	2013	2017
32	Library technology	16	1992	2016
33	Professional development	16	2001	2018
34	Library schools	15	1985	2016
35	Library administration	15	2006	2017
36	Web 2.0	14	2010	2018
37	Library users	14	2005	2017
38	Medical libraries	13	1985	2017
39	Library materials	12	1975	2017
40	Special libraries	11	1977	2017

Most cited publications

The researchers also explored the impact of articles by counting the number of citations they had received. Of the four databases, LISA and LISTA do not provide citation information. The top-10 most cited publications by Pakistani authors are therefore presented from the Web of Science and Scopus (Table 5). The number of citations ranged from 294 to 51. Table 5 shows that the article entitled ‘Adopting evidence-based practice in clinical decision making: Nurses’ perceptions, knowledge, and barriers’, published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association in 2011, received the highest number of citations from both databases (294) – 131 citations from the Web of Science and 163 from Scopus. The second most cited publication received a total of 106 citations (43 from the Web of Science and 69 from Scopus) and the third 72. The last placed article had a total of 51 citations. It is interesting to highlight that Shaheen Majid and Khalid Mahmood feature prominently in five publications each in the top-10 most cited publications.

Table 5.

Top-10 most cited research publications of Pakistani authors.

Rank	Author(s)	Article title	Journal	Year	Number of citations
Rank	Author(s)	Article title	Journal	Year	Web of Science	Scopus
1	S Majid, S Foo, B Luyt, et al.	‘Adopting evidence-based practice in clinical decision making: Nurses’ perceptions, knowledge, and barriers’	Journal of the Medical Library Association	2011	131	163
2	K Mahmood and JV Richardson, Jr	‘Adoption of Web 2.0 in US academic libraries: A survey of ARL library websites’	Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems	2011	43	69
3	G de Alwis, S Majid and AS Chaudhry	‘Transformation in managers’ information seeking behaviour: A review of the literature’	Journal of Information Science	2006	32	40
4	M Arif and K Mahmood	‘The changing role of librarians in the digital world: Adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by Pakistani librarians’	Electronic Library	2012	31	35
5	S Majid and AT Tan	‘Usage of information resources by computer engineering students: A case study of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore’	Online Information Review	2002	31	42
6	S Majid, MA Anwar and TS Eisenschitz	‘Information needs and information seeking behavior of agricultural scientists in Malaysia’	Library & Information Science Research	2000	26	29
7	X Zhang, S Majid and S Foo	‘Environmental scanning: An application of information literacy skills at the workplace’	Journal of Information Science	2010	24	40
8	K Mahmood	‘Comparison between needed competencies of academic librarians and LIS curricula in Pakistan’	Electronic Library	2003	22	37
9	M Tahir, K Mahmood and F Shafique	‘Use of electronic information resources and facilities by humanities scholars’	Electronic Library	2010	21	36
10	S Qutab and K Mahmood	‘Library web sites in Pakistan: An analysis of content’	Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems	2009	19	32

Discussion

This study was divided into three periods: 1957–2003, 2004–2009 and 2010–2018. The first period, 1957–2003, when there were no doctoral programmes with coursework in LIS, showed a total of 360 publications in 46 years. The second period, 2004–2009, which marked the commencement of PhD programmes with coursework in LIS, produced 257 publications in just five years, indicating significant progress in the LIS literature. In the third period, 2010–2018, 691 publications were contributed to the LIS literature of Pakistan, clearly showing the substantial impact of the PhD programmes on LIS research. Naseer and Mahmood (2009a) analysed research published in the Pakistan Library and Information Science Journal from 1998 to 2007 and found the same trend of a rise in the number of publications after the beginning of PhD programmes in the universities of Pakistan. The current study also confirms the findings of Khurshid (2013), who reported a growth in Pakistani LIS literature over the years. Adkins and Budd (2006) studied the scholarly productivity of US LIS faculty and found an increase in productivity in terms of the number of publications. Erfanmanesh et al. (2010) investigated the world scientific productivity of LIS researchers and a total of 99,789 documents were analysed from the Web of Science during 1998–2007. They reported that there was no significant difference found between the frequencies of LIS publications in different years. During the 10 years studied, no ascending or descending trend was found in LIS publications; however, during the last three years, they found a decline in the number of publications. Yazit and Zainab (2007) attempted to provide a picture of Malaysian LIS publications and research. The researchers found an increase in LIS publications and the reviewed 41-year period suggested a positive upward trend in Malaysian LIS publications and predicted the continuity of this trend. Conversely, a study conducted by Khan et al. (1998) showed a downward trend regarding LIS research publications in Bangladesh.

