RBU Journal of Library and Information Science Vol24-2022

Online Content of previous volumes (Full Text of Volume 22,23,24) available at:

https://lisrbu.wixsite.com/dlis/rbu-journal-of-lis

UGC – CARE enlisted Journal w.e.f. 14.6.2019

Previously it was under UGC List of Journals No. 45237, Sl. No. 2023

RBU JOURNAL OF

LIBRARY & INFORMATION SCIENCE

[Official organ of the Department of Library & Information Science]

Department of Library & Information Science

Rabindra Bharati University

Kolkata, India

Visit: http://rbu.ac.in/home/page/102

The RBU Journal of Library & Information science is a scholarly communication for education, research and

development of the Library & Information science field. It is published annually in print format only. This

publication is fully funded by Rabindra Bharati University; therefore it never asked any kind of charges or

publication fees or donations from the author. The first volume was published in the year 1997. It received ISSN

(0972-2750) in its 5th volume in the year 2001. From its 17th Volume published in the year 2015 the journal

become peer-reviewed (follows blind peer review process) by the eminent experts across the country. This

Journal was enlisted under UGC List of Journals No. 45237, Sl. No. 2023 when UGC published a list of

research journals published across the country in its website. Later this journal enlisted under UGC-CARE

List w.e.f. 14.6.2019. Present publication is its 24 th Volume published in the year 2022.

The RBU Journal of Library and Information Science was published under following Editors-

Professor Pinakinath Mukhopadhyay : Vol.1 to Vol. 11

Shri Salil Chandra Khan: Vol. 12 to Vol. 14

Dr Sudip Ranjan Hatua: Vol. 15 to Vol. 24 (continuing...)

For details please visit: http://rbu.ac.in/home/page/102

To view the content of the previous volumes and the full text e-copy of VOLUME 22, 23 & 24 please visit:


ii

UGC-CARE

RBU JOURNAL OF

LIBRARY & INFORMATION SCIENCE

(Peer Reviewed)

Volume 24, 2022; ISSN: 0972-2750

(see online at: http://rbu.ac.in/home/page/102 )

For details along with previous volumes’ content

(Full text of Volume 22, 23 & 24) visit:


Submission Guidelines

The RBU Journal of Library and Information Science

publishes original research findings, review articles,

practice outcome and survey results, integrate and

critically examine new information accumulated in recent

years in a particular subject field and specifically the

following categories in order to cater to the diverse needs

of its readership.

1. Research papers may describe completed research

efforts with results, analyses and implications to

practitioners, and should not exceed 15-20 pages in length.

2. Practice papers may describe new industry practices,

tools and methodologies, with emphases on practical

issues, problems and solutions, and should not exceed 10-

15 pages in length. Papers may also discuss the relevance

of theory to practice and applications.

3. Current Trends papers will reflect new or current trends,

thinking, perspectives and opinions in research and

practice, and should not exceed 8-12 pages in length.

4. Review papers should give a critical and analytical

perspective of related books, publications, methodologies,

practices, tools or systems, and should not exceed 5-6

pages in length.

Minimum standards for considering the submitted

manuscripts for peer-reviewing Papers must be written in

English Language. Text files should be prepared in MS

Word format double line space.

Page setup: Page size A4, orientation portrait; Margins:

mirror margins, top 3 cm, bottom 2 cm, inside 2.5 cm,

outside 2 cm, gutter 0.5 cm;

Objective-1-2 lines

Methodology-1-2 lines

Findings-2-3 lines

It should not more than 500 words. (Written in 12pt italics

Times New Roman font size)

Keywords

Author’s Guide

How to Send an Article?

Layout: header 1.7 cm (different odd and even), footer 1

cm, section start continuous, page alignment top; Font -

Times New Roman, 12 point. First Heading -14 bold

Times New Roman Second sub heading -12 bold Times

New Roman, Each next sub heading- 12 italics Times

New Roman

Preparation of the manuscript:

All original research articles should be structured in the

following manner.

• Title: The title should be concise and reflect the entire

work of the submitted manuscript. (Written

in 14pt bold Times New Roman font size)

• Names of all authors need to be indicated below the title

(Written in 12 bold Times New

Roman font size)

• More than one author should display side by side with a

tab space (5)

• Department/Affiliation: bellow of each author, 10pt

Times New Roman, centered University/Institution: 10pt

Times New Roman, centered

Address: 10pt Times New Roman, centered

Email: account@xxxxxx.xx (10pt Times New Roman,

centered)

Abstract

Abstracts should clearly state the purpose of the work,

methods used, key findings and major conclusion drawn

from the work in the following format-

Introduction-2-3lines

Purpose-1-2 lines

Research problem-1-2 lines

The author should provide 3 to 6 key words,

characterizing the scope of the paper, the main plant

material used and the central aspect of the work.

Keywords should be presented below the (Written in 10pt

bold Times New Roman font size)

iii

Layout of article

Layout of article should maintain minimum following

pattern-

• Introduction: State the background and mention clearly

the objective of the present work.

• Literature Review – minimum last ten years

• Problem Identification- Research question and draw

hypothesis

• Methodology-All methods used should be clearly

mentioned

• Data collection and analysis- How and which method

followed? How it has been analyzed?

• Findings- What specific finding have occurred?

• Conclusion - Give the major conclusion from the present

study.

Acknowledgement - Acknowledge those persons who

helped you in the present study by providing facilities,

personal assistance and funding if any.

In text Citation

In text citation is mandatory. It should follow APA

style only using surnames (year) approach.

For using Table Chart and Diagram

For each table text or data should use Arial font in

8 size. If a data table is good enough to represent

the concept unnecessary pie, bar or any other

diagram need not to be use. The caption of the

table should be placed under the table in center

using Table- No : title; format with Arial 9 font

italics.

For chart use the same pattern and use Chart- No:

tile ; and for figure user Figure- No. : title of the

figure.

References & Footnotes

References to already published literature should

be numbered consecutively in the text and placed

within square brackets. Please adopt correct

referencing methods. Papers with incorrect

referencing and in-text citation are likely to be

rejected.

The citations should be placed at the end of the

paper in the sequence as they appear in the text.

References to personal communication and

unpublished literature should not be placed under

references, but should be cited in the text in

parentheses. Explanatory material should be given

in the appendix. Examples of citations to different

types of documents are given below:

(i) Journal Article

1. Gosh, B.K. (2004) Knowledge management policies

options. RBU Journal of Library andInformation Science.

41(3): 145–150.

(ix) Newspaper article

Matthews, L. (2011, November 23). Foodbanks urge

public to give generously. Manawatu Standard, p. 4.

(x) Newspaper (online)

Rogers, C. (2011, November 26). Smartphone could

replace wallets. The Dominion Post. Retrieved from

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/6038621/Smart

phone-could-replace-wallets

2. Neelameghan, A. & Gopinath, M. A. (1967). Research

in library classification.LibraryScience with a Slant to

Documentation. 4(2): 356–38

(ii) Book/Monograph

1. Ranganathan, S R. (1957) The Five Laws of Library

Science. 2nd ed. Mumbai: Asia Publishing House, 456p.

(iii) Chapter from a Book

1. Neelameghan, A. & Raghavan, K.S. (2012). Frames of

knowledge: a perspective of Vedic-Hinduism and

Dravidian culture. In: Cultural frames of knowledge,

edited by Richard, P Smiraglia & Hur-li Lee. Wursburg,

Germany, 2012, 19–61.

(iv) Conference Paper

1. Ragahavan, K.S. & Neelameghan, A. Indic cultures and

concepts: Implications for knowledge organization. In

12th International ISKO Conference , 6–9 August 2012,

Mysore, India, edited by A. Neelameghan & K.S.

Raghavan, 2012, pp. 176–182.

(v) Conference paper (online)

Cannan, J. (2008). Using practice based learning at a dualsector

tertiary institution: A discussion of current practice.

In R. K. Coll, & K. Hoskyn (Eds.), Working together:

Putting the cooperative into cooperative education.

Conference proceedings of the New Zealand Association

for Cooperative Education, New Plymouth, New Zealand.

Retrieved from

http://www.nzace.ac.nz/conferences/papers/Proceedings_2

008.pdf

(v) Report

1. Birkler, John; Smith, Giles; Kent, Gleen A. & Johns on,

Robert V. (2000) An acquisition strategy, process, and

organisation for innovative systems. National Defence

Research Institute, RAND, USA, 2000. RAND-MR-1098-

0SD.

2. Lindsay, R.S. (1999) Tests of level B suits-protection

against chemical and biological warfare agents and

simulants: Executive summary. Edgewood Chemical

Biological Centre, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. July

1999. 14 p. AD-A3 68228; ECBC-TR-047.

(vi)

Serial / journal article (online from a database – e.g.

EBSCO) Marshall, M., Carter, B., Rose, K., & Brotherton,

A. (2009).Living with type 1 diabetes: Perceptions of

children and their parents. Journal of Clinical Nursing,

18(12), 1703-1710. Retrieved from

http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0962-1067

(vii) Internet – no author, no date

Pet therapy.(n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.holisticonline.com/stress/stress_pettherapy.htm

(viii) Blog post

Liz and Ellory. (2011, January 19). The day of dread(s)

[Blog post]. Retrieved from

http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Mel

bourne/St-Kilda/blog-669396.html

(xi) Thesis (print)

Smith, T. L. (2008). Change, choice and difference: The

case of RN to BN degree programmes for registered

nurses (Master’s thesis). Victoria University of

Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.

(xii)Thesis (online)

Mann, D. L. (2010). Vision and expertise for interceptive

actions in sport (Doctoral dissertation, The University of

iv

iv

New South Wales, Sydney, Australia). Retrieved

fromhttp://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/44704

(xiii) Wikis (including Wikipedia)

Moodle. (2011). Retrieved November 28, 2011, from

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle

The Reviewing Process

All submitted manuscripts are subjected to peerreview

by independent reviewers. Primary review

is made by Internal Editorial Team. Once the paper

is selected by primary editorial team, it sends to

the esteemed peers selected randomly across the

country. Peer reviews are done by double blinding

method where both the author and reviewer are

unaware of each other. Final decision of accepting

the article rests with the editor.

Final Selection

Verifying the Reviewer’s comment, finally the

editorial board will take decision to publish the

paper. As there is limited space once the paper

selected may publish in the next volume subject to

the availability of space.

Author will be informed if paper is not selected for

publication. No explanation will be given to the

author for not selection of his/her paper.

Submission Process

All manuscripts must be submitted in MS-Word

format through e-mail in the following

email address- lisrbu@gmail.com

After final selection of the article author has to

send the corrected softcopy (through e-mail) with

two hard copy (one side print) along with CD to

the following address along with a

DECLARATION stating its originality, integrity

and not anywhere send for publication before.

To,

Head (Editor)

Department of Library and Information Science


56A, B.T.Road

Kolkata-700050

Email: lisrbu@gmail.com

v

UGC CARE ENLISTED JOURNAL

(Peer Reviewed)

1 Revisiting Rabindranath Tagore through the Lens of Google Scholar

Subham Giri & Rupak Chakravarty

2 Assessment of Bibliometric visualizationon Agronomical research during 2001-2021

Arpita Roy Chowdhury & Ziaur Rahman

3 Library & Information Science research trends in Bangladesh: a bibliometric analysis

Md. Azizur Raman, Subrata Biswas & Anita Helen

4 Designing of Metadata Schema forSchool Repository: A Study through Metadata Schemas

Debasis Das & Dipika Barai

5 Scientometric Mapping of Library and Information Science Research among SAARC Countries

during 2012-2021

N. G. Thermi Moyon, Akhandanand Shukla, R. K. Ngurtinkhuma & S. Ravi

6 Integrating Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Existing Library Framework in Enhancing

Level of Users’ Satisfaction

Rajesh Chutia, Mukut Sarmah, Mousum Handique & Jose Rodolfo Hernandez-Carrion

7 Dependency of Information Seeking Behaviour on Maslow’s Needs Theory: a study based on

Rural People of PurbaBardhaman District with particular reference to Sargram Gram Panchayet

Uttam Kumar Hazra & Rajesh Das

8 Applicability of Lotka’s Inverse Square Law of Scientific Productivity in the field of Diabetes

Mellitus Type 1

Richa Arya & Babita Jaiswal

9 Growth of interdisciplinary subjects and its reflection in classification schemes: a case study of

Biophysics

Santashree Basu & Udayan Bhattacharya

10 Use of DRDO e-journals consortium by Scientists and Technical officers: An assessment of fifty

DRDO laboratories in India

Senthil, V. & Margam Madhusudhan

11 Voyant: a Text Analytic Tools in Digital Humanities

Sudip Ranjan Hatua

12 Learning Information necessities of Indian Small Scale Weaver Community

Mohd Shoaib Ansari, Aditya Tripathi & Sneha Tripathi

13 Journal Metrics of Web of Science (WoS) Indexed Library and Information Science (LIS)

Journals

Renjith V R & Sudhi S. Vijayan

14 Research visibility and productivity of state universities of Gujarat with special reference to

IRINS

Meghna Vyas, Jaydeep Mehta & Mayank Trivedi

15 Global research publication on open data: a scientometric analysis

Iranna M Shettar & Gururaj S. Hadagali

16 Sentiment analysis of digital information available on YouTube

Kanchan Pal & Sharad Kumar Sonkar

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RBU Journal of Library & Information Science

Volume 24, 2022

UGC – CARE enlisted Journal w.e.f. 14.6.2019

Previously it was under UGC List of Journals No. 45237, Sl. No. 2023

Visit: http://rbu.ac.in/home/page/102

Online Content of previous volumes (and full text e-copy of Volume 21& 22)

Visit: https://lisrbu.wixsite.com/dlis/rbu-journal-of-lis

Finally, all the educational institutions of West Bengal

officially opened from 8th February 2022 after removing

the suspension of long two and half years due to covid

panic, lockdown, social distancing, fear of contact.

However, even before the official announcement, the

public could no longer be controlled socially in the streets,

shops, markets, public transport, offices, courts, etc. Like

everyone else, the educational institutions also regained

their life. A glimpse of open fresh air as if the educational

institutions are alive. Educational institutions were

buzzing with students. I was surprised to see almost 100

percent attendance rate on the opening day of the

university. Everyone was waiting for this day. People are

going crazy to stay in virtual contact; the urge of people to

physically communicate with friends, colleagues,

acquaintances is unbelievable. Like all other departments,

the class room of the Department of Library and

Information Science, Rabindra Bharati University was

also filled with students who had almost completed a

semester. We saw each other physically for the first time.

The previous two batches graduated virtually and we did

not see them physically. So in the middle of the session,

seeing the students of this batch, we teachers and students

could not handle the emotion. All these boys and girls did

not go to school and colleges physical for almost two and

half years. It's a weird situation. It took some time to get

this situation under control. Meanwhile the department

gradually returned to its old mood. All departmental

academic activities have started smoothly.

Meanwhile, with the approval of the higher authority, the

department has started one of its important academic

works i.e.the publication of "RBU Journal of Library &

Information Science" Volume 24, 2022.

Local and global notifications were sent for this purpose

through email and website

(https://lisrbu.wixsite.com/dlis/rbu-journal-of-lis). Last

date for receive of manuscripts was 30th August 2022.

A large number of articles started arriving in mailbox

within few days of the notification. A team consisting of

departmental professors and research scholars initially

studies the articles and sends them to the Editorial Board

with their feedback. The editorial board selects the most

acceptable 25 articles from them for peer review.

A large number of articles started arriving in mailboxes

within few daysof the notification. A team consisting of

departmental professors and research scholars initially

studies the articles and sends them to the Editorial Board

with their feedback. 132 articles reached within the

specified period. Even after due date many articles keep

coming but due to our various limitations they are rejected

outright. The editorial board selected the most acceptable

25 articles from the 132 articles for peer review. All those

articles send nationally to the concern experts for review

following blind peer review process. Among them, 16

articles have finally been approved by their peers for

publication in this volume.

Meanwhile process was little delayed due to grand Bengali

festival Durga Puja- Laxmi Puja- Kali Puja/Deepavali.

This year's West Bengal Durga Puja has been recognized

by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Moreover, long two years we Bengalis could not celebrate

Durga Puja and other festivals due to lockdown. So this

year's festival was full of unbridled excitement and joy.

Along with that, UNESCO's recognition made it

internationalize. Various international media say that

Bengali Durga Puja celebration beats Brazil's Carnival or

Sydney's New Year's celebration.

So as a part of this festival we also participated in this

festival with pure heart. Because of that, our publication

work has been delayed a bit. Moreover, many writers have

had to send their writing back for updates and revisions.

Many could not send the required documents on time.

But I sincerely thank all my experts as editors for sending

their review reports within minimum time.

Like last few years this time too the overall quality of

writing is not very promising. More than 70% of the

writings are based on surveys, user studies, library use,

bibliometrics, scientometrics and community information

services. It is unfortunate for the profession that there are

very few hardcore research articles are generating from

library science researchers, faculties or librarians. This

picture bodes ill for library science education, research and

practice across India.

We are proud of the fact that we have been able to publish

a research journal in library and information science for

the past 24 years uninterruptedly from a very small

department in a small university of the country despite

many constraints and limitations; we never compromised

on the standard and quality of this journal. It has gained

acceptance among library and information science

professionals, faculties, research scholars and schools

across the country as well as recognition from the UGC

since its inception. As a reward this journal has become a

household name in the field of library and information

science in the country today.

I am proud to be the representative of this department of

Rabindra Bharati University and the editor since last 10

volumes uninterruptedly. Last but not the least I sincerely

thanks to all contributors who has chosen RBU Journal of

Library& Information Science, Vol 24, 2022 to publish

their article.

Good wishes to all

Dr Sudip Ranjan Hatua

Editor

vii

Sincerely convey my Thanks and

Gratitude to Ms Rupa Gorai Mondal

(Ex-M.Lib.I.Sc. Student) for design the

Cover page.

RBU Journal of library & Information Science, V. 24, 2022

UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Manuscript Received on –

17 th August 2022

Primary Reviewed on –

1 st September 2022

Peer Reviewed on –

12 th September 2022

Accepted for publication

18 th October 2022

Revisiting Rabindranath Tagore through the Lens of Google

Scholar: a Unique Approach

Subham Giri & Rupak Chakravarty

ABSTRACT:

Subham Giri

Research Scholar (Ph.D)

Department of Library and

Information Science

Panjab University, Chandigarh

giri.s@pu.ac.in

Dr Rupak Chakravarty

Professor


Information Science

Panjab University, Chandigarh

rupak@pu.ac.in

Introduction:Google Scholar can search for publications from any source that Google,

the world's largest search engine, can find. Furthermore, there are no restrictions on

the languages that GS indexes. Regardless of the sources, GS covers all the channels

that it can find.

Purpose:The present study attempts to explore the indexing policy and coverage of

Google Scholar in terms of the inclusion of Rabindranath Tagore’s literature. It also

unsheathes the productivity portrait of Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate in

literature .

Research problem:Earlier, no study was undertaken to highlight Tagore's visibility in

Google Scholar (GS). The unavailability of the GS profile cannot portray the

bibliometric image of Tagore.

Objectives: A complete scenario of Tagore's literature indexed by Google Scholar will

be manifested and evaluated here in terms of citation metrics. The over-inclusive

nature of the Google Scholar indexing policy will also be highlighted here.

Methodology:During this research, a verified GS profile was designed for the first time

to manifest Tagore's presence with his writings under the GS database.

Findings: Accumulated data congregated from Tagore’s GS profile reveals that the

poet possesses 6246 citations. The indexes (h, g, i10) reveal the vogue of Tagore by

displaying high numeric values. The top five cited novels also have visibility in this

study. A year-wise citation graph of the author’s GS profile is demonstrated in the

latter part. Tagore’s citation per paper value is 12.45. The unyielding popularity of

Tagore’s literature makes the citation graph continuously rise.

KEYWORDS:

Rabindranath Tagore; Citation Matrix; Vogue of Tagore

1


Introduction

Figure: 1- The Nobel Prize Medal Photo: Alexander Mahmoud; source: https://www.nobelprize.org/

On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last

will, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series

of prizes, the Nobel Prizes. Nobel Prize considers

only the fields of literature, physics, chemistry,

Physiology or Medicine, Economics, and peace for

honouring Nobel. Glittering personalities of the

fields that have a strong presence in any pioneer &

outstanding 'works' for the betterment of mankind are

being selected for getting this highest honour. Alfred

Nobel benchmarked predefined criteria for getting

this prize in the earlier mentioned seven fields.

Whereas in the case of Nobel in Peace ‘work’

signifies any “peaceful instance means the person

who shall have done the most or the best work for

fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction

of standing armies and for the holding and promotion

of peace congresses.” (Excerpt from the will of

Alfred Nobel). However, Literature laureates were

defined in Nobel’s will as “the person who shall have

produced in the field of literature the most

outstanding work in an ideal direction” (Facts on the

Nobel Prize (2020). The other five fields also have

guidelines for getting a Nobel. The essence of the

guidelines considers those works for Nobel which is

'pioneer invention' or those have 'outstanding literal

value'. This study has a focal point that concentrates

on a Nobel Laureate, who belongs to the field of

Literature meanwhile; the will's note demonstrated

about the Literature laureate was described.

The study focuses on Rabindranath Tagore, a

renowned Nobel Laureate who belongs to the field of

literature. However, he was a pioneer Noble laureate

of India who glorified our country in 1913. Tagore

became the first Non-European Nobel laureate of

literature who established his presence in the world

of Nobel laureates by qualifying the will of Alfred

Nobel for Nobel in literature - "author who shall

have produced in the field of literature the most

outstanding work in an ideal direction …” (Excerpt

from the will of Alfred Nobel). To make this study

feasible the pivotal point of the research is

2


concentrated towards the available literature on

Tagore under the Google Scholar database.

Facts on the Nobel Prize in Literature, (2015)

website highlighted that between 1901 and 2020, 117

Nobel laureates have been awarded around the

world. The fact is that not all of these 120 years have

had literature chosen for the Nobel Prize. In

literature, there were 16 female laureates and 101

male laureates in only 113 years. In the years 1914,

1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943, no Nobel

Prize in Literature was awarded. “If none of the

works under consideration is determined to be of the

importance indicated in the first paragraph, the award

money will be reserved until the following year,”

according to the Nobel Foundation. If the reward

cannot be given even then, the money will be put to

the Foundation's restricted funds.” There were fewer

Nobel Prizes granted during World Wars I and II.

(Facts on the Nobel Prize)

A Nobel laureate is dignified mostly for his or her

one novel 'work' but passes over that various

valuable 'works' also accomplished by them that are

unturned. This research will contemplate all the

'unturned literature' with 'Nobel work' available

under Google Scholar (GS) database.

In the broader sense, the universe of the subject is

divided into science& technology, social science, and

humanities. Digital Humanities make a bridge

between technology and humanities. This research

also tries to make a bridge by making archives using

Google Scholar (GS) database. Here archiving

attribute of the Google Scholar (GS) database is

going to evaluate by making Rabindranath Tagore's

GS profile by agglomerating Tagore's works of

literature that are scattered all over the GS database.

After selecting one by one document an archive for a

particular author (e.g. Rabindranath Tagore) will be

made. By creating that GS profile a scenario of

citation and Indexes (h, g, I 10.) of Tagore will be

documented and analyzed.


Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta. Tagore

began to write verses at an early age. In the late

1870s from England, he completed his study. After

returning to India he published several books of

poetry starting in the 1880s. In 1901, Tagore initiated

an experimental school in Shantiniketan where he

agglomerated the best of Indian and Western

traditions.

Rabindranath Tagore's writing is enormously

populated in both Indian and Western learning

traditions. Apart from fiction in the world of poetry,

songs, stories, and dramas he manifested his own

appearance. His literature also includes portrayals of

common people's lives, literary criticism, philosophy,

and social issues. Tagore's writings were in Bengali

but later reached a broad audience all over the world

after recasting his poetry in different languages. In

contrast to the frenzied life in the West, his

melancholy poetry was felt to convey the peace of

the soul in harmony with nature.

Figure: 2-Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive

Tagore has a prominent footprint in the area of

songs. Nowadays also his 2230 songs are

consistently popular among Bengali-speaking people

who generally belong from Bangladesh & the states

of eastern India (Eg. West Bengal, Assam). The

popular name in usage is Rabindrasangit, which

refers to Tagore's songs. His songs certainly reflect

Indian culture. He is supposed to be the only laureate

who wrote the national anthem for two countries

those are AmarShonarBangla, the national anthem

of Bangladesh and the national anthem of India Jana

GanaMana.

As a poet, Tagore's work was not confined to poems;

he also created a strong presence in a variety of

literary forms. Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar

Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910)

[Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of

Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes] are

only a few of his notable works. The Gardener

(1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive

(1921) are among the English translations of his

poetry that do not always correspond to specific

volumes in the Bengali original; and, despite its title,

Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed

of them, contains poems from other works besides its

namesake. Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark

Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office],

Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara

(1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red

Oleanders] are some of Tagore's most well-known

dramas. Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The

Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929)

[Crosscurrents] are just a few of his short story

collections and novels. He also composed music and

dance dramas, articles of various kinds, trip diaries,

and two memoirs, one in his middle years and the

other soon before he died in 1941. Tagore also left a

large number of sketches and paintings, as well as

songs for which he composed the music.

Rabindranath Tagore also had his presence in

politics. He was in support of the Indian nationalists

for Freedom movement. Furthermore, Tagore

travelled, lectured, and read his poetry extensively in

Europe, the Americas, and East Asia and became a

spokesperson for Indian independence from British

colonial rule. His work Manifests his political views.

He also wrote many patriotic songs that are

evergreen. There was great love among the masses

for such works. Tagore escalated the motivation for

Indian independence.

Tagore renounced his knighthood, which was

particularly notable. In addition, he did so in protest

of the 1919 JallianwalaBagh massacre.

Finally, Rabindranath Tagore was a patriotic Indian.

He was unquestionably a multi-talented individual.

His contributions to literature, the arts, music, and

politics have all been outstanding.

Review of Literature

3


The reason behind choosing Rabindranath

Tagore

Ray, (2012) apprised Rabindranath Tagore, the

multi-talented poet, and writer, who wrote his first

poem at the age of eight, and by the time he died at

the age of eighty, he had created literature in all

forms, including poetry, short stories, novels, and

essays; he had founded and edited various journals;

he had written thousands of letters, and he had

created over two thousand paintings . (Ray(2012))

Figure:3-When Gandhi met the literature laureate,Rabindranath

Tagore, in the year 1940. (Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/)

Ray &Sen, (2012) also added Rabindranath, the

writer of two national anthems, has composed more

than two thousand songs.

Ray & Sen, (2015) highlighted Tagore, India's Nobel

Laureate poet, who was praised for his prolific

publishing output. Between 1878 and 1941, he

published 199 Bengali books, with 36 titles being

published posthumously, for a total of 235 Bengali

publications. When he entered the world of painting

in his seventies (the last decade of his life), his

literary output unexpectedly rose rather than

decreased. In addition to generating almost 2000

paintings, he wrote 55 books. Tagore's output

included poems, dramas, letters, novels, essays,

ballads, travelogues, comedies, short tales, addresses,

textbooks, and autobiographies, among other genres.

His Bengali book productivity coefficient is 0.84,

indicating that he had a consistent publication record

throughout his literary career. He has published 91 of

his 95 short stories on 16 different platforms. Short

tales have a publishing density of 5.69, a publication

concentration of 12.5, and a productivity coefficient

of 0.32." (Albion (2012))

Previously, several scientometrics research projects

on the works of Nobel Laureate scientists

(Kademani, Kalyane and Kademani,(1996);

Kademani, Kalyane and Jange. (1999); Gupta(1999);

Kademani, Kalyane and Kademani (1994)) had been

completed. Other investigations have been reported

into the works of other prominent scientists

(Hazarika, Sarma and Sen (2010); Kademani and

Kalyane (1996); Kademani, Kalyane,

Balakrishnan(1994); Kademani, Kalyane and

Kademani (1996);) to create a scientometric portrait

of them. However, Nobel Laureate Rabindranath

Tagore's scientometrics analysis was not completed

sooner.

The reason behind choosing Google Scholar

Harzing AW, and Alakangas S. (2016) observed

Google scholar has been used successfully by

individual researchers to track their scholarly output

and citation and is thought to be as good as many

other search engines as a source of bibliometric data.

Thoma, B., & Chan, T. M. (2019) identified the case

of SCOPUS (Elsevier) and Web of Science cost

money to access and don't make their results publicly

available but GS is open access so anyone can use it

without paying fees. Further, while SCOPUS and

4


Web of Science can track and merge the publication

metrics of individual faculty, they have more

difficulty tracking more ambiguous research groups.

Research Gate provides a free service that can be

used by research or project groups; however, its

citation tracking is incomplete because it is limited to

the papers that have been uploaded to Research Gate.

(Citations ResearchGate(2019).But GS is out of all

types of problems faced by SCOPUS, Web of

Science, and Research Gate.

Martín-Martín, A. et al. (2020) presented findings

after Considering the most famous citation data

sources like Microsoft Academic, Dimensions,

OpenCitations Index (COCI), Web of Science

(WoS), Scopus, and Google Scholar a differentiation

in the citation was made which reflects Google

Scholar found 88% of all citations, many of which

were not found by the other sources, and nearly all

citations found by the remaining sources (89–94%).

Birkle et al. (2020) highlighted that in terms of

record coverage, WoS covers more than 75 million

records in its Core Collection (which includes its

main citation indexes) and up to 155 million records

when other regional and subject-specific citation

indexes are included. Baas et al. (2020) showed up

that Scopus claims to have access to over 76 million

records. Van Noorden (2014) identified Google

Scholar does not disclose official coverage figures,

Delgado López-Cózar et al. (2019) & Gusenbauer

(2018) spotlighted recent independent studies

estimated that shows GS covers well over 300

million records.

Harzing (2019) used her publication and citation

record, as well as that of six top journals in Business

& Economics, to compare Dimensions and CrossRef

coverage to that of WoS, Scopus, Google Scholar,

and Microsoft Academic. Cross-Ref and Dimensions

had comparable or better coverage of publications

and citation counts to WoS and Scopus but were

significantly lower than Google Scholar and

Microsoft Academic.

Bar-Ilan et al. (2012) GS has several features that can

be attractive to educational researchers. Researchers

create an “editable, verified (using an institutional

email) profile including their details, a list of their

papers, and citations to those papers” .

Ortega (2015) notes that the appeal of GS lies in that

it makes possible the definition of specific research

units, mainly researchers, which can be compared

with others inside the same institution or research

interest. In addition, the comprehensive coverage of

research materials in GS favours that these pages

offer a wide view of the research production and

impact. And finally, the fact that these profiles are

publicly available helps that an author can be

appreciated for a broader range of academic

activities.

After reviewing some literature dealing with GS it

can be summarized that GS is worldwide popular due


to its openness and easy-to-use user interface.

Considering the popularity of GS this research was

carried out.

7.To compute the duration of being citied.

8.To prepare the ratio of citations per year.

9.To study the ratio of authors per paper.

Research Gap

Inferences are drawn from the review of literature

that educators and researchers of different subjects

utilize the features of GS worldwide. Superiority in

features and unpaid access establish worldwide

acceptance of GS. Nobel laureates also from the area

of chemistry, physics, economics, and medicine have

their profiles under the GS database. But in the case

of literature laureates, the scenario is different. They

have several documents under the GS database but

those are not archived under individual GS profiles.

This research will create and exhibits a sample GS

profile of Tagore to prove its impressive presence

with citations of writings under the GS database. To

the best of my knowledge, there have been no prior

studies that investigated the stability of Google

Scholar coverage of Tagore's Literature. Thus this

research chooses GS Database for making archives

for Tagore's Literature. That archive also helps to

exhibit the scientometrics data of Tagore.

Research Questions

The following questions will be answered after my

study

Q1. What is the GS Idof Rabindranath Tagore?

Q2. What is the scenario GS profile of Tagore?

Q3. What are the total citations of Tagore’s

Literature?

Q4. What are the values of Indexes (h, g, I 10) of

Tagore’s GS profile?

Q5. Which is the most cited work of Tagore on

GS?

Q6. How many times has the 'Nobel Work' been

cited?

Q7. What is the year-wise total citation?

Q8. What is the duration of being cited?

Q9. What is the ratio of citations per year?

Q10. What is the ratio of authors per paper?

Objectives

1.To preserve and accumulate Tagore's literature

under the author's profile by creating those profiles

in the GS database.

2.To measure the current acceptance of Tagore’s

literature in respect of the GS document’s total

number, citations, h index, i10 index.

3.To rank the most prolific Nobel laureates in

literature based on GS documents.

4.To identify the highest cited literature.

5.To showcase the citation of ‘Nobel Work’.

6.To calculate year-wise total citation.

5


Scope of the Study

The main focus of this research is archiving Tagore’s

literature under the GS database systematically. After

completion of this process citation, the data will be

collected and analyzed. The importance and

acceptance of Tagore’s literature in the current era

also scrutinize during this study. This research

accesses his literature’s usefulness in modern

literature by analyzing citations. Tagore’s GS profile

also will be available anytime from anywhere via the

internet.

A limitation of this study is the dependency on GS

ergo this study can only review those writings

catalogued by the GS database whereas; GS

sheltered most of the literature of Tagore. GS also

enveloped Tagore's pieces of literature that are

published in different languages however this study

eliminated all those that were not published in

English or Bengali language as Tagore's mostly

writings are in these two languages. The early stage

of Tagore's writing was the Bengali language biased

as he belongs to the Bengali speaking community

however later his writings are being translated into

English.

Here in this study, Tagore's literature was considered

because his literature carries the impression of the

culture of that particular nation from where the

author belongs. Literature has a strong connection

with the culture so both are interlinked.

This research also qualifies the interest area of

Digital Humanities (DH) by including both culture

and literature. DH has multiple subfields but this

topic comes under the subfields like Archiving

&Data analytics. Another reason behind choosing

this topic is the unavailability of a GS account of

Tagore.

Research Methodology

Here for this research, a GS profile for Tagore’s

literature was created by following the undermentioned

steps in Figure1. During the process of

GS profile creation, most articles were added one

after another. As the GS profile holder is not alive so

the profile update option is not useful for this

scenario. To calculate accurate citations and indexes

all those writings having the same name with

multiple copies available under GS were merged.

Duplicate and false entries were creating ambiguity

in the scientometric data of Tagore therefore merging

of duplicate copies and deletion of false entries

solved this issue. Tagore's GS profile creation

demanded continuous manual interference for getting

real data. Subsequently, Tagore's GS profile was

analyzed by using different tools and methods.

Results & Discussion

Tagore's GS profile holds various attractive citation

matrices. All data is sorted in table 1 with actual

numeral values.

Serial No Matrices Value

1 Citation 6246

2 H-index 36

3 G-index 71

4 i-10 index 99

5 Author’s Citation/Paper 12.45

Table-1: Prime findings of the research

Figure 1: Steps of the proposed research

Methodological Hurdles

It is not as easy as the research sounds. Every

literature of Tagore demands careful review before

adding under any GS profile. After reviewing various

literature some hurdles were identified to be

overcome, those are:

This study also perceived two key drawbacks of GS

during the making of Tagore’s GS profile. GS has a

pivotal drawback of not including more than 3000

thousand documents under a GS profile. More than

30 duplicate documents also can’t be merged under a

single original article.

Over 3000 documents can’t be inlaid under any GS

profile. Whereas after overcoming these hurdles

Tagore’s profile was made and from that profile data

were collected and presented under table 1.

Unrealistic Data Range

This research will concentrate also on that laureate

who does not alive so any new publication after the

death of an author will be judged and verified

carefully before adding under any GS profile. In this

case, there is a chance of implausible data entry.

Multiple Dates

Some pieces of literature also have multiple

publication dates which include the same title with

different years of publication on this matter also have

to take care of.

Literature without Author

Under GS various articles don’t have their author

name or not holding proper author names.

Duplicate Entry

Duplication of the record is another problem of this

research. Under GS same article takes place multiple

times. In this case, the same title will be identified

and merged under a single title, or else the profile

indexes (h, g, i10) show the wrong result.

Data Clinging

Under GS database various authors have the same

name so have to choose the right author with the

right publication is one of the crucial points.

6


Figure-5: GS profile of Tagore

The GS profile of Rabindranath Tagore seems like

old wine in a new cup that depicts all of the citation

matrices. Figure5 is the screengrab of the author’s

profile with ID (giDssRQAAAAJ) denoted under the

blue rectangle with a red arrow. Whereas Tagore's

GS profile ID is not visible publicly under the GS

database as the right to use this ID is restricted to the

two authors of this article. This is the prime profile

built by the authors of this research paper that profile

played a key role in the study.


Figure-6: Top five cited Literature

Figure-7: Citation Metrics

Figure-8: Citation counts (1983-2021)

Tagore’s pieces of literature were mostly cited (514

times) in the year 2020. Further, in the years

2017(513 times), 2016 (453 times), 2018 (445

times), and 2015 (428 times) Tagore's works of

literature were cited most of the time. In Figure8, the

year-wise citation of Tagore’s literature, from the

year 1983 to 2021 was manifested. Based on

Figure6, the top five cited pieces of literature are as

follows in descending order Gitanjali, The Religion

Man, Home and the World, Sadhana, and Creative

Unity. However, the top most cited one is that

masterpiece for which Tagore was being renowned

all over the world by getting Nobel.

Scientometrics data of Tagore's literature

undermined in figure6, figure7& figure8 adopted

from GS unveils the popularity of Tagore's writings

through the citation world. The faculties and research

scholars who belong to the Literature field were not

very visible under GS with their profiles, whereas the

GS database indexed their articles. The unavailability

of the GS profile of the writers who belong to the

literature field can't portray the scientometric picture

of those penmen. Therefore, it is necessary to

amalgamate one's writings under a GS profile to

evaluate the acceptance and quality of literature.

Tagore's GS profile creation gives the impression

that GS did not have biases towards the contents of

science and social science. It also includes articles

from the literature. Ergo GS provides an opportunity

for all the authors as they can easily flourish in their

profile.

7


Conclusion

The romantic & melancholy art exhibited in the

novels of Rabindranath came from his empathy with

the beauty and mystery in nature deeply rooted in

social, family, and individual life. Reflection on

changing social history was showcased in his novels.

His short stories unveiled the problems relating to

personal, familial, social, etc. These reflections can

never be measured with mere scientometrics

indicators. To realize the depth of Tagore's literature

is implausible, however, by analyzing the

scientometrical values this study was trying to gauge

the popularity of the author's works of literature. The

matrices of citation denote Tagore's pieces of

literature have a huge impact & applicability in

different fields. Qualitatively enriched literature

builds huge followers who are passionate about

Tagore's literature.

Various unpredictable hurdles and opportunities have

appeared during the process but this research tried to

overcome all the hurdles and welcomed all

opportunities by which it can add more value. In the

process of archiving under GS always manual

verification of each entry was contemplated as data

clinging and the data accuracy part could not be

compromised. GS was released in 2004 but this

research will archive and analyze those documents

which are published before 2004 also. This research

had the motive to draw the scientometrics portrait of

Tagore.

While considering the scientometrics productivity of

Rabindranath one should not forget that

Rabindranath not only expressed his vision on

society, education, rural development, and religion,

through his numerous writings but he established his

experimental school at Santiniketan and rural

reconstruction program at Sriniketan. Ray, P., &Sen,

B. (2015) narratedTagore wished to “bring to the

village health and knowledge, wealth and peace in

which to live, wealth of time in which to work and to

rest and enjoy”. Not only was a writer he was

famous but also he has a huge impact on social &

educational reformation.

References

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measures among the Australian education

professoriate. The Australian Educational

Researcher, 39(2), 221–235

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&Karimi, R. (2020). Scopus as a curated, highquality

bibliometric data source for academic

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H., &Terliesner, J. (2012). Beyond citations:

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Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on

Science and Technology Indicators (pp. 98–

109).arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.5611.

Birkle, C., Pendlebury, D. A., Schnell, J., & Adams,

J. (2020).Web of Science as a data source for

research on scientifc and scholarly activity.

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et/display/ support/Citations.Accessed 22 Jan 2019.

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&Martín-Martín, A. (2019). Google Scholar as a data

source for research assessment. In W. Glaenzel, H.

Moed, U. Schmoch, & M. Thelwall (Eds.), Springer

handbook of science and technology indicators.

Berlin: Springer

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Literature.NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB

2020.Tue. 29 Dec 2020.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/facts/facts-on-thenobel-prize-in-literature

Gupta, D K. (1999). Chandrasekhar: winner of the

Nobel Prize for physics: a citation analysis of his

work, Annals of Library and Information Studies,

30(14) 177-184.

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overshadow them all?Comparing the sizes of 12

academic search engines and bibliographic

databases.Scientometrics.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11

192-018-2958-5

Harzing AW, Alakangas S. (2016). Google Scholar,

Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and

cross-disciplinary comparison. Scientometrics.

106:787–804.