Among the most productive organizations in LIS research, the University of the Punjab, a pioneering university in LIS education in the region, took the lead, followed by the University of Karachi and Islamia University of Bahawalpur. In the early period, the University of Karachi was the leading university in LIS research; however, it could not maintain its momentum, despite starting a Master’s programme before the University of the Punjab. The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, a comparatively young university, is not far behind the University of Karachi in its number of publications. Pakistani LIS professionals working abroad also contributed a reasonable number of publications and, in this regard, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, was at the top, followed by Kuwait University; King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia; the International Islamic University, Malaysia; and Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. This may be because of early PhD LIS professionals who obtained their degrees from advanced countries, got lucrative jobs in these universities, and preferred to work there instead of serving their home country.

The findings also reveal that the Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab secured top position among the LIS schools and remained impressive in the last periods with the highest number of publications, hence validating the findings of Khurshid (2013). The Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Karachi, which was once the leading institution in LIS research, has shown a downward trend in publications, especially in the last period, when it offered only 25 publications, which is a very low number compared to the other LIS schools, including the Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, which has produced 124 publications, about five times more than the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Karachi. It is perhaps because the Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur is offering Master’s and PhD programmes, and many LIS scholars are being awarded postgraduate degrees and adding to the number of publications.

Further analysis of the data reveals that LIS faculty in Pakistan were at the top in terms of research publications – almost double compared to national library professionals. The results of the study endorse Khurshid’s (2013) finding that faculty produce more publications than professional librarians. He further discusses that the possible reason for this difference may be because most faculty hold PhDs from foreign or Pakistani universities, and conducting research is one of their core responsibilities and is required for their promotion and tenure. Faculty normally supervise postgraduate research projects in the form of Master’s degrees and PhDs, and extract publications from these projects. On the other hand, librarians have no such training and obligations for promotion. They conduct research to make professional contributions and for their own satisfaction. In light of this, the contribution of research publications by library professionals is quite encouraging.

The findings further disclose the most prolific Pakistani LIS researchers and show that among the top-20 authors, only two researchers were professional librarians and the remaining were faculty. These findings indicate that faculty are dominant in Pakistani LIS research, which confirms previous findings. Among the top-20 researchers, Khalid Mahmood was the most prolific, which is in line with Khurshid’s (2013) findings. The second most prolific author was Kanwal Ameen, followed by Rubina Bhatti. It is interesting to note that these three researchers are working as faculty in the Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab and the Department of Library and Information Science at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, respectively, having obtained their PhDs long after most of the senior Pakistani faculty working abroad. The first two researchers hold indigenous PhDs, which reflects their dedication to LIS research.

The gender analysis of the publications discloses the domination of male LIS researchers in Pakistan, which confirms Naseer and Mahmood’s (2009a) findings and contradicts those of Tiew (2006), who found that female LIS researchers dominated, contributing 65.74% of publications in the field. The lower contribution by LIS female researchers may be due to various reasons. In the Pakistani LIS profession, the number of male professionals is greater than the number of female professionals. The most important reason, however, is the social set-up in Pakistan. Mostly, females do not continue in their professional job after getting married because of family commitments. Family life does not allow for a job and further education. Therefore, research is not a priority and, as a result, many females do not opt to pursue higher-degree programmes. In order to prosper and get promotion, publications are considered mandatory; however, in most cases, males, with a few exceptions, hold the senior positions.

The study further discloses the single-authorship pattern of Pakistani LIS researchers, which has remained dominant since the publication of the first article in 1957. Although the single-authorship pattern is still pervasive, the findings also represent a move from single to collaborative authorship, starting 20 years after the first publication, and a number of articles have been published by up to three authors. It can be inferred that such collaborative efforts started because of the availability of more researchers in this field, but the remaining patterns of collaborative authorship still need attention. Only a few articles were found with more than four authors, and only one publication with more than 10 authors. Therefore, LIS researchers in Pakistan need to realize the importance of collaborative authorship, especially across the border with LIS researchers working in advanced countries, in order to increase the visibility of their research and help raise the rankings of their associated universities. The results of the study also confirm the findings of previous research by Khurshid (2013), Ali and Richardson (2016), Naseer and Mahmood (2009a), and Mahmood (1996) regarding the prevailing trend of single authorship. A study conducted by Singh and Chander (2014) on the Emerald Group’s Library Management Journal also reported a single-authorship trend at the top of the authorship list. In a bibliometric study of LIS articles published from 1966 to 1997 in Bangladesh, Khan et al. (1998) revealed that a large majority of the articles (92%) were credited as single-authored and only a few were co-authored. Omobola Oyewusi (2012) has also reported a low level of collaboration among Nigerian LIS researchers, where the single-authorship pattern is high.