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How do Crossref and Dimensions compare with

Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and

the Web of Science? In Scientometrics (Vol. 120,

Issue 1, pp. 341–349).Springer,

Netherlands.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-

03114-y

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biometeorologist, Annals of Library and Information

Studies, 57 (1) 21-32

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Informetrics, 2 (4) 49-58

8



Kademani B S, Kalyane V L and Balakrishnan, M R.

(1994). Scientometric portrait of P. K. Iyengar,

Library Science, 31 (4) 155-176

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of Rabindranath Tagore): a bibliometric study,

SRELS Journal of Information Management, 49(4)

343-358.

About Authors

Mr. Subham Giriis presently serving as a Senior

Library &Information Assistant (SLIA) at the Central

Institute ofPsychiatry, Ranchi, MoHFW, Govt. of

India. In the year 2021, he enrolled as a PhD scholar

at Panjab University,Chandigarh. He completed

5Years Integrated MLIS from University of Calcutta

in 2017. His Google Scholar ID:SieVLLwAAAAJ

Dr Rupak Chakravartyis currently serving as a

Professor at the DLIS,Panjab University, Chandigarh

since 2006. He has served as resource person in over

150 conferences, skilling and capacity building

workshops. He has authored morethan 100 research

papers published in national and international

journals with 400+citations and 10 h-index. He has

also served as Associate Editor of the DOAJ for

threeconsecutive years. He has contributed five

modules and video lectures for e-PGPathshala and

Vidya-mitra respectively under NME-ICT.

Ray, P P.(2012). Tagore in print: a comparative

study before and after the expiry of copyright,

(Concept Publishing; New Delhi), p. 87-108.

Ray, P., &Sen, B. (2015). Publications of

Rabindranath Tagore: A bibliometric study. Annals

of Library and Information Studies, 62, 177–185.

Thoma, B., & Chan, T. M. (2019).Using Google

Scholar to track the scholarly output of research

groups. Perspectives on Medical Education, 8(3),

201–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-0515-4

Van Noorden, R. (2014). November 7).Google

Scholar pioneer on search engine’s future.Nature.

https:// doi.org/10.1038/nature.2014.16269.

9



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Assessment of Bibliometric Visualization on Agronomical

Research during 2001-2021


30 th August 2022


8 th September 2022


13 th October 2022


20 th October 2022

Arpita Roy Chowdhury & Ziaur Rahman

ABSTRACT:

Arpita Roy Chowdhury

Senior Research Fellow


Information Science,

Rabindra Bharati University , Kolkata

arprc015@gmail.com

DrZiaur Rahman

Assistant Professor


Information Science,

Rabindra Bharati University , Kolkata

ziaur.rahman@rbu.ac.in

Introduction:Agronomy is an extensive research area under agricultural sciences. It

deals with the study of crops and the soils in which they grow. This paper focuses on

the quantitative assessment of numerical data, based on agronomical research using

the Web of Science (WoS) platform.

Purpose:The purpose of this study was to illustrate various network analysis and

overlay visualization on agronomical research. During this entire time period, we

analyzed several parameters such as temporal growth, co-authorship pattern,

geographical-wise distribution, core research areas, co-occurrences of author

keywords, most cited articles, and highly influential authors.

Methodology:Entire data was extracted from various editions of the citation Index

under WoS core collection during the tenure 2001-2021 using tab delimited file and fed

into open-source reference management software Zotero. Further analysis was done

using MS Excel and VoSViewer software for mapping the entire raw data into a

visualized format.

Findings:It is observed that out of the total 2487 publications analyzed USA has an

average citation per paper (ACPP) of 45.25 and link strength of 388 hence leading the

top position among 132 countries, Institut national de la recherche Agronomique

(INRAE) France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment

tops the chart among 2964 organization with 51.98 ACPP, Heliyon is the most

preferred journal from a total of 937 journals and Jeuffroy Marie Helene from France

has the highest collaboration among all other authors.

KEYWORDS:

Agronomy; Agricultural Sciences; Network Visualization-Agricultural Science

10


Introduction

Agronomy is an area that counts under science and

technology for producing plants and using plants for

food, fibre, chemicals, fuels, etc. It is mainly a

research on plant physiology, meteorology, plant

genetics, and soil science. The application is a

combination of sciences under biology, chemistry,

ecology, earth science, genetics, and economics. It

involves breeding and selective breeding of plants to

produce the best crops under various conditions that

may be favourable or critical. Plant breeding has

eventually increased crop yield and improved the

nutritional value of various crops such as corn,

soybean, and wheat. It has led to the development of

a new type of plant, a hybrid produced by crossbreeding

rye and wheat named triticale. It has more

protein as compared to either wheat or rye (The

American Society of Agronomy, 2022). In addition

to improving crop yield biotechnology is also applied

to increase novel content other than food. For

example, oilseed used for food oils can also be

modified to produce fatty acids for detergents and

petrochemicals in industrial use. Soil science has

been made more productive and profitable by

agronomists in classifying soils and analyzing them

based on their nutrients for controlling plant growth.

Macro nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus,

calcium, and micro-nutrients like Zinc and boron are

assessed and tested in the laboratory to interpret

these lab reports in modifying soil nutrients for

optimal plant growth. Any type of Agricultural

research is generally well-defined and improves the

quality of crops through their genetic improvement,

better plant protection, irrigation, storage methods,

farm mechanization, etc. (Loebenstein

&Thottappilly,2007).

The present study used methods of bibliometric

analysis quantitatively to map research on this

domain. A bibliometric study was adopted for

Horticulture research topics specifically on oilbearing

plants exposed to water stress(Kulak

et.al.,2019). The present study aimed to evaluate

global research publications on agronomy based on

the data obtained from the Web of Science database

using open-source software and visualization tools.

The scattering of publications and classification of

topics with their progress was assessed over the

years. Contributions from several countries and

collaboration by authors were also addressed.

Dedicated attention was also given to this research

topic and research fronts on a global scale.

Literature review

The literature review is one of the important parts of

any research work. It represents the related work in

the field of study on the basis of the past and present

status of this research topic. A bibliometric study

was analyzed on 2955 articles of global research on

Muskmelon extracted from WoS. The analysis was

done based on publication year, co-authorship

pattern, subject area, and keyword frequency(Yuan,

Bie& Sun, 2021). Another study was published in

IASLIC Bulletin research publications from 2015 to

2019. They examined the year-wise growth,

authorship pattern, geographical distribution, an

affiliation of authorship, degree of collaboration, and

regional distribution of authors (More & Motewar,

2021). A search query on "Health-related literature"

studied from 1980 to 2019 reflected a higher H-index

in these documents with top-cited documents mainly

focussing on food security and public health. The

European nation contributed 38.3% and 41.2% to

health-related literature and infection related

literature respectively.33.3% of documents and

34.7% of documents were funded by international

organizations on health related literature and

infection related literature (Sweileh, 2020). Xu & Yu

conducted visual research on systematic study and

analysis of big data publications included in the

social citation index (SCI)and social science citation

index (SSCI). They analyzed the occurrence of

author keywords and current research hotspots on

future development trends on this research topic (Xu

& Yu,2019).801 papers were studied on

bibliometrics and scientometrics to determine a

distribution of citation data, and journals, prolific

authors, institutions of CSIR and their citation

impact. They observed that 21.7% which is about

1/5 th of the total publication remains uncited (Garg &

Tripathi, 2017). A bibliometric analysis of scholarly

production exposed the articles in library and

information sciences and other journals' impact in the

different groupings adjudged by citation analysis.

The linear increase can be detected from 1994

onwards in the non-ILS category. They also did a

keyword analysis to identify the most popular

subjects (Olle, E. & Johan, A.W, 2015).

Objectives

11


The objectives of the study are as follows:

● Measurement of the temporal growth pattern of

agronomical publications.

● Evaluation of the most productive research

organizations, institutes, and countries.

● Highlightingmost favoured journals in this

particular research domain.

● Extraction of highly cited articles on the above

research.

● Visualization of co-authorship pattern.

● Revision of core research areas related to

agronomical research.

● Exploration of keyword cluster analysis in this

particular field.


Methodology

Web of Science owned (WoS)

by Clarivate (previously the Intellectual Property and

Science business of Thomson Reuters) is the leading

scientific citation search and analytical information

platform consisting of the largest and most

comprehensive academic information resources

consisting of 12,361 core academic journals. The

publication counts from the WoS Core Collection are

derived from the following databases: Science

Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) 1989

to present, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)

1989 to present, Arts & Humanities Citation Index

(AHCI) 1989 to present. The present study was

based on data collection extracted from WoS

(retrieval date: 15 July. 2022). We conducted our

search on the topic, with the query Term =

(“Agronomy”) OR (“Agricultural Soil Science”) OR

(“Agricultural Science”). A total of 2487 papers

consisting of 2107 articles and 380 review articles

were considered limiting our research from 01-01-

2001 to 31-12-2021. Full record and cited references

of the above papers were extracted as Tab delimited

files and imported into Zotero (version 6.0.1) and

VOSviewer (version 1.6.15) for undergoing further

analysis. Zotero was used for simplifying the data in

tabular format for analyzing the data accordingly.

VOSviewer was used to create co-authorship, and

keyword co-occurrence based on the retrieved data.

Default parameter values of VOSviewer were kept

constant for consideration in the analysis. The Items

are represented in a frame or a circle. The size of the

circle measures the weight of an item. Some items

may not be displayed to avoid overlapping among

them. The items represent distinct colors in network

visualization displaying similar items calculated by

the algorithm of the program. The distance indicates

the strength of various items.

Results and Discussion

1 Temporal growth pattern over the

years:

In order to derive a trend in agronomical research, a

total of 2487 publications were attained from the

online version of the WoS database from 2001 to

2021 (Fig. 1). The highest numbers of papers (383)

were published in 2020. In general, the quantity of

research literature began increasing after 2014.

Respectively 2014(117), 2015(123),

2016(114),2017(159), 2018(169), 2019(236). On the

other hand, the most citation found in the year

2021(12188). From 2009-2021 the citation increased

massively.

Figure 1: Temporal growth of publication and citation

2 Most leading countries

There were 132 countries or regions that contributed

a total of 2487 articles in agronomical research.

Table 1 indicates the top 10 countries that have

published more than 2032 papers highlighting their

cluster, total links strength, citation, and average

citation per paper. Among the 10 countries USA

(472 publications), PR China (272), France (250),

and India (204) were the major contributors. For the

average number of citations Germany (40.55),

Australia (41.50), USA (45.25) had higher ACPP.

VoSViewer software was used to create a

networking map to link the various clusters formed

by the above countries. 82 countries met the

threshold requirement of a minimum of 5 documents

per country. The size of the circle varies indicating

the number of records and distance between

countries representing their relationship stronger.

VoSviewer software grouped 82 items into seven

clusters. Today the world is in crucial need of rapid

sharing of information. So, more and more

cooperation could bring scientific upliftment in

modern-day research. At present increasing

international exchange has promoted academic

communications (Tang et al., 2018).

Rank Country name TP TC ACPP Link

stren

gth

1 USA 472 21360 45.25 388

2 Peoples R China 272 6460 23.75 192

3 France 250 9378 37.51 256

4 India 204 3179 15.58 74

5 Australia 183 7595 41.50 219

6 England 183 7014 38.33 244

7 Brazil 131 6871 52.45 77

8 Germany 121 4906 40.55 242

9 Canada 114 4110 36.05 116

10 Spain 102 3074 30.14 144

TP=Total publications, TC= Total citations, ACPP= Average

citation per paper

Table 1: top 10 leading countries in the field of Agronomy

12


Figure 2: Country Collaboration network framework

5 Wageningen

University

& Research

6 Kansas state

university

7 Institute of

maize &

wheat

improvement

8 Council of

scientific

and

Industrial

research

9 Univ Calif

Davis

10 Univ

western

Australia

32 70 1190 37.18 Netherlands

17 66 335 19.70 USA

19 64 454 23.89 USA

20 60 664 33.20 India

16 60 1517 94.81 USA

20 60 1399 69.95 Australia

3 Organization collaboration

According to the publication data, it was discovered

that 2964 organizations had 2487 publications.

Organizational analysis replicates intercommunication

among institutions where influential

institutions top table 2 on the basis of several

parameters. 10 organizations topped the list with 297

documents published with a total of 12610 citations.

The organizations were selected on the basis of more

than 16 publications, the total link strength, TC,

ACPP, and country. The organizations were written

with short forms and were calculated separately from

that found in the WoS database. Among the 10

organizations, most were from the USA (4

organizations), Australia(2 organizations) followed

by France, China, Netherlands, and India each

having (1 organization). INRAE had the highest

citation to 78 publications but its ACPP(51.98%) is

lower than the Chinese Academy of Science has a

higher ACPP(58.03%). The University of Calif

Davis had the highest ACPP (94.81%) with a

minimal of 16 publications. Organizational analysis

helps to understand the communication of

institutions with one another in order to take up

collaborative research works. The VoSViewer

software connected the 184 organizations among the

total 2964 organizations into 13 clusters with a

minimum threshold of 5 segregated with different

colors. Organizations create a form of bonding with

each other based on geographical locations to

venture into a partnership within the specific area of

interest.

R

an

k

Organization Records Link

Stre

ngth

TC ACPP Country

1 INRAE 78 73 4055 51.98 France

2 Chinese 32 40 1857 58.03 China

academy of

sciences

3 University

Queensland

28 658 73 02.60 Australia

4 USDA ARS 35 71 1066 30.45 USA

Table 2: Top 10 most contributed organizations

Figure 3: organization wise collaborative visualization

4 Highly prominent journals

There were 937 journals found in the WoS database.

Table 3 mentioned the top 10

journals,rank,TP,TC,link strength,H-index and

countries. Among the top 5 journals, Heliyon (147) is

topped which published more numbers of articles

from the Netherlands. Respectively Field crops

research (48), agronomy Basel (47), Agronomy

journals(46), and Frontiers in plant science(40) are as

follows. According to Scimago Ranking, no country

and index were found in the two journals named

Agronomy Basel & Agronomy journals. Agronomy

for sustainable development (2198)from the USA has

the most citations with the highest link strength (58).

But the highest H-index was found in the European

journal of agronomy(125) from the Netherlands.

Two Indian journals rank on the top 10 journal list

Indian Journal on Agricultural sciences and Research

on crops. But no link strength is found there.

R

an

k

Journal name TP TC Link

Stren

gth

1 Heliyon 14

7

H-

Index

Country

1306 3 46 Netherlands

13



2 Field crops 48 2761 53 161 Netherlands

research

3 Agronomy 47 417 42 - -

Basel

4 Agronomy 46 640 18 - -

journals

5 Frontiers in 40 1216 44 155 Switzerland

plant science

6 Agronomy for 32 2198 58 117 USA

sustainable

development

7 European 30 1548 56 125 Netherlands

journal of

agronomy

8 Research on 27 3 0 15 India

crops

9 Indian journal 25 60 0 29 India

of agricultural

sciences

10 Sustainability 24 202 6 109 Switzerland

Table 3: Highly prominent journals

5 Highly cited publications

Table 4 shows the top highly cited articles with their

top cited authors and journals. The citation has used

an index to limit the influence of any studies and to

recognize researchers, and the most renowned

journals dealing with the theme. The annual citations

of the 10 articles showed an increasing trend after the

year of publication. It is revealed that the top cited

articles published more than 4 authors but

individually the author’s citation is lower than others.

Singh &Agrawal(2008)(Citation=713) were the most

cited authors from India in the journal Waste

Management. One article topped list 2 times in the

list (New Phytologist). There is no single-authored

article found, most of the articles are written by more

than two authors. Genetic diversity, sewage sludge,

biofuel, and intercropping system are the main theme

of these articles.

R

a

n

k

1

.

2

.

3

.

4

.

5

.

Citati

ons

4577 Koppen’s climate

classification map

for Brazil

1029 Ecological

consequences of

genetic diversity

713 Potential benefits

and risks of land

application of

sewage sludge

695 Impacts and

adaptation of

European crop

production

systems to climate

change

658 Meeting US

biofuel goals with

less land: The

potential of

miscanthus

Title Author Journal name

Alvares, C.A.

& others.(2013)

Hughes, A.R.

et. al.(2008)

Singh &

Agrawal (2008)

Olesen,J.E.,Trn

ka,M. and

Micale,F.(2011

)

Heaton,E.A.,Do

hleman,F.G.

and Long,S.P.

(2008)

Meteorologisch

ezeitschrift

Ecology Letters

Waste

Management

European

journal

agronomy

of

Global change

biology

6 642 Review and

.

comparison of

models for

describing

equilibrium and

preferential flow

and transport in

the Vadose Zone

7 567 The biology and

.

agronomy of

switch grass for

biofuels

8 499 Improving

.

intercropping: a

synthesis of

research in

agronomy, plant

physiology and

ecology

9 498 Indirect defence

.

via tritrophic

interactions

10

489 N uptakes and

.

distribution in

crops: an

agronomical and

ecophysiological

perspective

Table 4: Highly cited articles

Simunek,J.,Jarv

is,N J and

Gardenas,

A.(2003)

Parrish,D.J. &

Fike,J.H.(2005)

Brooker,R.W

and

others.(2015)

Heil,M.(2008)

Gastal,F.

Lemaire,

G.(2002)

6 Co-authorship pattern analysis

&

Journal

Hydrology

of

Critical reviews

in plant sciences

New

phytologist

New

Phytologist

Journal of

experimental

Botany

Collaboration of authors internationally has the

highest visibility and creates a good scientific impact

followed by inter-institutional collaboration; singleauthored

articles respectively (Wambu and Ho,

2016). According to the published data analysis

results, 10039 authors had 2487 publications, and

among these, 253 authors met the threshold of four

publications, but only 70 authors were connected

with each other. The network of authorship is

represented in table 5, the total number of records

varies based on the size of the circle. Clustering

helps in determining a similar area of work or

institution and close cooperation among them.

Detailed author information on articles published in

agronomy research from 2001 to 2021, along with a

citation, and average citations are provided (Table 5

& Figure 4). The top 10 authors published 164

papers. The top five authors were Szulc P,

Bocianowski J, Jeuffroy Mh, Kumar A, Singh S

each of whom published 10 more than 10 papers.

The top authors were mainly from Poland, France,

and India. It is detected that for the author who was

topped in publications, link strength is lower. Due to

the link strength, their collaboration became poor

which affects the publication pattern.

R

a

n

k

Author TP TC ACP

P

H

ind

ex

To

tal

lin

k

str

en

gth

Organizatio

n

1 Szulc P. 13 101 7.77 7 17 Poznan

University of

Life Sciences

Country

Poland

14


2 Bociano

wski J.

3 Jeuffroy

MH.

4 Kumar

A.

10 82 8.2 7 17 Poznan

University of

Life Sciences

10 313 31.3 8 46 Universite

Paris Saclay

10 272 27.2 6 0 International

Rice

Research

Institute

South Asia

Regional

centre(ISAR

C)

5 Singh S. 10 34 3.4 2 0 CSIR-Indian

Institute of

Himalayan

Bio resource

technology

6 Amanull

ah

7 Broadley

MR.

8 Kirkegaa

rd JA.

9 Giller

KE.

1

0

9 96 10.65 5 5 The

University of

Agriculture

Peshawar

9 608 68.76 8 7 University of

Nottingham

9 278 30.89 7 0 Commonwea

lth Scientific

& Industrial

Research

Organisation

(CSIRO)

8 551 68.88 7 1 Wageningen

University &

Research

Kumar S. 8 283 35.38 6 0 University of

Florida

Table 5: co-authorship pattern

Poland

France

India

India

Pakistan

UK

Australia

Netherland

s

USA

Figure 4: Core research areas

8 Keywords co-occurrence

Figure 5 shows the network map that links all

keywords to the entire sample of the articles

analyzed. Among all the 12954 keywords only

825 keywords met the threshold of more than 5

times occurrence in the map. The top 20 cooccurrence

keywords were agronomy, yield,

management, agriculture, growth, wheat,

agricultural science, nitrogen, soil, water,

systems, environmental science, and

productivity. Irrelevant keywords such as

gender, fate, and color were removed.

Figure 5: co-authorship pattern

7 Core research areas

For agronomical research from 2001 to 2021, there

are 97 categories in the WoS edition. Figure 4 shows

the top 10 research areas on the subject of agronomy.

The top ten WoS categories include Agriculture

(1095, 41.21%), plant science (387, 14.56%),

environmental sciences ecology(340, 12.79%),

science technology other topics (289, 10.87%), and

Food science technology(131, 4.93%), chemistry

(113,4.25%), engineering(97,3.65%), Biotechnology

Applied Microbiology (77, 2.89%), and water

resources (69, 2.59%) and History philosophy of

science(59,2.22%).

Overlay visualization: The same data were

arranged by a period of agronomy research in

the form of overlaying the map. The blue color

indicates earlier research, whereas the green and

yellow colors indicate the more recent area of

interest. The blue color does not indicate that

there is no longer research required on that topic.

For example, the circle for agronomy,

agriculture, dynamics, and biomass are

represented in dark blue. Perhaps these terms are

so in general that they are no longer extensively

used as keywords. Yellow and green circles

present those research fonts on the top left

corner of the map for example vermicompost

and phytotoxicity.

15



Figure 5: Overlay visualization of keyword

Network visualization: cluster 1 focused on

biological control that leads to the growth & yield of

plants and the factors associated with it and include

keywords such as Stress, resistance, nutritive value,

competition, and grain yield. Keywords are ranked as

genomics, breeding, tolerance, genetic diversity,

cultivars, and traits. Cluster 2 represents the

microbial factors that adversely affect agricultural

science such as bacteria, physiology, cadmium,

toxicity, antioxidant activity, soil, toxicology, and

absorption. Cluster 3 is focused on the management

of variables and their impact on agronomy such as

cropping systems, agroecology, dynamics,

sustainable intensification, diversity, climate change,

and productivity. Cluster 4 represents a model that

depends on various internal and external factors

leading to improvement in grain yield and efficiency,

remote sensing, reflectance, vegetation indices,

spectroscopy, etc. Cluster 5 is focused on the

productivity of the cropping system and conservation

agriculture. It adversely depends on various factors

such as water, soil, nitrogen, and the various

keywords are water use efficiency, greenhouse

emission, irrigation, etc. Cluster 6 highlights the

factors that dictate the quality of the product based

on various systems implemented. Keywords include

germination, emergence, seedling growth,

hydrolysis, combustion, etc. Cluster 7focussed on the

effect of micro nutrients on agronomical produce

such as cereals, wheat, potato, and the keywords are

sugars, acrylamide, mycotoxins, etc. Cluster 8

measures the agricultural policy that helps in

regulating the cost in order to maximize crop yields.

Here the keywords are crop protection, nitrogen use

efficiency, urea, field crops, etc.

Figure 6: Network visualization of keyword clustering

Conclusion

16


The above study analyzed 2847 papers on agronomy

from the global database based on WoS from 2001-

2021. Papers were mainly written in English by

10039 from 132 territories contributed by 2964

organizations and published in 937 journals. After

the study, it is observed that the highest number of

papers was published in 2020 and the top cited year

is 2021. Among the leading countries, the USA took

the top position (ACPP=45.25) and its total link

strength is also high(388). India also took a place in

the top 5 publications and its total citations (3179) is

more than a developed country like Spain(3074).

INRAE (France) is the highest organization among

all organizations. From India(TC=664 & Link

Strength=60) Indian council of scientific research has

taken place in 10 organizations. Among all journals,

Heliyon is the top cited (1306) and its h-index is 46

which is lower than the other journals such as Field

crops research(161); Frontiers in plant science (155);

agronomy for sustainable development (117). 2

Indian journals have no link strength (Research on

crops and Indian journal on agricultural science). As

per our research, it is revealed in the co-authorship

pattern that though the authors have high

publications and citations, they have no collaboration

with other authors. Jeuffroy is the most collaborative

author but some authors like Szulc,P., Bocianoswki

have high productivity but less collaboration among

peers. As broad area agriculture(41.21%) is found as

the most researchable field after that plant

science(14.56%) and environmental science(12.79%)

came. Among all keywords, 825 keywords met the

threshold in the occurrence of a map. Mycotoxins,

agroecology. Toxicology and acrylamide are the new

and emerging terms used in recent years. This type of

work will be of utmost importance to researchers in

selecting research topics and attaining international

collaboration with researchers worldwide in its

research domain.

References

Arya, R.L., Arya. S. & Arya, R.(2015).Fundamentals

of Agriculture. 7 th ed.New Delhi: Scientific

publishers, 804p.

Garg,K.C. & Tripathi, H.K.(2017).Bibliometric &

scientometrics in India: An overview of studies

during 1995-2014.Annals of library and information

studies.64 (1).

Information system for agriculture and food research.

(https://www.fisaonline.de/en/find-projects/researchprojects-by-subject/).(retrieved

on 21 st August, 2022)

Khan, A., D. Khan, and F. Akbar. 2020. Bibliometric

analysis of publications on research into cotton leaf

curl disease. Discoveries (Craiova) 8(2): E

Kulak,M., A.Ozkan,and B. Recep.(2019).A

bibliometric analysis of the essential oil bearing

plants exposed to the water stress:How long way we

have come and how much further? Scientia

Hort.246:418-436,

doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2018.11.031

Loebenstein,G. & Thottappilly,G.(2007).The mission

of agricultural research.Agricultural research

management.Springer,doi:

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-40206057-1_1

More,R.A. & Motewar, N.R.(2021). Bibliometric

analysis of IASLIC Bulletin. Information

studies.530(8):53-57.

Ole,Ellegaard& Johan, A.W. (2015). The

bibliometric analysis of scholarly production: How

great is the impact? Scientometrics.105 (3):1809-

1831

Pritchard,A.(1981).Bibliometrics: A bibliography

and index.Watford,UK:ALLM Books

SCImago, (n.d.).SJR-SCImago journal & country

Rank.(https://www.scimagojr.com) Retrieved on 25 th

August,2022

The American society of Agronomy

(ASA).(retrieved

from

https://www.agronomy.org/about-agronomy).

Wambu, E.W. and Y.S. Ho. 2016.A bibliometric

analysis of drinking water research in Africa. Water

SA. 42(4):612–620, doi: https://doi.org/

10.4314/wsa.v42i4.12

Yuan,Bao-Zhang & Bie,Zing-Long

Sun.(2021).Bibliometric analysis of global research

on Musmelon based on Web of Science. Hortscience.

doi:https://doi.org/1021273/HORTSCI15827-21).

Zeshui,X. & Dejian,Y. (2019). A bibliometric

analysis on big data research (2009-2018).Journal of

Data, Information and Management.1 (3).

About Authors

Arpita Roy Chowdhuryis presently pursuing her

PhD from Department of Library and Information

Science, Rabindra Bharati University as a Senior

Research Fellow. She has completed her Blisc. and

Mlisc. from University of Calcutta. She has

published 7 articles in National and International

Journals, 5 conference proceedings and 2 book

chapters. Her research interests are LIS education,

Knowledge organization, Digital library,

Bibliometrics study etc.

Dr Ziaur Rahmanis an Assistant Professor in the

Department of Library and Information Science,

Rabindra Bharati University. Previously he has

served as Assistant Professor at Department of

Library and Information Science, Assam University

and University of North Bengal. He received his

MLISc. from Aligarh Muslim University and PhD

from Jadavpur University. He has 51 publications in

different National and International journals, book

chapters, conference volumes etc. and three editorial

books in his credits. His interested areas are

classification, bibliometrics study, knowledge

organization etc.

Singh,R.K.(2021).A bibliometric study of DESIDOC

Journal of Library & Information Technology(2010-

2019).Journal of Indian Library

Association.57(2):80-94.

Tang, M., H.C. Liao, Z. J. Wan, E. Herrera-Viedma,

and M.A.Rosen.(2018).Ten years of

sustainability(2009-2018): A bibliometric

overview.Sustainability 10(5):1655,

doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051655.

17



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750


30 th August 2022


7 th September 2022

Revised paper received

25 th October 2022


29 th October 2022


30 th October 2022

Library and Information Science Research trends in

Bangladesh: A Bibliometric analysis

Md. Azizur Raman , Subrata Biswas & Anita Helen

ABSTRACT:

Dr Md. Azizur Raman

Additional Librarian

Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam

University

Trishal-2224, Mymensing,

Bangladesh

azizknu74@gmail.com

Dr Subrata Biswas

Central Library

University of Kalyani

Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal,

India

subratakucl07@gmail.com

Introduction: The present study reveals the analysis of the progress of LIS research

activity as reflected in doctoral research productivity at home and abroad during 1983 to

2022.

Purpose:The purpose of this study is to provide quantitative information on the growth of

doctoral theses in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) in Bangladesh. This

study also focused on year-wise publishing trends, subject-wise distributing trends,

countries producing research on Library and Information Science (LIS), contributing

universities and most productive research guides.

Research problem: The study is to acquire information sources andface enormous

problems related to the doctoral theses in the field of Library and Information Science

(LIS). To minimize or overcome these problems, bibliometric studies are often used by

researchers.

Objectives: The study is to examine the growth and developments in doctoral theses in the

field of Library and Information Science (LIS) in Bangladesh and other countries. It also

aims to examine the issues for consideration in advancing research in this country’s

context.

Methodology:Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyze the growth and publishing trends

of the doctoral theses in the field of LIS in Bangladesh and other countries. Several

methods like the historical method, literature search and personal observations were used

to achieve this study. The data was used to organize and analyze extract MS-Excel

worksheet covering the period 1983–2022.

Findings:The study states that Library and Information Science (LIS) research has gained

remarkable momentum in the literature. However, such growth is largely manifested in

Bangladesh because of the conducive atmosphere for this type of research..

Anita Helen

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Library & Information

Science

National University, Gazipur

Bangladesh

anitahelen31@gmail.com

KEYWORDS:

LIS Education-Bangladesh; Doctoral Research in LIS-Bangladesh;

Library & Information Science-Bibliometric Analysis

Research-

18


Introduction

The education system plays an important role in the

development of society. Due to the advancement of

information technology librarians are forced to shift their

focus from traditional procedures to the electronic

procedure. Here, LIS professionals have to play an

important role in acquiring, processing, organizing,

retrieving, disseminating, repackaging and communicating

information. The library is one of the social institutions,

so it is always involved in the progress and development

of society. For successful administrations and

organizations of library services, specially trained

personnel are required. This is only through library and

Information Science (LIS) education by preparing trained

personnel.

Library and information science (LIS) education is

designed to develop the multidimensional professional

competencies of librarians so that they can cope with the

explosion of knowledge and the changing technological

landscape. The function of the library has changed to an

information centre, from readers to users of information

products, from ownership to use rights, from traditional

knowledge bases to community spaces, and from

information competitors to environments. In the context of

the current changing library scenario, LIS education has

also changed, incorporating diverse disciplines to save its

existence. The LIS education in Bangladesh has a history

of over sixty years. Presently the LIS education in

Bangladesh is conducted in various levels of education,

from Certificate Course (CC), BA (Pass), BA/ BSS

(Honors), Post-Graduate Diploma (PGD), MA/ MSS,

M.Phil/ MAS to a PhD degree. At present five public

universities and ten private universities are conducting

LIS courses in Bangladesh. Three public universities in

Bangladesh have PhD programmes in the Library and

Information Sciences. Also, many researchers in the

country have obtained doctoral degrees from many foreign

universities with jobs and scholarships. From 1983 to

September 2022 there are twenty-five researchers from

Bangladesh, twenty-one from India, six from Japan, two

from Belgium, two from Australia, three from the UK and

one researcher from South Africa and a total number of

sixty have achieved a doctoral degree in this field. This

study reveals the analysis of the progress of LIS research

activity as reflected in doctoral research productivity at

home and abroad from 1983 to September 2022.

Objectives

The main objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To investigate the growth and subject-wise

development of doctoral research by LIS

researchers in Bangladesh.

2. To find out the pattern and productivity of the

guide.

To give suggestions for the improvement of LIS

research.

Background

Library science education in Bangladesh began in 1952 when

a three-month training course for the library staff was

introduced at the Dhaka University Library by its Londontrained

Librarian, Mr. Fazal Elahi. The course was

discontinued after only one session. Between 1955 and 1959,

four 3-month subject-wise training courses were conducted

with the help of Fulbright scholars under the supervision of

Mr. M.S Khan, Librarian, at Dhaka University Library. These

courses drew the attention of a good number of library staff

and persons interested in librarianship. There was no training

facility apart from this course available in Bangladesh until

October 1958, when the newly formed East Pakitan Library

Association( EPLA-1956), now the Library Association of

Bangladesh (LAB), instituted a regular 6-months Certificate

course in librarianship. It was the precursor of regular library

education at the undergraduate level in Bangladesh.

The accomplishment of the courses convinced the University

authority and ultimately led to the introduction in 1959 of a

one-year postgraduate Diploma Course in Library Science at

Dhaka University under the direction and guidance of its UKtrained

librarian, Mr. M.S Khan. This course was subsequently

elevated to a Master's Degree in 1962, M.Phil in 1976 and a

Doctorate in 1979. Another two universities University of

Rajshahi has started their journey in 2006 and the National

University of Bangladesh also started this programme from

the year of 2015-16. The first fellow of LIS professionals in

Bangladesh Md. Serajul Islam who has achieved a Doctoral

degree from Banaras Hindu University, India under the

supervision of Prof. P.N Kaula in the year of 1983. Presently

The LIS researchers of Bangladesh had been awarded by

various universities in the field of Library and Information

Science (LIS) from home and abroad.

Literature Review

The study by Tyagi and Bharadwaj (2021) showed a trend

of growth in contributions published in Tulsi Prajna

during the period from 2016 to 2020. The study found

that the highest number of publications was recorded in

2019 (49 articles, 40.5%) and the minimum was in 2017

(12 articles, 9.9%). A total of 121 articles were published

with an annual average growth rate of 24.5%. The study

revealed that the maximum number of papers published

under the category of the article i.e. 112 (92.6%), whereas

09 (7.4%) papers were published under the editorial

material category. The highest proportion of papers was

by single authors (79.3%), followed by papers with 2

authors (20.7%). The degree of collaboration in

quantitative terms is 0.21. The study found that the yearwise

distribution of citations was shown in 2019 (1195

citations) followed by 2020 (589 citations).

Gupta, S. (2021) analyzed the 11985 citations appended in

64 PhD theses of Education awarded by the University of

Punjab from 2014 to 2018. The study found that the

highest number of citations were from single authors

(50.01 %), and 47.29 % of citations were from books. The

study revealed that the half-life of all citations was almost

20.02 years. The study found that the country-wise

scattering of citations 6259 (50.20%) was from India and

it was followed by USA and UK.

Azeem (2021) found that the studies were published in the

form of empirical (1785) with a total citations (4998) from

1991 to 2020. Publications increased from 2002 to 2004,

but after 2014 the publications ratio decreased. The study

showed that the highest number of citations was the single

authorship pattern of the publications. The study identified

19


that 70 publications were published by Blythe, K from

1991 to 2020, while Collins had 194 citations against only

30 publications.

Abdi, et. al. (2018) analyzed that 2,913 papers were

published in the journal of IP&M during the period 1980

to 2015. The study found that the highest percentage was

articles (67.15%) among the published document. The

study identified the top 10 prolific authors, top 10

institutions and top 24 prolific countries with a number of

papers. Researchers from the USA have made the most

percentage of contributions (50.88%). The study also

revealed that during the period 1980 to1 985 and 2010 to

2015 degree of collaboration has increased by 3 times.

In the study of Mahendra (2014), from volume 49 to

volume 52 were conducted a bibliometric analysis of the

journal Library Herald in the period of 2011-2014. The

analysis revealed that out of 114 articles single authors

contributed 65 (57.01%) articles and the rest 49 (42.98%)

articles were contributed by joint authors. The study found

that the highest number of contributions was from India

(89.47 %) and the rest 10.52 % from foreign.

Hsieh, Chuang, and Wang (2013) revealed that the study

investigates and maps the trends in information literacy

research by applying bibliometric analysis to the 767 theses

and dissertations in the field of information literacy in the

United States and Taiwan. The study also found that theses

and dissertations on information literacy in Taiwan grew

rapidly (502, 65.45%) and more were published than in the

United States (265, 34.55%), although the first doctoral

dissertation published in the United States was in 1988 while

the first master thesis published in Taiwan was in 1996.

Angammana and Jayatissa (2015) have conducted a research

study on "A Bibliometric Study of Postgraduate Theses in

Library and Information Science: with special reference to the

University of Kelaniya and the University of Colombo, Sri

Lanka." The focus of this study revealed that books were the

most heavily used source material, accounting for 39% of

citations, while the journals category came next with 34% of

citations. "College and Research Libraries" is found to be the

most heavily used journal. Within 11 year study period, 485

journals were cited. A total of 1, 664 citations originated from

these journals. The journal "College and Research Libraries"

ranks as the first in the core journals list with 66 citations.

"Library news" which ranks second place accounts for 52

citations. The mean half-life of all citations is almost 9 years,

while the mean half-life for journals and books is 7 years and

13 years, respectively.


The data collected from the sixty (60) doctoral theses in the

field of Library and Information Science (LIS) was analyzed

by applying suitable procedures. The basic data relating to the

doctoral theses in the field of LIS during 1983- 2022, has been

collected in September 2022. Several methods like the

historical method, literature search and personal observations

were used to achieve this study. All the necessary information

like the title of the doctoral thesis, university name, country

name and name of the guide were written on the cards. To

organize and analyze the data MS-Excel worksheet was

utilized for the examination of the information.

Scope of the study

A total of sixty (60) doctoral theses in Library and Information

Science (LIS) during 1983- 2022 the said period have been

considered for this purpose.

Data Analysis

The total number of doctoral theses in the field of Library and

Information Science (LIS) by counting the column and rows

helped in the preparation of frequency tables. The collected

data has been presented with the help of the tabulation, graph,

pie chart etc. forms which are required. The simple percentage

method has been used for the analysis of the collected data.

Sl Year of No. of % Cumulative No. of %

No awarded the

the doctoral theses

doctoral

awarded

theses

1 1983 1 1.67 1 1.67

2 1985 3 5.00 4 6.67

3 1988 1 1.67 5 8.33

4 1994 1 1.67 6 10.00

5 1995 1 1.67 7 11.67

6 1996 1 1.67 8 13.33

7 1997 2 3.33 10 16.67

8 1998 1 1.67 11 18.33

9 1999 1 1.67 12 20.00

10 2002 2 3.33 14 23.33

11 2003 3 5.00 17 28.33

12 2004 3 5.00 20 33.33

13 2006 1 1.67 21 35.00

14 2007 2 3.33 23 38.33

15 2008 3 5.00 26 43.33

16 2009 3 5.00 29 48.33

17 2010 3 5.00 32 53.33

18 2011 3 5.00 35 58.33

19 2012 5 8.33 40 66.67

20 2013 1 1.67 41 68.33

21 2014 3 5.00 44 73.33

22 2015 2 3.33 46 76.67

23 2016 4 6.67 50 83.33

24 2017 2 3.33 52 86.67

25 2018 4 6.67 56 93.33

26 2020 1 1.67 57 95.00

27 2021 1 1.67 58 96.67

28 2022 2 3.33 60 100

Total 60 100

20



Table 1: Year-wise growth and development of the doctoral theses

in the field of LIS

In the Table 1 depict that the year-wise outputs sixty (60)

doctoral theses had been awarded by the various

universities in the field of Library and Information

Science (LIS) during the period 1983- 2022. The highest

numbers of the doctoral theses (5) were awarded in the

year 2012.

Decade-wise growth doctoral degree in

the field of LIS

Fig. 1 depicts the decade-wise distribution of doctoral

degrees in the field of Library and Information science

(LIS). It is observed that there are relatively many doctoral

degrees produced after 1983 till date. It is hereby evident

from the table that a total of 75.33 % of the research

output was contributed during the 3 rd (2001-2010) and

4 th (2011-2020) decades. Yet another 11.67, 8.33 and 5 per

cent of the research output was made during the 2 nd (1991-

2000), 1 st (1981-1990) and 5 th (2021-2030) decades.

Decade-wise growth

30

25

25

20

20

15

10 7

Percentage

5

5

3

0

Fig 1: Decade-wise growth doctoral degree in the field of LIS

Table 2: Subject-wise distribution of the doctoral theses in

the field of Library& Information Science

Table 2 shows that 9 major sub-fields of LIS had been

identified during the period 1983- 2022. The study depicts

that majority of contributions had been done in the area of

Academic/ Public/ Special Libraries with 17 contributions

(28.33%) followed by Information Marketing/Centres

with 12 contributions (20%), Information Needs/Seeking

with 11 contributions (18.33%), Library Education with 6

contributions (10%), Library Personnel Management with

5 contributions (8.33%) and Library Automation with 4

contributions (6.67%). It is also seen from the table that

very little work had been done in the field of

Bibliographic Analysis and Reference Services and

Sources with 2 contributions (3.33%) where only one

Cataloguing/ Classification subject for a doctoral thesis

(1.67%) had been produced during 1983- 2022.