It is interesting to note that Pakistani LIS researchers have preferred to publish in their national journals. Khurshid (2013) points out that the reason for the choice of local journals by Pakistan LIS researchers is because of their high acceptance rate and the intention to support their national journals. Library Philosophy and Practice is the leading international journal where Pakistani LIS researchers have most of their research published. Thanuskodi (2010) conducted a bibliometric analysis of Library Philosophy and Practice from 2005 to 2009 and indicated a gradual rise in the yearly publication of articles, from 10 publications in 2005 to 80 in 2009. Thanuskodi also reported on the subject diversity in the published articles and that the majority of the articles were contributed by universities. Even though Library Philosophy and Practice has a short history of publication, Thanuskodi was of the view that the journal tried to maintain its objective of acting as a medium of communication of all types of information to academics, scientists and librarians. The other possible factors that motivate Pakistani LIS researchers to opt for Library Philosophy and Practice as their preferred choice of publication could be the fast reviewing process, lenient reviewing criteria compared to impact-factor journals, and high rate of acceptance. It is very encouraging to note that apart from the top-three journals, Pakistani LIS researchers have had more than half of their articles published in reputable, impact-factor journals published by well-known publishers like the Emerald Group, SAGE, De Gruyter Saur, the University of Malaya and Elsevier. Researchers now have access to quality indexing services such as Scopus and the Web of Science through the Higher Education Commission and their universities’ own resources, which is reflected in the level of familiarity of Pakistani researchers with quality foreign journals.

Academic libraries have been the focus of Pakistani LIS researchers since the beginning of research in this region. This study also reveals that most of the research revolves around academic libraries, which is in line with the findings of Khan and Samdani (1997) and Naseer and Mahmood (2014), but contradicts the findings of Mahmood (1996). Singh and Chander (2014) also found academic libraries to be in second position among other topics. In an analysis of LIS articles from the Chinese Social Science Index (2008–2012), Hu et al. (2013) reported Chinese research moving from traditional topics to new trends and found ‘university library’ to be the most used keyword, in second position. This contradicts a Malaysian study conducted by Yazit and Zainab (2007), who found collection development management to be the main area of research. This is perhaps because most LIS researchers are either faculty members or LIS professionals associated with academic libraries.

The findings of the study also show that Pakistani LIS researchers have paid reasonable attention to the latest trends, such as digital libraries, which was a hot topic among Pakistani LIS researchers at the beginning of the 21st century, and some information-technology-related topics. Another interesting finding is that the least amount of attention has been paid to special libraries, which contradicts the findings of Naseer and Mahmood (2014), who reported special libraries as a popular topic in their research.

The study further highlights the top-10 most cited publications of Pakistani authors. Among these publications, the most cited article received 294 citations, which was followed at some distance by the second most cited article, which received less than half the number of citations of the most cited article, even though it was published in the same year. Further analysis revealed two authors – Shaheen Majid and Khalid Mahmood – to be the most cited authors, appearing five times each in the top-10 most cited publications without producing any joint publications. Among the top-10 most cited publications, only one – ‘Comparison between needed competencies of academic librarians and LIS curricula in Pakistan’, by Khalid Mahmood – had single authorship; all of the remaining publications were the product of collaborative research conducted by more than one author, which is in line with the findings of Ivanović and Ho (2016) that most highly cited articles are the result of collaborative research. It is interesting to note that the publications which recorded the most citations were by expatriate Pakistanis, and the second most cited publication appeared when the author was in the USA conducting post-doctoral research. It can be inferred from the findings that only a few articles resulting from local research had an impact. A similar study in the future could be conducted for LIS researchers in Pakistan but excluding expatriate Pakistani LIS researchers.

Limitations and future research directions

This study was limited to four data sources – LISA, LISTA, the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus – published from 1957 upto 31 December 2018. Other data sources and indexing services, including Google Scholar, were not included in the study. The publications which were ignored or delayed by these services were not part of the study. Future researchers could conduct the same study on Google Scholar and other similar data sources. It was beyond the scope of the present study to ascertain whether the included research was carried out in Pakistan or not. Moreover, this is purely a quantitative study, and a citation analysis and analysis of the quality of the publication of the included research were not conducted. The publications of Pakistani LIS researchers on non-LIS topics may have been omitted. A future study including a citation analysis of the research could help in the analysis of the remaining bibliometric aspects of LIS research.