Name of the Universities Country Total Percentage

University of Dhaka Bangladesh 22 36.67

University of Rajshahi 2 3.33

Jahangirnagar University 1 1.67

University of Burdwan India 4 6.67

University of Kalyani 4 6.67

Vidyasagar University 3 5

Jadavpur University 3 5

North-Eastern Hill

University

Rashtrasant Tukadoji

Maharaj Nagpur University

2 3.33

1 1.67

Banaras Hindu University 1 1.67

Sambalpur University 1 1.67

Panjab University 1 1.67

Savitribai Phule Pune

1 1.67

University

Japan Advanced Institute of Japan 6 10.00

Science and Technology

University of Antwerp Belgium 2 3.33

Curtin University Australia 2 3.33

University of Birmingham United 1 1.67

Loughborough University

Kingdom

1 1.67

The University of West

London

University of the Western

Cape

21


1 1.67

South Africa 1 1.67

Total 60 100

Table 3: University-wise doctoral theses contribution to the

field of LIS


Table 3 reveals the university-wise contributions of the

doctoral theses in the field of LIS during 1983-2022. Out of

sixty (61), doctoral theses had been awarded the University of

Dhaka ranks 1 st position by contributing 22 (36.67%). Japan

Advanced Institute of Science and Technology stands in the

2 nd place with 6 (10.00%) awarded doctoral theses, followed

by the University of Burdwan and University of Kalyani 4

(6.67%), Vidyasagar University and Jadavpur University 3

(5%), University of Rajshahi, North-Eastern Hill University,

University of Antwerp and Curtin University 2 (3.33) awarded

doctoral theses. It is also found that out of 20 universities, 10

universities contribute each with only 1 (1.67%) awarded

doctoral thesis.

Table 4: Country-wise contribution of the doctoral theses in the

field of LIS

Table 4 shows the geographical distribution of the doctoral

theses that had been awarded in the field of Library and

Information Science (LIS) during the period 1983- 2022. A

total of 7 countries have been identified. Bangladesh ranks 1 st

position by contributing 25 (41.67%) awarded doctoral theses.

India stands in the 2 nd place with 21 (35%) awarded doctoral

theses, followed by Japan with 6 (10%), the United Kingdom

with 3 (5%), and Australia and Belgium 2 (3.33%) awarded

doctoral theses. It is also found that South Africa contributed

only one (1) awarded doctoral thesis.

Table 5: Guide-wise contribution of the doctoral theses in the

field of LIS

Table 5 reveals that the guide-wise contribution of the yearwise

outputs of sixty (60) doctoral theses had been awarded by

the various universities in the field of Library and Information

Science (LIS) during the period 1983- 2022. The Majority

numbers of doctoral theses have been guided by single

doctoral theses during the period 1983- 2022. Out of 61

doctoral theses, 12 theses were guided jointly.

Ranking of guide/ supervisors

22


Table 6 shows that a total of sixty (60) doctoral theses have

been awarded between the period of 1983- 2022 in the field of

Library and Information Science and fifty-three (5)

supervisors have been identified. It is observed that the abovementioned

table of the highest number of doctoral theses was

guided by S. M. Mannan (8) having 1 st position under the

Department of Library and Information Science of the

University of Dhaka, followed by Munshi, Nasiruddin (4),

Husain, Serwar and Zabed, S.M (3) Moniruzzaman,

Mohammad, Bhattacharjee, H, Bandyopadhyay, A. K,

Sarkhel, J. K, Jana, P.K and Kohda, Youji (2) having 2 nd , 3 rd

and 4 th position respectively.

Conclusion

Finally to say that LIS research in Bangladesh has passed

forty years over. Research and development activities in

the field of Library and Information Science have been

increased gradually. The present analysis displays a trend

of growth in contributions awarded in doctoral theses in

the field of LIS from 1983 to 2022. The doctoral theses

have been awarded 60 during the period of study. The

analysis exposed that the maximum number of doctoral

theses was recorded in 2012 (5 theses, 8.33%). The study

depicts that majority of contributions had been done in the

area of Academic/ Public/ Special Libraries with 17

contributions (28.33%) from 1983 to 2022. The maximum

number of doctoral theses had been awarded in the

University of Dhaka by contributing 22 (36.67%). Out of

7 countries, Bangladesh has contributedto 25 (41.67%)

awarded doctoral theses during the period of 1983 to

2022, and the highest proportion of doctoral thesis was

guided by S. M. Mannan 7 (11.67%) under the


University of Dhaka in Bangladesh.The results of the

present study may represent a useful means of performing

future diagnostics of the bibliometric analysis of the

doctoral theses. The methodology applied in the present

study could be applied to the analysis of other studies, as it

may contribute to identifying

trends and future developments.


Reference

Abdi, A., Idris, N., Alguliyev R. M., Aliguliyev, R. M

(2018). Bibliometric analysis of IP & M Journal

(1980-2015). Journal of Scientometric Research, 7(1):

54-62.

Akbar, Azeem, Jbeen, Akira, Gulzar, Ayesha, and

Iqbal, Abid. (2021). A bibliometric analysis of Serials

Review from 1991 to 2020.Library Philosophy and

Practice (e-journal). 6492.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/6492

Angammana, A.M.S and Jayatissa, L.A.(2015). A

Bibliometric Study of Postgraduate Theses in Library

and Information Science: with special reference to

University of Kelaniya and University of Colombo,

Sri Lanka. Journal of the University Librarians’

Association of Sri Lanka, 19(1)

Gupta, S. (2021).A Bibliometric Study of Ph.D

Theses Awarded in the Department of Education

Punjab University, Chandigarh during the Period

2014-2018. International Journal of Economic

Perspectives, 15(1): 371–390

Hsieh, Pao-Nuan, Chuang, Tao-Ming and Wang, Mei-

Ling. (2013).A Bibliometric Analysis of the Theses

and Dissertations on Information Literacy Published

in the United States and Taiwan. Advances in

Intelligent Systems & Applications, SIST 20, pp. 337-

348

http://www.ru.ac.bd/

https://juniv.edu/

https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/

https://www.du.ac.bd/

Jadab, A and Das, R.K. (2017). Doctoral Research in

Library and Information Science in Bangladesh: An

Analysis on Trends and Development. International

Journal of Information Studies & Libraries, 2(1): 25-

32

Mahendra, K. (2014). Library Herald Journal: A

bibliometric study. Journal of Education & Social

Policy, 1(2): 123-134.

Tyagi, S. and Bharadwaj, S. N. (2021). Bibliometric

Analysis of Papers Published During 2016-2020 in

‘Tulsi Prajna’ Research Journal. Library Philosophy

and Practice (e-journal). 5165.


About Authors

Dr. Md. Azizur Rahmanis working as Additional

Librarian of Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, at

Trishal, Mymensingh, Bangladesh. He has received his

B.S.S. (Hons) in the Department of Library and

Information Science from University of Rajshahi,

Bangladesh (1996), MSS (1998) and Ph.D. (2018) degree

from University of Kalyani. He has published near about

forty articles in National and International Journals,

Seminar, Conference Proceeding, etc. He is also working

as Guest Teacher in the Institute of Library & Information

Science under National University, Bangladesh. His

domains of interest mainly are in LIS education, Digital

Environment, Organization of Knowledge, etc. He has

completed eight Professional and IT related training

Courses from Bangladesh and India. He has near about

twenty years experiences in the field of Library oriented.

Dr. Rahman is the Life Member of Professional

Association such as LAB, BALID (Bangladesh), BLA,

IASLIC, CGLA (India).

Dr. Subrata Biswasis working in the Department of

Central Library, University of Kalyani, Nadia, West

Bengal, India. The author has completed Ph.D in the

Department of Lifelong Learning & Extension of

University of Kalyani and has public library, community

information service, lifelong learning and women

empowerment as one of the interesting field. He has

published near about thirty- three (33) articles in National

and International Journals, Seminar, Conference

Proceeding, etc. Also he has published one (1) book about

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. More than 10 national and

international conferences have been attended by the

author. Dr. Biswas is the life member of professional

association of Bengal Library Association (BLA)

Mrs Anita Helenobtained her B.A (Honors) M.A and

MPhil degree in Information Science and Library

Management from the University of Dhaka,

Bangladesh. Her research areas are information literacy,

knowledge management, Social media, Digital library and

Information seeking behaviour. She is serving as a

lecturer in the department of Library and Information

Science at the National University, Bangladesh since 22

December 2015. She attended many National and

International conference. Previously, Mrs Helen also

successfully completed the International Training

Programme on “Lib@Web: Management of Electronic

Information and Digital Libraries” held during

September 28, 2015, to December 18, 2015, at the

University of Antwerp, Belgium. She is currently a

member of the ASIS&T membership committee.

24



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750


30 th August 2022


7 th September 2022


12 th October 2022


18 th October 2022

Designing of Metadata Schema for School Repository: a Study

through Metadata Schema

Debasis Das & Dipika Barai

ABSTRACT:

Debasis Das

Senior Project Officer

National Digital Library of India

Central Library IIT Kharagpur

debdas12312@gmail.com

Dipika Barai

M.Phil. Scholar

Department of Library Science

University of Calcutta

baraidipika02.22@gmail.com

Introduction: A school library is a school’s physical and digital learning space. School-driven

metadata elements reflected the student's cognitive perceptions that could allow students to

intuitively and easily find books in an online cataloging system. Therefore, creating a schooldriven

metadata schema not only contributes to the improvement of knowledge organization

systems reflecting students' information behavior and cognitive process but also improves

learning and reading skills

Purpose:The main purpose of the study is to create a standard for archiving digital resources

to be accessed at convenience by the students from class five to class twelve (5-12) for

different school boards. An attempt has been made to understand the nature of work that

covers all possible school digital repositories or libraries in India for the design and

development of metadata schema.

Research problem: Some many metadata formats and standards have been developed so far.

But it is difficult to choose an appropriate metadata format and standards for organizing and

retrieving school resources for the students. The work, first reviews and analyzes various

metadata standards and formats already available. DSpace has been carried out to select

appropriate software for the implementation of this newly designed schema.

Objectives: The objective of the present study is to develop a model for Metadata Schema from

an existing schema with some added new metadata fields, especially for school digital

repositories. The designing of a new metadata schema of the school domain will be helpful for

students' cognitive factors and facets during book selection and searching for easy

information retrieval.

Methodology:Observation and analysis of different metadata schemas and learning objects,

and analysis of study materials of boards have been selected for this study. Existing metadata

formats and standards have been studied through a review of research literature along with

practice-based analysis through implementation.

Findings:A multi-type resource base and user base have resulted in an overwhelming need for

comprehensiveness, yet user-friendly, local metadata. It is very important for a student to find

out laboratory-based educational content from a repository. Standardizing the terms will help

at the time of cataloguing or indexing and retrieving documents from the repository.

KEYWORDS:

Digital Library; School Repository; Dublin Core Metadata; Metadata Schema;

Controlled Vocabularies

25


Introduction

School education in India is divided into four phases

namely Elementary, Primary, Secondary, and Higher

Secondary which are organized and regulated by

respective state boards and central boards. The NCERT

works as an apex body for curriculum-related matters,

designing and making available online e-textbooks, audio

books, and animation and simulation materials. Now a

day's students are living in the world of the internet. They

try to find information through a library repository or a

web portal. Technology integration, namely the use of an

e-learning platform, has become essential in now a day in

the classroom. Interactive online teaching sessions &

multimedia content will be improved student engagement,

helping them to gain valuable insights, and pave the way

for their success. Now the questions are –

What will be a proper digital library system by which

they can search and browse their required

information?

Is it as challenging to find books as it would be in a

physical library?

Is there any student-appropriate knowledge

organization system, such as a metadata schema/s for

archiving study materials for school students in the

online environment?

Studies about students' information-seeking behaviour

have many implications for designing interfaces or

information retrieval systems. Recent trends of e-learning

system, interactive study module shows students'

information seeking and searching behaviour in the

physical and digital library are different. Digital libraries

now have become a gateway of interactive learning for

storing content and its retrieval, it has been found out

some problems in metadata schemas for school resources.

There are innumerable types of metadata schemas, which

exist today although metadata schema is based on a

common, machine-readable syntax; they tend to be

designed for a specific purpose. For example, despite the

fact that the Consortium for the Computer Interchange of

Museum Information (CIMI), Encoded Archival

Description (EAD), Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), and

Visual Resources Association (VRA), metadata schemes

are all intended to serve the cultural heritage community,

there are significant differences between them. Most of the

metadata fields are available in the Dublin Core metadata

standard. However, an extension to the new standard can

be made with the following data fields, for better search

and retrieval in the digital library interface. According to

the student's interest, including other metadata standards

i.e LRMI, IEEE-LOM, etc, or newly introduced metadata

standards. Metadata is critical in personal information

management and for ensuring effective information

retrieval and accountability in record keeping. Resource

discovery is the primary purpose of metadata; it raises the

likelihood that a user will be able to obtain relevant

material and evaluate its value.

Literature Review

This study reviews the Digital Library, Metadata Schemas,

Collection development of the school, and students'

Information searching behaviour.

Fox and others (1993) opine that digital libraries are

becoming the main repository of mankind's knowledge.

This has resulted in the design of user-friendly interfaces

to access, understand, and manage digital library content

which has become an active and challenging field of

study.Wallace, Krajck, and Soloway (1996) are exploring

the way in which digital libraries can support inquiry

learning. Teachers have access to a rare and unique

resource in digital libraries which empowers them to

support student inquiry. A Digital library or school

repository can make it possible for students to have access

to information and data which interests them, a

fundamental requirement for authentic inquiry. Digital

libraries can give teachers a workable approach to allow

students to pursue their interests within the parameters of

the curriculum without adding a good amount of extra

work to their workload by providing them with resources

to support their studies.Caplan (2003) also explains that

metadata plays a mediating role in resource discovery,

access, and sharing of resources between users and

information. In addition, one of the most essential

activities in starting digital libraries is the construction of

metadata schema. For their own needs, some libraries

introduce new metadata schema, while others combine

different metadata standards to produce metadata

application profiles.Lee & Downie, (2004) described

about metadata development which means that studies of

users' needs and information-seeking behaviours have

been used as a foundation of creating metadata elements.

There are relatively fewer user studies for metadata

development than there are user studies for metadata

evaluation. Moreover, there is no student's informationseeking

behaviour study in order to develop a schooldriven

metadata schema.Chapman, J., Reynolds, D., and

Shreeves, S.A. (2009) in the article "Repository Metadata:

Approaches and Challenges" discusses the mixed

metadata environment. Challenges in creation,

management, and access are brought on by the mixed

environment.Beak, J (2014), in his article "A Child-driven

metadata schema: a holistic analysis of children's

cognitive processes during book selection" studied to

construct of a child-driven metadata schema by

understanding children's cognitive processes and

behaviours during book selection.Andrade, M and

Baptista, A (2015), in their article “The Use of application

profiles and metadata schemas by digital repositories:

findings from a survey” demonstrates the objective of

determining the usage of application profiles and

associated metadata standards.

Objectives

26


College or University students are tried to find

information through a library catalog system or a web

portal of their library. But how about a lower-class school

student finds proper information? Do school students

easily find information in an online environment? Is it as

challenging to find books as it would be in a physical


library? Is there any school-appropriate knowledge

organization system such as a metadata schema for school

repositories in the online environment?

While observing school students' information-seeking and

searching behaviour in physical and digital libraries, I

have been able to find some research gaps and research

problems in metadata schemas for school resources.

Students’ information needs call for a new metadata

schema that describes school resources from students'

perspectives and that provides students-appropriate access

points.

Methodology

Observation and analysis of different metadata schemas

and learning objects and analysis of study materials of

boards have been selected for this study. Existing

metadata formats and standards have been studied through

a review of research literature along with practice-based

analysis through implementation. Online E-resources of

school boards have been analyzed during this case study.

What will be the best metadata fields to store different

types of resources and their available formats have been

analyzed during this study.

School Driven Schema

School Repository-driven metadata elements were

developed based on the findings of the student's perceptual

cognition during book selection. The purpose of this study

is to create school-driven metadata elements with

metadata elements (or properties) that support description,

access, and other functions. In other words, a School

Schema focuses on the development and definition of

various descriptive metadata elements rather than

suggesting values of elements. The terms such as elements

(properties), values, and terms, used in a School Schema

are defined by the mix of three metadata schemas i.e.-

DCMI Metadata Terms and LRMI and IEEE LOM.

The study of the proposed school schema is to serve as a

catalytic tool to preserve and showcase the school content

in digital form. It will also serve as an aid to inculcate

temper among school student through self-directed

learning thereby preparing them to deal with a fastchanging

world where science and technology has a

pivotal role in the overall development in bringing out

education among students for the knowledge society.

Need for School Driven Schema

The following points are formulated for the dynamic

School Driven Schema which is stated below.

● To adopt all required and widely accepted

international standards set for creating digital

libraries, so that the School Schema will be accessible

and interoperable among other digital libraries in

India and abroad.

● To provide required policy guidelines for developing

a quality collection of resources of all types and in

different formats required for school children.

● To recommend and offer state-of-the-art information

services based on resources collected and the need of

the school student user community.

●

●

●

To provide student-centric information services using

the most used technology devices, networks, and

social media.

To serve as a platform for the preservation and

promotion of teaching and learning in a school.

To act as an effective pedagogic aid to enhance the

teaching and learning process in schools.

Digital Resources accessed frequently

in School

Most school students prefer open access and freely

available e-books, reference books, question papers,

solutions, e-magazines and dictionaries, encyclopedias,

etc. Many librarians have an interest but are not suitably

supported by school management as far as

technology/Internet connectivity is concerned. All most all

school teachers & students find these resources useful for

their teaching & learning but it is to be suggested that

there is a need for regular training and exposure to the

resources through practical demonstration.

Types of Resources to be included in

the proposed School Schema

In order to cater to the needs of the students and

teachers adequately, it is questioned what type and formats

of web-based science resources should be included in the

digital library repository and what academic-oriented

resources should be include? This long list included e-

books, science fiction, biographies, and Nobel Laureates'

works, and their biographies, popular lectures, scientific

models, projects for scientific experiments, history of the

world, sources giving information, individuals and

institutions working for the spread of education,

government programs, scholarships, popular school events

and all other resources that encourage student learning and

reading. All this information added to the library should

be available in text, images, videos, talks, and multimedia

forms. The animations, 3-D pictures, cartoons, photos,

graphics, links to YouTube based resources; Wikis, etc

should be made available. Materials in every format,

website, software, flexibility for patrons to create, upload,

share, and archive their content with an in-built search

tool, and web 2.0 services are made available. Curriculum

instruction tools, best reference sites, reference books, and

e-resources covering all essential information for inclusion

in the digital repository of the school. A question on the

format of the web-based digital information resources to

be stored in the school digital library repository to support

the learning and reading of study materials are varied,

practical, and at the same time interesting. Many of them

feel that there should be a classification of these resources

and they should be integrated into the collection in such a

way that they are easy to browse and search.

Metadata for the School Repository

Schema

Building, enhancing, and maintaining a wide range of

school resource databases has been a primary activity of

27


the school repository. Several various resource collections

have been developed day by day to provide users with

standard tools for performing queries and retrieving

information as per their requirements. A multi-type

resource base and user base have resulted in an

overwhelming need for comprehensive, yet user-friendly,

new metadata. It identifies particular elements in existing

schemas that are useful to achieve interoperability. But it

is shown that some new metadata field requires storing

laboratory-based study materials and some other important

metadata which will be helpful for better information

retrieval.

So it is required to add a variety of new metadata

extensions to the standard for their specific requirements.

A student caring out laboratory activities for the

experiment purpose needs laboratory-related documents

for his/her work and likes to search the repository science

collection by experimental apparatus, condition, safety

requirements, etc. Consulting various study materials of

CBSE board books, NCERT Books, WBBSE, and

WBCHSE board books; it is found that laboratory-based

metadata are used in addition to other metadata.

DC and other schema do not provide such metadata.

Therefore, depending on the user requirements and

characteristics of the documents/objects it is felt to add

new metadata for various types of resources for

comprehensive, yet user-friendly retrieval. The newly

added metadata are given below with their semantics:

● Experiment apparatus - Apparatus used in

laboratory experiments

●

●

Experiment condition- Condition needed for

experiments

Experiment Safety Requirements - What safety

requires when an experiment process in the

laboratory?

● Experiment Type- What type of experiment is it?

Is the experiment research or investigation or

demonstration or a model?

These new metadata elements will be were registered in

Metadata Registry (http://metadataregistry.org/) as

Metadata Schema for School Resources with a proper

namespace. In terms of the W3C, neither the namespace

nor the element identifying URL needs to point to an

"actual" web address or be a "genuine" registration

authority. However to ensure a well managed metadata

environment the namespace should refer to a real

registration authority that takes responsibility for the

declaration and maintenance of their schema. This is a

continuum of formality in such registration authorities

from those where the authority is an internationally

recognized standards body through to those where the

authority derives from national or international standards,

and at the other end of the continuum, to self-contained

schemas defined within a local project or service.

Suggestions

An attempt is made here to put together all

possible and implementable suggestions to consider the

proposal of school domain schema and to initiate its

establishment for school repositories in India. Identifying,

organizing, and providing access to web-based resources

at the school level in India is important and useful for

students In India. The use of digital resources is

witnessing a sharp rise in school libraries both by the

students to learn and teachers to teach. The common

suggestion is the formulation of appropriate guidelines,

standards, training programs, and suitable mechanisms of

searching and retrieval resulting in the success of the

school repository schema. It is suggested that the

government should extend technical support to the schools

to create a new digital library environment. A National

level high power committee consisting of experts from

communication technology, networking technology,

metadata expert, education policy formulators, and

educational administrators including teachers from

different subject fields be constituted to build a new

domain-specific schema.

Conclusion

The term "metadata," which means "Data about Data," is

becoming more and more widespread and is understood in

multiple ways by the variety of professional communities

that develop, produce, characterize, manage, and make use

of information systems and resources. An information

object is anything that can be addressed and handled by a

system or a person in this context. The object may be

comprised of a single item, or it may be an aggregate of

many items. In general, all information objects have three

characteristics: content, context, and structure, which can

all be expressed through metadata, regardless of the

physical or intellectual form they occupy. It is clear that

metadata originated from library catalogue records and it's

successor, despite the fact that metadata is distinct from

library catalogue records. There are however several

issues that arise in the practical use of Metadata. One of

the main issues is that different communities need to

deploy metadata for collections that are different by

content, purpose, and services to mention a few that have

been observed here in the same way.

Therefore, selected metadata elements of Dublin Core,

LRMI, and IEEE-LOM are used to describe and organize

the school resources along with local metadata. The

controlled vocabularies that are used to standardize

content metadata are shown to be insufficient for

standardizing repository content. A step further will be to

ground the metadata into domain ontology as a way to

enable more sophisticated search, aggregation, and

navigation functionalities that better serve the

information-seeking needs of the student community.

References

28


Abbas, J. (2005). Creating metadata for children’s

resources: Issues, research, and current developments.

Library Trends, 54(2), 303-317.

Andrade, M and Baptista, A (2015).The Use of

Application Profiles and Metadata Schemas by Digital

Repositories: Findings from a Survey available at

https://dcpapers.dublincore.org/pubs/article/viewFile/3770

/1960 retrieved on August 05, 2022

Beak, J. (2014). Children’s perceptual cognitive factors in

book selection and metadata schema: Pilot study.


Proceeding of the American Society of Information

Science and Technology, 49(10), 1–10.

Caplan P. (2003), Metadata Fundamentals for All

Librarians, American Library Association, Chicago.

CBSE Board (n.d.) available at www.ndl.gov.in retrieved

on July 20, 2022

Cunningham, A. (2000), "Dynamic descriptions: recent

developments in standards for archival description and

metadata", Canadian Journal of Information and Library

Science, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp.3-17

Dempsey, L and Heery, R. (1998), “Metadata: a current

view of practice and issues”, Journal of Documentation.

Vol. 54 No. 2, pp. 145-172.

Digital Library Federation (1998), "A working definition

of digital library", Retrieved August 20, 2022 available at:

http://www.diglib.org/about/dldefmition.html

Druin, A. (2005). What children can teach us: Developing

digital libraries for children with children. Library

Quarterly, 75(1), 20-41.

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (n.d.) Accessed on 23rd

August 2022 available at

https://www.dublincore.org/about/lrmi/

Heery, R. (1996), "Review of Metadata Formats",

Program, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 345-373, Retrieved August

12 , 2022 available at:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/review.html

Hutchinson, H. B. [et. al.,] (2005). The International

Children's Digital Library: A case study in designing for a

multilingual, multicultural, multigenerational audience.

Information Technology & Libraries, 24(1), pp. 4-12.

Lee, J. H., & Downie, J. S. (2004). Survey of music

information needs, uses, and seeking behaviours:

Preliminary findings. In Proceedings of the 5th

International Conference on Music Information Retrieval,

Barcelona, Spain.

UNESCO/IFLA school library manifesto (n.d) Retrieved

August 15, 2022 from http://www.unesco.org/webworld

/libraries/manifestos /school_ manifesto.html

About Authors

Mr Debasis Dasis working as a Senior Project Officer

in National Digital Library of India (NDLI) project at the

central library, IIT Kharagpur. Before that he worked as

Project Assistant at the central library, ISI Kolkata. He

completed his M.Lib.Sc degree from Rabindra Bharati

University in 2012 and his M.Phil. from the University of

Calcutta in 2020. He has qualified UGC-NET in 2014.

The present study is a part of his M.Phil. research work.

He has published many articles in national and

international journals. His area of interest is digital

repositories and metadata schemas.

Mrs Dipika Baraiis an M.Phil. scholar of the

Department of Library and Information Science, at the

University of Calcutta under the supervision of professor

Dr. Arabinda Maity. She is currently working as Project

Staff in National Digital Library of India (NDLI) project

at Central Library, IIT Kharagpur. She did her integrated

M.L.I.Sc course from the University of Calcutta in 2015.

She has qualified for UGC Net in 2018. She also worked

as Professional Trainee at Central Library, IIT Kharagpur

in 2017. She did her “Library Internship Training” from

the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Jadavpur

W.B. Her area of interest is community informationseeking

behaviour.

Metadata Authority Description Schema (2008), Metadata

Authority Description Schema Official Website, accessed

on 10th August 2022 available at:

http://www.loc.gov/standards/mads/

NISO (National Information Standards

Organization).(2004). Understanding metadata.Bethesda,

MD: NISO Press. Available at:

http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/UnderstandingM

etadata.pdf

.

Prasad, A.R.D. and Madalli, D. P. (2003), "Metadata in

DSpace", Proceedings of DRTC International Workshop

on Building Digital Libraries using DSpace, Bangalore,

March 7-11, 2005, Paper F

.

Text Book of West Bengal Board (n.d.)

https://wbxpress.com/e-text-books-wbbse-wbchsewbscvet-2018/retrieved

August 20, 2022

29



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Scientometric Mapping of Library and Information Science

Research among SAARC Countries during 2012-2021


29 th August 2022




12 th October 2022


18 th October 2022

N. G. Thermi Moyon, Akhandanand Shukla, R. K. Ngurtinkhuma & S. Ravi

NG Thermi Moyon

Research Scholar (Ph.D)

Dept of Lib and Inf Science

Mizoram University, Aizawl

ngthermi@gmail.com

Dr Akhandanand Shukla

Associate Professor

Dept of Lib & Inf Science

Central University of TamilNadu,

Thiruvarur

akhandanandshukla@gmail.com

Dr R K Ngurtinkhuma

Professor


Mizoram University, Aizawl

rkn05@rediffmail.com

Dr S Ravi

Professor

Dept of Lib& Inf Science

Central University of TamilNadu,

Thiruvarur

ravidde@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Introduction:Literature regarding Library and Information Science studies has rapidly increased

in recent years, yet there have been few studies on LIS research in SAARC countries. To

understand the research pattern in the LIS field among SAARC countries through the lens of the

Scopus database, a scientometric analysis was conducted where 3610 articles were published

between 2012-2021 in all sources.

Objectives: The primary objectives of this study are to analyze the LIS research of SAARC

countries and examined quantitative aspects of publications and citations, document-wise

publications, prolific authors, top source titles, international research collaboration, authors and

reference co-citations, and keyword co-occurrence.

Methodology: The data for the study was collected from the Scopus database between 2012 and

2021 and retrieved 3610 publications. The retrieved data was recorded, processed and analyzed

using MS-Excel, VOSviewer and RStudio..

Findings: The study reveals that India is leading followed by Pakistan in LIS research

publications and citations while Pakistan is leading in individual research performance; Library

Philosophy and Practice is the top source item for research publication; Saudi Arabia and the

USA are the top research collaborating countries for Pakistan and India, respectively; India,

Bibliometrics, and Scientometrics are the top three most occurred keywords found in the study.

KEYWORDS:

Library and Information Science-Research; Research-SAARC; Scientometrics

30


Introduction

The field of library and information science (LIS) imparts

techniques for the preservation and conservation

ofinformation in tangible forms. After bibliometric and

scientometric approaches were developed, the recorded

information present in tangible forms has been researched

for various reasons. Amudhavalli (1977) argued that the

LIS field should use bibliometric and scientometric

methods to measure the records of human

communication.Scientometric techniques are employed to

assess a specific field’s present state and potential future

directions. To determine the structural pattern of the topics

through time, the research output of an individual, an

institution, or a nation is measured and mapped. This

makes it easier to understand where a nation, organization,

or person stands within their respective category. The

research output determines the quality and quantity of the

growth of scholarly communications and scientific

literature in a given field of study. Currently, scientific and

technical research performance reflects the nation’s

scientific policy while also serving as a significant

criterion for gauging a country’s overall success and

development.

Asia is the world’s largest continent in terms of area and

population. Regarding ethnic groups, cultures, ecosystems,

economies, historical links, and political structures, Asia

exhibits wide variation throughout and within its regions.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

(SAARC) is one of the strong regional organizations in the

South Asian region. Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh,

India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are the

eight developing countries that make up the SAARC.

Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peerreviewed

literature. With 22,800 volumes from over 5,000

international publishers, Scopus provides the most

comprehensive perspective of the world’s research output

in science, technology, medicine, social science, arts &

humanities.

Literature Review

It is easier to understand a field to some extent when there

is written literature about it, but it is more difficult to

understand a field when there is no published literature

fully. On the other hand, a dearth of literature on a

particular subject tends to open the door to further

investigation and identifying knowledge gaps and fresh

angles on the subject. The current study examined the

published literature that addressed different aspects of its

aims because there was a dearth of core material on the

subject.Patra&Chand (2009) examined Library and

Information Science Research in SAARC and ASEAN

countries as reflected through LISA. They studied the

pattern of literature growth, core journals, authorship

pattern and research trends and found that SAARC

countries are ahead of ASEAN members. India is leading

in LIS research among SAARC countries and Singapore

among ASEAN countries. Herald of Library Science and

Kekal Abadi are the top core journals of SAARC and

ASEAN countries respectively. Uddin & Singh (2014)

examined the research output of South Asian countries

over 50 years and discovered that the region only

contributed 2.86% of global research output, with India

being the most significant contributor. Physical Sciences

and Life Sciences contributions were higher than those of

other categories in the research output results bring down

by category. Despite the USA being the top research

partner with South Asian nations, citations were not rising

in line with research production.Kalantari et al. (2017)

analyzed big data research trends by examining 6572

publications retrieved from the Web of Science and found

that 28 papers were cited highly; English was the

dominant language; the USA, China and Germany were

the most productive countries in the world. Sadik

Batcha(2018) investigated Cardiovascular Diseases

research published by SAARCcountries and revealed that

India is the leading country among SAARCnations

followed by Pakistan. The USA, United Kingdom and

Australia were the top collaborative countries for SAARC

nations.

Moreover, the study observed that India is competing with

other developed countries and shows higher activity

within the context of their productivity.Singh (2018)

assessed the Biotechnology research pattern in four

SAARC countries from 2007 to 2016 and found that

researchers in Biotechnology move towards team research

rather than solo research. The study found that the average

Activity Index of four SAARC countries for ten years is

the highest for India and the lowest for Sri Lanka.

Concerning international collaboration, the United States

has taken the top position for India and Sri Lanka. Tanget

al. (2018) studied ten years of Sustainabilityresearch from

2009 to 2018 and revealed that publications on

Sustainability increased in the last few years. China, the

USA and South Korea were the most productive countries

inSustainability publications; reference work by Fornell

and Larckerwas the most highly cited reference. The

keywords “sustainability”, “management”, and

“China”were the most frequently observed keywords in

Sustainability publications.Similar studies conducted by

Shukla & Maurya (2018), Naheem et al. (2017),Majumder

et al. (2012) and Gupta et al. (2004) also found that India

is leading among SAARC countries and BRIC countries

(Elango et al., 2013) not only in LIS research but also in

some other aspects.

Objectives of the study

The primary objectiveof the present study is to analyze the

LIS research of SAARC countries based on the following

aspects:

a) Quantitative evaluation of publications and

citations

b) Prolific forms of research productivity

c) Leading source titles in LIS research

d) A prolific contributor to LIS research

e) Authors’ co-citations network analysis

f) Reference co-citations network analysis

g) International research collaboration

h) Keyword co-occurrence analysis

Methodology

The data for the study was collected from the Scopus

database using the following search string:

31


SUBJAREA(SOCI) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY-

AUTH(Library AND Information AND Science) AND

(LIMIT-TO (AFFILCOUNTRY,“India”) OR LIMIT-

TO (AFFILCOUNTRY,“Pakistan”) OR LIMIT-TO

(AFFILCOUNTRY,“Bangladesh”) OR LIMIT-TO

(AFFILCOUNTRY,“Sri Lanka”) OR LIMIT-TO

(AFFILCOUNTRY,“Nepal”) OR LIMIT-TO

(AFFILCOUNTRY,“Afghanistan”) OR LIMIT-TO

(AFFILCOUNTRY,“Maldives”) OR LIMIT-TO

(AFFILCOUNTRY,“Bhutan”)) AND (LIMIT-TO

(PUBYEAR,2021) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR,2020)

OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR,2019) OR LIMIT-TO





(PUBYEAR,2012) ) AND (LIMIT-TO

(LANGUAGE,“English”)).

The result was restricted by “All Document Types”. It

resulted in 3610 publications. The retrieved data was

recorded, processed and analyzed using MS-Excel,

VOSviewer and RStudio.

Data Analysis & Interpretation

a) Quantitative Analysis of Publications

and Citations

The first parameter was to find the total number of

publications and their citations of SAARC countries

(Table 1). During the study period, 3610 publications were

retrieved from the Scopus database for SAARC countries.

Among the eight SAARC countries, India has contributed

the highest number of publications (2738 publications)

which shares 75.84% of SAARC contributions followed

by Pakistan (695, 19.25%), Bangladesh (119, 3.29%) and

Sri Lanka (50, 1.38%). Afghanistan,

Bhutan,MaldivesandNepal each have published two

publications (0.06%). India and Pakistan share more than

95% of publications while the rest of the SAARC

countries have less than 5% of publication share. During

the study period, 14152 citations were found for 3610

publications with an average of 3.92 citations per

publication. Out of total citations, India topped with

Country Publications % Citations %

Publications

Citations

India 2738 75.84 9144 64.61

Pakistan 695 19.25 4023 28.43

Bangladesh 119 3.29 711 5.02

Sri Lanka 50 1.38 231 1.63

Afghanistan 2 0.06 10 0.07

Bhutan 2 0.06 16 0.11

Maldives 2 0.06 4 0.03

Nepal 2 0.06 13 0.09

Total 3610 100 14152 100

64.61% citation share followed by

Table 1: Publications and Citations of SAARC countries

Pakistan (28.43%) and Bangladesh (5.02%). The citations

share of Sri Lanka is 1.63% while Afghanistan has 0.07%

citations share. India and Pakistan share more than 93% of

citations, while other SAARC countries have less than 7%

of citations.

b) Prolific Forms of Research Productivity

Table 2 displays the document-wiseresearch productivity

of SAARC countries. The total number of publications is

categorized into ten document types as recorded in the

Scopus database. More than 87.89% of publications

belong to the “Article” category, followed by “Conference

Paper” (4.59%). The “Book Chapter” publication is 3.77%

while “Review” is 3.1%. Other document types Editorial

(0.25%), Book (0.14%), Note (0.14%), Letter (0.6%),

Short Survey (0.03%) and Erratum (0.03%) are also seen

in the research. The study result shows that most

researchers are interested in publishing their research in

journals as “Article”.

Document Type No. of Documents % of Documents

Article 3173

87.89

Conference Paper 166

4.59

Book Chapter 136

3.77

Review 112

3.1

Editorial 9

0.25

Book 5

0.14

Note 5

0.14

Letter 2

0.06

Short Survey 1

0.03

Erratum 1

0.03

Total 3610 100

Table 2: Document-wise Research Productivity

c) Leading Source Titles in LIS Research

The publications retrieved from the Scopus database on

SAARC countries are published in 647 source titles. Table

3 lists the top 10 source titles in which 60.97% of LIS

publications are covered. From the observation of Table 3,

it is found that the top 10 source titles belong to journal

publications only. “Library Philosophy and Practice” is

the most preferred source title, which has published 1445

publications and shares 40% of publications, followed by

“DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Science”

with 249 publications and 6.9% of publications share. The

journal “Annals of Library and Information Studies” has

published 4.21% of publications, while the reputed journal

“Electronic Library” published 1.72% of publications

during the period. The top 10 list covers 11 journals

having 2201 publications, while the rest of the 39.03%

publications (1409) are published in 636 source titles.

Source Title

No. of

Publications

% of Total

Publications

Library Philosophy and Practice 1445 40.03

DESIDOC Journal of Library and

Information Technology

32



249 6.90

Annals of Library and 152 4.21

Information Studies

Electronic Library 62 1.72

Library Hi Tech News 54 1.50

Global Knowledge, Memory and

Communication

51 1.41

Scientometrics 48 1.33

International Information and

Library Review

47 1.30

Library Review 39 1.08

Journal of Scientometric

Research

Pakistan Journal of Information

Management and Libraries

27 0.75

27 0.75

Total 2201 60.97%

Table 3: Leading Source Titles

d) Prolific Contributors in LIS Research

Table 4 shows the top ten productive authors. A total of

8819 authors are found for 3610 publications.The result

shows that the top productive authors belong to Pakistan

(6 authors), followed by India (3 authors). One author

Rehman, S. U. belongs to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is

not part of the SAARC countries but due to collaboration

in LIS research, the author’s name comes under the top 10

productive authors. Except for Pakistan and India, no

other SAARC countries’ authors are listed in the top 10

productive authors list. At the individual level, the

majority of publications are published by Ameen, K from

the University of the Punjab, Pakistan (72 publications,

466 citations) followed by Mahmood, K from the

University ofPunjab, Pakistan (61 publications, 551

citations), and Bhatti, R from the Islamia University of

Bahawalpur, Pakistan (47 publications, 417 citations).

Gul, S from the University of Kashmir, India is at the top

among Indian authors with 44 papers and 195 citations

followed by Thanuskodi, S from Alagappa University

with 40 publications and 99 citations.

e) Authors’Co-citation Network

A total of 8819 authors are found in 3610 publications.

VOSviewer is used to draw the authors’ co-citation

network. For drawing the authors’ co-citation network, the

threshold was set at 100 and found that 59 authors were

divided into 5 clusters. In figure 1, the co-citation network

of authors is illustrated in different colors and

representsfive different clusters. Each node represents an

author, and nodes are grouped according to similarity. The

link of the nodes indicates the strength; the greater

thickness, the higher the strength.The Red cluster has the

highest number of 24 authors, Green with 15 authors, Blue

with 8 authors, Yellow with 7 authors and Violet with 5

authors. In terms of total link strength, Mahmood K (from

the Green cluster)has the highest total linkstrength (9608)

followed by Ameen, K (5720), Gupta, BM (1917),Bhatti,

R (1805), Thewall, M(1094) and Thanuskodi, S (848).

Author Name Total Total Affiliation

Pub. Citations

Ameen K. 72 466 University of the

Punjab, Pakistan

Mahmood K. 61 551 University of the

Punjab, Pakistan

Bhatti R. 47 417 Islamia University of

Bahawalpur, Pakistan

Gul S. 44 195 University of Kashmir,

India

Khan A. 41 312 University of Peshawar,

Pakistan

Thanuskodi S. 40 99 Alagappa University,

India

Rehman S.U. 30 151 Imam Abdulrehman Bin

Faisal University, Saudi

Arabia

Naveed M.A. 29 167 University of Sargodha,

Pakistan

Ashiq M. 28 115 Islamabad Model

College for Boys,

Pakistan

Jeyshankar R. 28 69 Alagappa University,

India

Table 4: Top 10 Prolific Contributors

33


Fig. 1: Authors Co-Citation Network

f) Reference Co-citation Network

In figure 2, the reference co-citation network of

publications is displayed. The node represents a

document; the node’s size indicates the document’s

frequency. The nodes which have a bigger size represent a

higher frequency. The link between the two nodes

represents the strength of reference co-citation of the cited

papers. The nodes with the same colour belong to the

same cluster and are grouped accordingly. The

VOSviewer software identified four clusters. In the 3610

publications, there are a total of 104143 cited references.