Implications for policymakers

As mentioned above, this study focused on four data sources and included only those publications indexed in the sources; therefore, the researchers feel that many important publications have not been analysed in this study. It is suggested that editors, associations and departments which are publishing research on LIS, but are not following the criteria of these indexing services for the inclusion of their publications, should follow the guidelines and criteria of such services for the possible inclusion of their journals. It will help to increase the visibility and readership of these publications not only at the national level, but also at an international level. It will also help LIS researchers to have more options for the publication of their research in recognized national journals and open up new avenues, which will help to encourage researchers to publish in their local journals and, therefore, increase the amount of research conducted. On the basis of these findings and keeping in view the international scenario, the study further suggests that young researchers, for the long-term benefit of their career, select those journals for their publications that are indexed in well-reputed indexing services and recognized by the Higher Education Commission.

Conclusion

The review of the literature disclosed some bibliometric studies conducted on LIS research in Pakistan with a limited scope regarding the source databases, period covered and domain. This study reveals the publishing trends of Pakistani LIS researchers, the most productive authors, institutions and journals, and authorship and collaboration patterns, along with subject dispersion under the umbrella term of LIS research in Pakistan. Significant growth in the Pakistani LIS literature has been seen over the years. Most of the literature has been published during the last decade, showing the great impact of the Master’s and PhD programmes initiated by different universities in Pakistan. The University of the Punjab has been the leading university in producing LIS literature in Pakistan, and its LIS school, the Department of Information Management, remains the most productive in publishing research related to LIS. The findings of the study also highlight a reasonable contribution by overseas LIS schools where Pakistani expatriate LIS professionals are working and conducting research. This study also confirms the findings of previous researchers regarding the prevailing single-authorship pattern existing in LIS research in Pakistan. The study also witnesses a shift from a single-authorship to collaborative-authorship pattern, but the joint contribution of more than three authors is still negligible. Faculty have played a major role in the generation of Pakistani LIS literature and the contribution of LIS professionals is also promising. The Department of Information Management at the University of the Punjab emerged as the most prolific and collaborative LIS school, and has produced the highest number of collaborative works at the departmental, LIS school, international and interdisciplinary levels. Khalid Mahmood, Kanwal Ameen and Rubina Bhatti have been shown to be the most prolific authors, with 133, 92 and 88 publications, respectively. Although Pakistani LIS researchers have preferred two Pakistani journals for their publications, more than half of their publications have appeared in quality foreign journals. It is encouraging to examine the findings regarding the area of research through the keywords of the publications, which suggests a good coverage of subjects by Pakistani LIS researchers. Among the top-10 most cited articles, Shaheen Majid and Khalid Mahmood are the most cited authors, appearing five times each without producing any joint publications. Only one article among the top-10 most cited articles had single authorship, otherwise all of the remaining publications were the product of collaborative research conducted by more than one author. The most cited publications were contributed by expatriate Pakistani researchers and only a few articles resulting from local research have shown any impact.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Asif Altaf

Author biographies

Nadeem Siddique is a head of Department (HoD), Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. He earned his doctorate from University of the Punjab, Pakistan. He has more than 20 years teaching, research and professional experience at university level in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. His research interests focus on library automation, library software, content analysis and bibliometrics.

Shafiq Ur Rehman is an associate professor & head, Information, Learning & Research Commons (ILRC), Deanship of Library Affairs, Imam Abdulrehman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He earned his doctorate from France with highest distinction. He has more than 20 years teaching, research and professional experience at university level in France, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. He has published more than 30 research articles, supervised many postgraduate research theses, worked for some research journals as editor, reviewer and editorial board member and conducted various trainings on research methodology and information literacy. His research interests focus on library service quality, user satisfaction, LIS research, knowledge sharing, library leadership and bibliometric.

Muhammad Ajmal Khan is a head, Library Quality and Academic Accreditation, Deanship of Library Affairs, Imam Abdulrehman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has more than 25 years of research and professional experience at university level in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. His research interests focus on library automation, library software and bibliometrics.

Asif Altaf is an electronic resources librarian, Deanship of Library Affairs, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has more than 10 years of research and professional experience at university level in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. His research interests focus on electronic resources, library automation, social media and bibliometrics.

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Library and information science research in Pakistan: A bibliometric analysis,1957–2018

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Literature review

Research methodology

Data analysis

Chronological distribution of publications

Most productive organizations in Pakistani LIS research

Most productive LIS schools

Authorship pattern of Pakistani LIS researchers

Research contribution by authorship type

Research collaboration among LIS schools

Most prolific Pakistani LIS researchers

Most productive LIS journals

Frequently used keywords by Pakistani LIS researchers

Most cited publications

Discussion

Limitations and future research directions

Implications for policymakers

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biographies

References