For the drawing network graph, we set the threshold at 8

and 63 references meet this requirement. The Red cluster

has the highest number of 14 items, the Green cluster with

13 items, the Blue cluster with 13 items, the Yellow

cluster with 10 items, the Purple cluster with 9 items and

the Sky Blue Cluster with 4items.As shown in figure 2,


research work by Fornell, C&Larcker, DF is cited most

followed by Subramanyam, K, Ameen, K and Pritchard A.

Fig. 2: Reference Co-Citation Network

g) International Research Collaboration

The country collaboration map for LIS research among

SAARC countries is shown in figure3. Table 5 lists the top

15 international research collaborations of SAARC

countries. From the analysis of Table 5, it is found that

Pakistan has international research collaborations with

Saudi Arabia (78), China (45), Malaysia (28), the USA

(20), and Australia (14). Similarly, Bangladesh has

international research collaborations with Malaysia (11)

and Japan (10). India has international research

collaboration with more countries compared to Pakistan

like the USA (40), China (30), Malaysia (19), Saudi

Arabia (17), United Kingdom (15), South Africa (13),

Nigeria (10) and Iran (10). Saudi Arabia (95) stands at the

top among all the nations collaborating with the SAARC

and fourth place in collaborating with SAARC countries.

From figure 3, it is also seen that SAARC countries

collaborated with Asian, American, European, Middle

East and South African countries. The rest of the SAARC

countries, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives and

Nepal have not been reported under the top 15

international research collaborating countries.

From Country To Country Frequency

Pakistan Saudi Arabia 78

Pakistan China 45

India USA 40

India China 30

Pakistan Malaysia 28

Pakistan USA 20

India Malaysia 19

India Saudi Arabia 17

India United Kingdom 15

Pakistan Australia 14

India South Africa 13

Bangladesh Malaysia 11

Bangladesh Japan 10

India Nigeria 10

India Iran 10

Table 5: International Research Collaboration

h) Keyword Co-occurrence

By using the VOSviewer software, the keywords cooccurrence

graph is prepared. Keywords analysis reflects

the focus of the authors and their publications, providing

an overview of research trends. From the downloaded

publications data from Scopus, 10902 keywords are found.

The size of nodes represents the number of publications.

The colour represents the cluster in which the keywords

are included. For keyword co-occurrence, the top 290

keywords were selected. These 290 keywords are divided

into 7 clusters with total link strength of 14810. From

figure 4, the keyword “India” occurred with maximum

frequency (282), followed by “Bibliometrics” and

“Scientometrics”. Other top keywords are Pakistan,

Authorship Pattern, Citation Analysis, Human, Libraries,

Open Access, Knowledge Management, etc.

Fig. 3: International Research Collaboration

countries. International research collaboration between

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (78 publications) is stronger

than in India to Saudi Arabia (17 publications). China

ranked second as the top collaborating country with

Pakistan and India. The USA and Malaysia are in third

34


Fig.4: Keyword Co-occurrence

Conclusions

References

The study assessed the LIS research performance of

SAARC countries using various scientometric indicators.

During the ten years study period, a total of 3610 research

publications have been found in the Scopus database.

India emerged as the leading nation in LIS research among

SAARC countries, followed by Pakistan. Afghanistan,

Bhutan,MaldivesandNepal have a negligible contribution.

Concerning citations, India shared 64% of citations,

followed by Pakistan (28.43%). Journal Articles are the

most prevalent types of document observed from the

study, while Conference Papers and Book Chapters are

also found to be significant. The study found top 10 source

titles cover more than 60% of LIS research. Research

productivity on LIS research is seen in various forms of

documents but the top 10 source titles belong to the

Journal category only. “Library Philosophy and Practice”

is the most preferred source title amongst all sources

covering 40% of research publications. Other journals like

“DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Science”,

“Annals of Library and Information Studies”, and

“Electronic Library”have also published significant

research publications.The study found that the top

productive authors belong to Pakistan, followed by India.

A researcher, “Ameen K” is the most productive author in

Pakistan, having 72 publications during the period. The

top three most productive authors belong to Pakistan in

LIS research. Despite leading in publications and citations,

India lags in individual-level research performance

compared to Pakistan. Top Indian researchers on LIS

research belong to the University of Kashmir and

Alagappa University.Mahmood K is the highly co-cited

author as illustrated in the authors’ co-citation network.

Similarly, the reference co-citation network of

publications is displayed in four clusters with 63

references and found that the research work of Fornell, C

&Larcker, DF is highly co-cited.

Regarding international research collaboration of SAARC

countries, Pakistan has the top international research

collaboration with Saudi Arabia, followed by China,

Malaysia, the USA, and Australia, while India has the top

international research collaboration with the USA.China

ranked second as the top collaborating country with

Pakistanand India in LIS research. The keywords analysis

reflects the trends of research in the particular field. From

the study, it is found that “India” is a highly occurring

keyword, followed by “Bibliometrics” and

“Scientometrics”. Other keywords like Pakistan,

Authorship Pattern, Citation Analysis, Human, Libraries,

Open Access, and Knowledge Management also occurred

significantly in LIS research.The study has its limitations

for ten years and the study’s conclusions are limited to

data retrieved from the Scopus database and English

language publications only. Thus, inferences drawn from

the study for making generalisations should be addressed

carefully. Further, the study gives directionsfor future

research for ASEAN, BRICS, QUAD and Middle-East

countries.

35


Amudhavalli, A. (1977). Scientometrics/informetrics:

evolution of its concept and applications. In G. Devarajan

(Ed.), Bibliometric Studies (pp. 11-18). New Delhi: Ess

Ess Publication.

Elango, B., Rajendran, P., & Manickraj, J. (2013).

Tribology research output in BRIC countries: a

scientometric dimension. Library Philosophy and Practice

(e-journal), 1-11. Retrieved from

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/935

Gupta, B. M., Munshi, Usha Mujoo, and Mishra, P. K.

(2004). Regional collaboration in S&T

among South Asian countries. Annals of Library and

Information Studies, 51(4): 121-132.

Kalantari, A., Kamsin, A., Kamaruddin, H. S., Ebrahim,

N. A., Gani, A., Ebrahimi, A., &Shamshirband, S. (2017).

A bibliometric approach to tracking Big Data research

trends. Journal of Big Data, 4(1): 30. DOI

10.1186/s40537-017-0088-1

Majumder, Md. A. A., Shaban, S. F., Rahman, S.,

Rahman, N., Ahmed, M., Abdulrahman, K. A. Bin, &

Islam, Z. (2012). A PubMed-based quantitative analysis of

Biomedical publications in the SAARC countries: 1985-

2009. Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons

Pakistan, 22(9): 560-564.

Naheem, K., Nagalingam, U., & Ramesha, B. (2017).

Chronic Liver Disease (CLD) research in SAARC

countries: A scientometric analysis of research output

during 1996-2015. Annals of Library and Information

Studies, 64(1): 59-68.

Patra, S. K., & Chand, P. (2009). Library and Information

Science Research in SAARC and ASEAN countries as

reflected through LISA. Annals of Library and

Information Studies, 56(1): 41-51.

SAARC Secretariat.(n.d.).About SAARC. Retrieved on 25

August 2022, from http://saarc-sec.org/about-saarc

Sadik Batcha, M. (2018). Cardiovascular disease research

in SAARC countries: A scientometric study. Information

Studies, 5(4): 34-44.

Scopus.(n.d.).ELSEVIER | Scopus. Retrieved on 25

August 2022, from https://www.elsevier.com/enin/solutions/scopus

Singh, M. K. (2018). Biotechnology research pattern in

four SAARC countries from 2007 to 2016. Library

Philosophy & Practice. 2048.

Shukla, A., & Maurya, S. K. (2018). Research

performance of South Asian Association for Regional

Cooperation (SAARC) countries in Library and

Information Science: A scientometric analysis. COLLNET

Journal of Scientometrics and Information

Management, 12(1): 73-81.


Tang, M., Liao, H., Wan, Z., Herrera-Viedma, E., &

Rosen, M. A. (2018). Ten years of Sustainability (2009 to

2018): A bibliometric overview.Sustainability, 10(5):

1655.

Uddin, A., & Singh, V. K. (2014).Measuring research

output and collaboration in South Asian countries. Current

Science, 107(1): 31-38. Available at

https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/107/01/0031.p

df

About Authors

Ms. N G Thermi Moyonis working as Librarian at

South East Manipur College, Manipur and pursuing her

PhD at Mizoram University, Aizawl. She completed her

MLIS from Panjab University, Chandigarh, and MPhil in

Library and Information Science from Mizoram

University. Her areas of interests are Library Automation,

Knowledge Management, Bibliometric and Scientometric.

Dr S. Raviis working as Professor at Department of

Library & Information Science, Central University of

Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur. He has more than 40 years of

experience in Library & Information Science profession.

He has more than 50 papers/articles in his credit published

in the form of research journals, conference proceedings,

books, edited books and book chapters of national and

international repute. Besides this, he served as resource

person for many conferences, seminars, refresher courses,

faculty development programs etc. Under his supervision,

20 candidates have been awarded PhD and 45 candidates

awarded M Phil. degrees. He has received 6 prestigious

awards including Life Time Achievement Award. He

visited many countries for academic purposes and served

as Mentor for the Commonwealth Diploma in Youth

Development Work and Commonwealth Certificate in

Youth Development Work, Collaborative Programmes

with Commonwealth Secretariat, London for five years.

Dr Akhandanand Shukla, PhD in Library &

Information Science, is working as Associate Professor at

Department of Library & Information Science, Central

University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur. His areas of

specialization and research interest are Webometrics,

Digital Library, Bibliometrics, Information Technology,

and Classification Theory. He has more than 87

papers/articles in his credit published in the form of

research journals, conference proceedings, books, edited

books and book chapters of national and international

repute. Besides this, he has also attended more than 30

conferences, seminars, workshops etc. of regional,

national and international level. He has supervised 25

students and scholars for their dissertation work at MLIS,

M. Phil. and Ph.D. levels.

Dr R. K. Ngurtinkhuma, B. A. (Hons), MA, MLIS,

PhD, PGDDE, PGJMC is presently a Professor of Library

& Information Science and Dean, School of Economics,

Management & Information Science, Mizoram University,

Aizawl. A former Head of the Department has 38 years of

experience in library profession in teaching and nonteaching

capacity. He is an author of 3 books and

published more than 40 research articles. 11 MPhil

scholars and 6 PhD scholars were awarded degree under

his guidance. He attended many international and national

seminars, conferences and presented papers. He organised

and invited as Resource Person in various Workshop and

Training programmes. He also completed one Major

Research Project under ICSSR. He is life member in ILA,

IASLIC, IATLIS and founder member of Mizoram

Library Association.

36



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Integrating Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Existing

Library Framework in Enhancing Level of Users’ Satisfaction


29 th August 2022




12 th October 2022


18 th October 2022

Rajesh Chutia , Mukut Sarmah, Mousum Handique & Jose Rodolfo

Hernandez-Carrion

Rajesh Chutia

Research Scholar (Ph.D

Dept of Lib and Inf Science

Assam University

rajesh.chutia@aus.ac.in

Dr Mukut Sarmah

Associate Professor


Assam University

drmsarmah@gmail.com

Dr Mousum Handique

AssistantProfessor

Dept of Computer Sc. & Engg

Assam University

mousum.smit@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Introduction Libraries are the storehouse of information instilling knowledge into

human minds. The easy availability of information from online sources has barred users

from visiting the library physically. To keep the users intact within the physical confines

of a library, there is a need for libraries to evolve through the implementation of stateof-the-art

techniques.

Purpose- The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework and conceptual

background for applying natural language processing (NLP) in library and information

science (LIS) to improve library services and related research. This study also aims to

identify the LIS areas where NLP can use and implement one such area to provide

efficient services.

Research Problem-This study integrates natural language processing with the existing

library framework to enhance the satisfaction level of the users.

The objective-The primary objective of this study is to amalgamate natural language

processing in library libraries by identifying the areas of improvement.

Methodology- This study uses a conceptual paradigm by systematic observation of NLP

facts in accentuating library services. This study aims to make libraries more efficient in

providing dedicated resources and services to users by implementing NLP techniques.

The data for this study were collected from secondary sources and analyzed to obtain

meaningful insights.

Findings- Considering the staggering amount of informative data that a library has to

deal with, NLP can be brought to mainstream libraries to develop numerous models to

provide better services to its users. NLP not only supplements library services but also

helps make research more inclusive of applications such as keyword extraction,

translation, and summarization. The library is a service-oriented organization, and to

provide better services, NLP should be taught and implemented in information science

education.

Dr Jose Rodolfo

Hernandez-Carrion

Professor

Dept. of Applied Economics,

University of Valencia, Spain

rodolfo.hernandez@uv.es

KEYWORDS:

Natural Language Processing; Library Services; Library and Information

Science; Library framework; User satisfaction

.

37


Introduction

The origins of libraries differ depending on the

literary evidence found in various geographical

locations. The invention of the earliest literature

dates back to the Mesopotamian time, and libraries

emerged alongside the invention of writing.

Libraries, considered storehouses, gradually

developed into information centres over time. The

library remained accessible only to privileged and

upper-class citizens in the medieval period, which is,

to kings and ministers. Today, these dynamics have

drastically widened the use of library services for the

masses. Simultaneously, the roles of libraries and

librarians’ have gradually changed from recordkeeping

and classification to the implementation of

information communication technologies. With this

changing scenario, development is necessary to cope

with the convergence of technology with libraries.

Such interdependence between digitalization and

libraries is evident in the information retrieval

behaviour of people. The implementation of

information communication technologies in a library

is just a nascent thing, where computers have

evolved from an abacus to artificial intelligence and

robotics.

On the one hand, many libraries are yet to be

automated, while on the other hand, artificial

intelligence has seized the world by making peoples’

lives easier. Libraries that do not implement any

information communication applications are no

longer regarded as libraries. This study considers the

higher stage of ICT, where natural language

processing bolsters libraries to extend their functions

significantly. Natural language processing makes

computers friendlier to humans so that they can

communicate with computers as they communicate

with one another. For effective implementation of

Natural Language Processing, the library should be

well equipped with computer facilities and

competent library staff, both well-versed and skilled

in natural language processing.

Objectives

To amalgamate Natural Language

Processing in an ICT-based framework for

Libraries.

To discuss areas that can be improved and

enhanced using natural language processing

applications.

To create a user-friendly library environment

where users can enjoy library facilities with

minimal human intervention.

Literature Review

The literature review discusses libraries from their

inception and evolution. It then proceeds towards

implementing ICT and uses natural language

processing in libraries. Zarifeh (2000) corroborated

38


the origin of writing with the emergence of

Mesopotamian cities. According to him, the concept

of libraries has begun to take shape. Taskin and Al

(2019) supported natural language processing in

making tasks easier in library and information

science. They examined 6,607 publications to

advance their research. Jeevitha and Kavitha (2019)

opined that integrating natural language processing

with existing library services increases the efficiency

of librarians.

Methodology

Research Method: A conceptual-based research

method was used in this study. The idea behind this

research is solely to make libraries more efficient in

providing dedicated resources and services to their

users.

Data Collection: The data for this study were

mainly collected from secondary sources. Journal

articles, visual data, websites, blogs, research papers,

critical observation reports from experts, newspaper

columns, magazines, and other relevant sources were

also collected.

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing is a branch of artificial

intelligence that allows computers to understand

human speech and text as human beings write and

speak naturally. Humans' ability to speak, write, and

understand establishes communication because they

can share and gather information. Likewise,

computer language has evolved from 0 and 1 to a

high-level language, enabling computers to interact

with humans as they speak and write.

Initially, computers were used to deal with low-level

languages, also known as machine languages (0 and

1). The problem with machine language is that

computers only receive and deliver input and output

in machine language, that is, 0 and 1. The user must

decode the binary digits into meaningful results and

code the input into the machine language. The

coding and decoding of machine language require a

programmer, and it is not easy for normal people to

use computers. Later, computer language evolved

into an assembly language, where special characters

could also be used as input and output. This helped

the computer users a bit where they could use

mnemonics in the input and output processes. The

revolution in computer language has been brought

about by high-level languages, similar to human

language. High-level language enables computers

and humans to interact without any difficulty.

Natural language is a subfield of artificial

intelligence that makes life easier by enabling users

to communicate with computers as they

communicate with their peers. Its ability to

understand human language has helped develop

applications that benefit human beings.


a. Levels of Natural Language Processing

Feldman (1999) and Liddy (2010) divided NLPlevels

(Figure 2) in the following manner:

Figure 1 Levels of NLP

Source: Feldman 1999 (p. 62-64) and Liddy 2010 (p. 3867-

3868)

Application of Natural Language

Processing in Library and Information

Science

Following are the ways where the application of

natural language processing can be used in library

and information science:

a. Sentiment Analysis:

People's behaviour is not always based on their

inborn and instinctive tendencies. Of course, such

innate dispositions, along with the social

environment, play a strong role in the formation of

certain repetitive actions. These are more stable, as

they habituate over time and become integral aspects

of personality, known as sentiments. A complex of

experiences garnered over time, prompted by

feelings, thoughts, and emotions, becomes sentiment.

Thus, sentiments are acquired, but deeper

dispositions involve several affective and conative

factors. Sentiments are attitudes and judgments that

constitute a permanent part of our mental structures.

These are directed towards certain objects, things,

ideas, or concepts, and are usually expressed through

emotions.

Sentiment analysis is a mechanism that deals with

people’s sentiments by finding context out of an

unstructured text and also by segregating them into

different categories. It is also known as emotional

artificial intelligence, in which emotions are

analyzed. This is how computers are programmed to

understand human emotions. Sentiment analysis or

opinion analysis uses natural language processing to

analyze and identify the exact data. Sentiment

analysis is commonly used for messaging

applications. They are also used in customer reviews

of goods and products, social media, and survey

responses.

a1. Sentiment Analysis in Library and Information

Science:

The application of sentiment analysis can provide a

different dimension to the library and information

science. The library is a service-oriented user-based

organization. The libraries are based on satisfying

user needs. To this end, the library collects feedback

from users to improve their services.

Areas of implementation

Online Feedback form

Student Peer Feedback

Student self-Feedback

b. Chatbot

Application software is used to replace human

interventions in audio and text chats. It uses prerecorded

videos or text messages to reply to

customers. It is mainly used in flight books, travel

books, and telecom applications. It uses natural

language processing by matching text to answer

queries.

b1. Implementation in Libraries

Chatbot applications can be used in libraries to

satisfy user requirements. It can be implemented in

reference services by posing questions to the

librarians. For instance, users connect with reference

librarians during times of difficulty in the operation

of services. Usually, users communicate with a

reference librarian by sending messages through

email, WhatsApp, or text messages. The librarian

often replies to all queries, but after all, being a

human being comes with limited accessibility. It is

challenging for him to stay connected every time,

while it is quite impossible to employ a dedicated

staff member such as a customer care executive to

solve users’ queries. Therefore, having a chatbot

mechanism in the library maximizes its efficiency.

The librarian should maintain a dataset of frequently

asked questions to make the application userfriendly.

b1.1. Chatbot Script:

The imaginary scenario mentioned by Jeevitha and

Kavitha (2019)

User: "Hey, can you help me out?”

Chatbot: “Yes, Sure; please tell me what you need?”

User: “Is the book Selfish Gene available."

Chatbot: “Please wait. I will come back to you.”

Chatbot: “Do you mean The Selfish Gene by Richard

Dawkins?”

User: “Yes”

Chatbot: “We have it. Presently it is out on lending

and will be returned by the 30th of this month,

should the current user choose not to renew it.”

User: “Thanks for the response.”

Chatbot: “Thank You”

39


c. Speech Recognition

Speech recognition is an application software whose

input and output are loudly spoken. Users provide

input in voice messages, and the application answers

invoice messages in the same way. Speechrecognition

technologies have revolutionized the

world and interact with their devices. Commanding

devices has become easier because humans can input

devices as they interact with other humans. Instead

of providing input in text, humans can provide an

input invoice form. Currently, voice recognition

technology is used in health, education, customer

service, disability assistance, emotion recognition,

and hands-free communication. Examples of speech

recognition technology include Google Assistant,

Siri, Alexa, and Cortana.

c1. Implementation in Libraries

It is also an application of NLP that can be

implemented in libraries. It is similar to a chatbot,

but its only difference is that it uses voice instead of

text. Voice recognition can replace reference

librarians. If the voice recognition application is

enabled with all the information in the library, it can

entirely replace the reference librarian and satisfy

library users, thus working as a library assistant.

d. Machine Translation

Machine translation is related to the automatic

translation of languages. In retro times translation

could only be done through the help of a dictionary.

However, owing to the change in time and

upgradation in the computer, a language translation

model can be developed with the help of natural

language processing. It uses a bilingual dataset and

other language assets (grammar, syntax (sentence

structure), semantics (meanings)) to build language

and phrases to translate text.

d. Some other example applications

a) Natural language interfaces to databases: This

makes information retrieval easier where

users can communicate in natural language,

and the result will be in natural language.

b) Natural language interface to computers: In

the case of a problem, users can seek online

assistance. For example, “UNIX consultant."

c) Question answering systems: LUNAR by

Woods (1977) is a research vehicle

developed to conduct sophisticated analysis

of quantification in natural language

sentences.

d) Story understanding: Given a story in the

specified domain, the question-answering

system answers questions about it. For

example, work was carried out at Yale under

Why Not Tell Someone ?

Adverb Adverb Verb Noun Punctuation

mark/sentence

closure

40


Schank and Abelson (1977).

e) Spell Checking: Spell-checking is a

mechanism by which spelling errors can be

automatically checked.

f) Information Extraction: Important

information from a text can be automatically

extracted with the help of information

extraction, for example, the name of an

entity and its recognition.

Process of Natural Language

Processing

In some instances, the processes involved in natural

language processing also act as steps of natural

language processing. The following sections discuss

the different processes of natural language

processing.

a. Tokenization

Tokenization is the process of breaking complex

sentences into smaller pieces. It breaks sentences into

small bits, emphasizes every word, and finally

provides the output to process further.

b. Word Count

Word count is the process of determining the

frequency of words in a sentence. It starts with

space-separated words but also includes special

characters.

c. Stemming

Stemming is the process of converting words into

their root forms. Hence, 'likes,' 'liking,' 'liked,' and

'likely' are reduced to the root word or base word

like.

d. Lemmatization

Lemmatization is similar to stemming and

normalizing words to their root form. The difference

between the two is that stemming removes the last

few alphabets from the word, whereas lemmatization

considers the meaning and context to convert a word

into its root form. Example: lemmatization convert

the word 'communicating' to ‘communicate’ but on

the other hand, stemming can only convert the word

'communicating' into 'communicate,' just removing

ing from the word which does not have any meaning.

e. Stop Words

Stop words are used to build up a sentence i.e., "the,"

"a," "at," "for," "above," "on," "is," and "all". Stop

words are also known as prepositions that are

removed in natural language processing to process

the concept further by giving meaning context to it.

f. Part Of Speech Tagging (Pos)

Part-of-speech tagging assigns grammatical

elements, which are parts of speech sentences, to

form meaningful contexts. The parts of speech are

nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions,

adjectives, and interjections, which are used

depending on the context of the sentences.


In the above sentence, it can be seen that each word

has a lexical term written underneath. However, this

becomes cumbersome as the corpus grows. Hence, a

short representation represents categories referred to

as tags. The following figure shows different types of

lexical terms and their tags.

Figure 2 Different types of lexical terms and their tags

a) POS tagging applications:

Name Entity Recognition

CO-reference Resolution

Speech Recognition

g. Named Entity Recognition

Named entity recognition identifies entities such as

personal name, location, monetary value, and event.

h. Chunking

Chunking is a process of extracting bits and pieces of

information from unstructured text, grouping them

into more significant pieces, and helping to identify

the constituents (noun groups, verbs, verb groups,

etc.)

This process states that an NP chunk should be

formed whenever the chunker finds an optional

determiner (DT), followed by any number of

adjectives (JJ) and then a noun (NN).

Implementation of Natural Language

Processing Applications in LIS

Research

Research is an on-going process that is needed to

improve and advance a particular field. Similarly,

research in the library and information science fields

plays a vital role in making libraries more efficient

and effective. Natural language processing

applications can make research more efficient and

result-oriented.

Following are the technologies of natural language

processing to make research more competent:

a. Keyword Extraction

Keywords are the most important words that capture

the essence of a research paper. In other words, it can

be said that most repeated words other than the stop

words can be considered keywords. In the context of

an electronic document, keywords are words that

help the indexer to make the research paper

searchable by interested users. The list of keywords

is called the index. The more keywords included in

the index, the more searchable the document

becomes; however, the author sometimes becomes

confused in selecting the appropriate words as

keywords. Word count is the process of natural

language processing used to count the frequency of

words in a sentence. It starts with space-separated

words but also includes special characters. The most

frequent words, other than stop words, can be

considered keywords.

b. Summarization of Text

Every researcher must read the exhaustive literature

while conducting the research. However, this

problem arises with an abundance of available

literature. Currently, the use of natural and the

problem of text summarization can be solved, which

can be used in the literature review.

c. Data Analysis

There are many simple to complex application

software for data analysis, such as MS Excel, SPSS,

and R programming. Similarly, all the above

application software can be replaced using the

natural language toolkit library of Python to perform

statistical calculations, including figures, tables, and

graphs.

d. Spell Checking

Spell checking is an application of natural language

processing that rectifies spelling errors in documents.

This can be used to proofread this research paper.

e. Machine Translation

Accessibility beyond boundaries has brought goods

and services from around the globe to users'

doorsteps. Likewise, it has made it possible to access

information in research papers and through other

means. This information can be of any language;

therefore, machine translation can help translate the

text into a familiar language.

Conclusion

NLP has brought augmentation to computer

languages as it understands the semantics and

connotations of human languages in the same way

that humans speak and write. This is a component of

artificial intelligence that enables text simplification.

Today, human society is data-driven, and henceforth

NLP has become more imperative, especially when

we consider the library as the core of the information

science network. Considering the staggering amount

of informative data that a library has to deal with,

natural language processing can be brought to

mainstream libraries to develop numerous models to

provide better services to its users. NLP not only

supplements library services but also helps make

research more inclusive of applications, such as

keyword extraction, translation, and summarization.

The library is an information-based field. Natural

41


language processing should be taught and

implemented in information science education to

make librarians more efficient in delivering effective

services to users.

References

Berger, A., Della Pietra, S.A. & Della Pietra, V.J.

(1996). A maximum entropy approach to natural

language processing. Computational linguistics.

22(1): 39-71.

Feldman, S. (1999). NLP meets the jabberwocky:

Natural language processing in information retrieval.

Online. 23: 62-72.

Gupta, N. & Mathur, P. (2012). Spell Checking

Techniques in NLP: A Survey. International Journal

of Advanced Research in Computer Science and

Software Engineering. 2(12): 217–221.

Hovy, E. & Lin, C.Y. (1999). Automated text

summarization in SUMMARIST. Advances in

automatic text summarization. 14: 81-94.

Jeevitha, V. &Kaviatha, E. S. (2019). A Study on

Adapting Natural Language Processing for Library

Services Delivery. Library Philosophy and Practice:

1-10.

Liddy, E. D. (1998). Enhanced text retrieval using

natural language processing. Bulletin of the

American Society for Information Science and

Technology. 24(4): 14-16.

Manning, C.D., Surdeanu, M., Bauer, J., Finkel, J.R.,

Bethard, S. &McClosky, D. (2014). The Stanford

CoreNLP natural language processing toolkit. In

Kristina Toutanova, &Hua Wu (Eds.) Proceedings

of 52nd annual meeting of the association for

computational linguistics: system demonstrations,

Baltimore, Maryland. Retrieved from

https://aclanthology.org/P14-5010/

Natarajan, M. (2005). Role of text mining in

information extraction and information management.

DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information

Technology. 25(4): 31–38.

Sarkar, P. &Purkayastha, B.S. (2016) . A Study of

the Natural Language Processing Tasks to Address

Semantics Ambiguities. International Journal. 6(10).

Taskin, Z. & Al, U. (2019). Natural language

processing applications in library and information

science. Online Information Review: 1-19.

Zarifeh, M. (2000). Libraries of the ancient world.

ANZT

About Authors

42


Mr. Rajesh Chutia is a Ph.D. scholar at the Department

of Library and Information Science, Assam University,

and a Librarian at Govt. Model College, Borkhola,

Cachar, Assam. He has studied at the prestigious "Jawahar

Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV)." He has a degree in

"Bachelor of Business Administration" and a master's

degree in LIS from Assam University. He has also

completed his M.Phil. and pursuing a Ph.D. from Assam

University.

He has published research papers in Scopus Indexed

Journals and showcased his research works on

international platforms, the recent being the National

Taiwan Normal University, Taipei. He has initiated

collaborative research projects with scholars from Spain,

Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, and the USA. His research

interest encompasses "Library Anxiety, Biblio-Tourism,

Natural Language Processing and any ICT application in

Library and Information Science."

Dr Mukut Sarmahis working as an Associate Professor

(HOD) in Department of Library and Information Science

at Assam University. He has participated in various

seminars, conferences, and workshops at national and

international levels. He has contributed more than 80

research papers in different seminar/conference

proceedings, journals, and edited books. He has completed

two Research Projects sponsored by UGC. He visited

University of Colombo, Sri Lanka for delivering a theme

paper in International Research Symposium in 2012. He

also visited National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan

for delivering a research paper in ICLIS “International

conference on Library and Information Science” His fields

of interest are: knowledge organisation, IT applications in

libraries, library automation, information retrieval, web

applications, bibliometric analysis, blended learning, e-

publishing and digital library.

Dr Mousum Handiqueis working as an Assistant

Professor at the Department of Computer Science and

Engineering, Assam University, Silchar, Assam, India. He

received his Bachelor of Engineering (B.E) in Computer

Technology from Nagpur University, in 2002 and Master

of Technology (M.Tech) degree from Tezpur University,

Tezpur, Assam in 2005. He has received his Ph.D. degree

in the year 2020 in the field of VLSI Testing and

Reversible Computing from India Institute of Technology

Guwahati (IITG), Guwahati 781039, Assam, India. His

current research interests include Testing and Synthesis of

Reversible and Quantum Circuits, Formal System

Verification, Machine Intelligence, Workflow

Automation, and Queueing Theory.

Dr Jose Rodolfo Hernandez-Carrionis a Professor

at the Department of Applied Economics at the University

of Valencia (Spain). He has been teaching Economics

since 1989 in different centers and various languages and

publishing in international journals with an open and

critical multidisciplinary approach. He served in the

governing board of Spanish Association of Regional

Science (AECR) and Spanish Society of Systems Science

(SESGE), where he was Vice-President and Editor in

Chief of RIS (Revista Internacional de Sistemas –

International Journal of Systems). He was also Visiting

Professor at North-East Normal University (NENU) in

Changchun, teaching regular courses.


UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750


30 th August 2022




13 th October 2022


18 th October 2022

Dependency of Information Seeking Behaviour on Maslow’s

Needs Theory: a study based on Rural People of Purba

Bardhaman District with particular reference to ‘Sargram Gram

Panchayet’

Uttam Kumar Hazra & Rajesh Das

ABSTRACT

Uttam Kumar Hazra

Librarian

Vivekananda Mahavidyalaya,

Burdwan, West Bengal

uttamlib@gmail.com

IntroductionRural people are always a vital part of the development of society. Almost

69 percent of the total Indian population lives in rural areas, which cover 96 %

(approx.) of the total area in India. They need various types of information in their day

to life. This paper focuses on the five types of needs as prescribed by Maslow, such as -

Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Social Needs (Love or Belonging Needs), Esteem

Needs and Self Actualization Needs.

Purpose- To find out the nature of the information requirements of the people of

Sargram Gram Panchayat (SGP) as prescribed by the Maslow's need theory.

Research Problem-The nature of information needs and information-seeking behavior of

the people of the SGP are unknown to us. The research problem has been generalized

how many similarities between their information needs and information-seeking

behavior; and Maslow's needs

The objective-The primary objective of this study is to determine the relevance of Maslow's

Needs Theory in the Information Seeking Behaviour of rural people of SGP considering different

categories, age groups, marital status, and educational qualifications and professions.

Methodology- The methodology includes 204 questionnaires that were sent through

individual WhatsApp numbers and through personal communication among the villagers

of the SGP and 148 persons responded and analyzed these data.

Findings- It is found in the research that the information requirements of the people of

SGP are almost the same as those prescribed by the Maslow.

Dr Rajesh Das

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Lib.& Inf Science

University of Burdwan

rajeshdas99@gmail.com

KEYWORDS:

Maslow's needs theory; Information seeking behavior; Information needs; Self

Actualization Needs

43


Introduction

Everyone needs information in their day-to-day life

irrespective of regional domination, occupation,

caste, creed, sex, education status, etc. The need for

information started with the appearance of human

beings on this globe. Physiological needs were the

only needs in that period(Hazra, 2020). For the time

being, society has developed, and the need for

information has changed. In the present era, it is not

limited to physiological needs only but the extended

necessity to safety needs, social needs(love needs),

esteem needs, and needs for self-actualization, which

was described by Abraham Maslow clearly and

pinpointing. People perform various activities to

meet their needs. Needs for information vary from

person to person at a different point in time and in

other respects such as age, sex, occupation, etc.

Therefore seeking behavior differs too.

Sargram Gram Panchayet (SGP) is situated in an

absolute remote area of Purba Bardhaman District of

West Bengal, India, comprising 08(eight) villages,

namely Jamra, Kamal, Chandrapur, Bainchi,

Norsona, Elgram, Sargram, Puini. There is 14372

population comprising 7444 males and 6928 females

of different communities in SGP. There are 07

primary schools, 01 Madhyamaik School, 01 H.S.

(Higher Secondary) School, 05 Child Education

Centres, 19 ICDS (Integrated Child Development

Scheme) Centres, 01 college, 104 self-help groups,

but there is no Public Library or CLIC (Community

Library cum Information Centre) in SGP (SGP,

2020). This research is based on Information Seeking

Behaviour (ISB) of the general people of SGP.

Details of demography

The distribution of the human population according

to their size across space is demography. SGP is an

absolute rural area, and the demography of SGP in

comparison with the entire country, state, district and

specific block according to the census report – 2011

is given below (Govt. of India, 2011):

Objectives

The following are the objectives of the present study:

i. To determine the relevance of Maslow's

Needs Theory in the Information Seeking

Behaviour of rural people of SGP

considering different categories, age groups,

marital status, and educational qualifications

and professions;

ii. To assess the information requirement and

the use of information sources; and

iii. To identify information barriers, preference

of reading (Books, Journals & Magazines,

and News Papers and status of own

collection.

Scope

There are 08 villages, namely Jamra, Kamal,

Chandrapur, Bianchi, Norsona, Elgram, Sargram,

and Puini, in SGP. Various types of people of

different age groups, sex, community, literacy

standard, occupation, economic conditions, etc., live

here. Most of the people are engaged in agricultural

activities, and some of them are engaged in their

businesses too.

Particulars Rural Urban Total Total

M F M F M F

India 427781058 405967794 195943510 180501500 623724568 586469294 1210193862

W.B 31844945 30338168 14964082 14128920 46809072 44467088 91276160

Purba

2014158 1930562 455152 435660 2469310 2366222 4835532

Bardhaman

Katwa-1 85733 80881 3354 3119 89087 84000 173087

SGP 7444 6928 NA NA 7444 6928 14372

Table-1: The percentage of Males (M) and females (F) in the area of SGP is almost 52% and 48 %, respectively

Items India W.B Purba Bardhaman Katwa-1 SGP

R U R U R U R U R U

Area (In Sq. 3101473.97 102252.03 83626.43 5125.57 6095.98 928.02 177.69 1.03 13.8 NA

KM)

Population 279 3685 774 5676 761 3317 938 6284 1042 NA

density

Literacy rate 68.9 % 85.0 % 72.13 % 84.78 % 72.49 % 84.66 % 69.87 % 82.72 70 % NA

%

Table-2: Details of area, population density, and literacy (Govt. of India, 2011)

SGP= Sargram Gram Panchayet, Male = M, Female = F, R = Rural, U = Urban

A tiny percentage of people are government

employees, and there are daily wage earners in SGP

too. The people of this require Agricultural

Information; Health Information; Information

regarding employment; Information regarding

physical training; Government Information;

Information about politics; Information about higher

education; Information about kids' education;

Information about self-learning, etc.

44



Methodology

The sample ranging from young adults to strongaged

persons of different communities are selected

randomly from the specified area chosen for the

research study, and then a framed questionnaire was

sent through individual What's App number of the

respective respondent for collection of data. Besides,

personal communications were also made to collect

the data and then the data are arranged in tabular

form to reach the outcome of the research.

Definition Analysis

a. Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs Theory

Abraham Harold Maslow (01.04.1908 - 08.06.1970)

identified five levels of needs, i.e., physiological

needs, safety needs, social or love needs, esteem

needs and self-actualization needs of human beings

in his research paper, "The Theory of Human

Motivation" in the year 1943. It was published in

"Psychological Review". It was actually a

motivational theory, and how people step towards the

level of needs, one after another is shown here

(Wikipedia, 2021).

At the primary level, Physiological needs, i.e., the

need for food, shelter, clothing, sex, etc. are prime

needs or the basic needs of all human beings. Basic

needs may motivate a person who requires them. At

this level the graph is like the following:

Figure-1: Stages of needs

After meeting, the first level meets, human beings

step forward 2 nd level needs, i.e., Safety needs or

security needs such as economic security, security in

jobs, security in sleekness, injury and security in old

age. When the 1 st level and 2 nd level needs become

satisfied, the 3 rd level needs become predominant.

Being a social human being, man wants social

acceptance, friendship, and affection. He meets their

needs for them at this level. Now it is the turn of

esteem needs or psychological needs which is of two

types - i. needs for appreciation, respect from fellow

workers and of superior; ii. needs for selfconfidence,

competence and for knowledge. After

meeting the esteem needs, and self-actualization

needs, i.e. need for a better opportunity, development

for one's full potentiality becomes dominant.

Figure-2: Hierarchy of needs (Jerome, 2013; Mcleod, 2018;

Red-Chunningham, 2014)

b. Criticism of Maslow’s theory

i. The hierarchy is not rigid, and the level

is not clear;

ii. The theory is not universally accepted

because the needs of man vary;

iii. Needs are not only the motivating factor.

There are other factors like perception,

expectation too;

iv.

The theory is based on a relatively small

sample;

v. There is no definite evidence that the

motivating force ended with the

satisfaction of needs (Jerome, 2013;

Mcleod, 2018; Red-Chunningham,

2014).

c Information Seeking Behaviour

Tubachi defined as the process involved in changing

one's (human being) state of knowledge is called

Information Seeking. It's a kind of high-level

learning and problem-solving cognitive process. In

this process, users are supposed to acquire new

knowledge and skills through various information

sources and tools(Laloo, 2008).

According to Wilson, information seeking is defined

as ' the purposive seeing for information as a

consequence of a need to satisfy some goal.

Marchionini defined information seeking as “a

process in which humans purposefully engage in

order to change their state of knowledge and which is

closely related to learning and problem

solving”(Laloo, 2008).

Johnson offered the definition of information seeking

as “purposive acquisition of information from

selected information careers”(Laloo, 2008).

45


Data Analysis

From the above Table-5, it is seen that maximum

(46.62 %) of the respondents were from the age

group of 28-38 years, followed by 18-28, 38-48, 50

and above and 48-58.

M- Male F- Female

Table – 3 : Respondents from different villages with

categories

From Table-3, it is seen that a total of 204

questionnaires were distributed, among which 148,

i.e. 72.55 % responses were received. The villagers

of Jamra responded most and minimum responses

were received from Elgram. The average of

responses is 18.5.

Table – 6: Marital Status

Table – 6 reflects that 72.3 % of the respondents are

married and the rests are unmarried. The average of

married persons is 13.37 and the average of

unmarried is 5.125

Table – 4: Caste-wise distribution of respondents

Table-4 narrates that the maximum of respondents belong

to General Community (58.11 %), followed by SC

(18.92%), OBC-B 14.86% and ST (8.11%)

Profession

Sec- Secondary, H.S- Higher Secondary, UG- Under Graduate,

PG- Post Graduate

Table – 7: Educational Qualification

It is seen from Table -7 that the maximum, i.e.,

52.7% of the respondents are graduates and no one of

the respondents is illiterate.

Name of the Villages

Jamra Kamal Chandrapur Bainchi Norsona Elgram Sargram Print Total

Farmer 16 10 08 13 06 01 11 10 75 (50.68 %)

Daily wage

earners

02 03 04 02 02 06 02 02 23 (15.54 %)

Service in

Govt. Sectors

01 00 01 01 00 01 00 01 5 (3.378%)

Housewife 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8 (5.405%)

Student 04 03 03 02 06 03 03 04 28 (18.92%)

Unemployed 01 01 02 02 00 00 01 02 9 (6.081%)

Others 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0 (00 %)

Total 25 18 19 21 15 12 18 20 148 (100 %)

Table – 8: Profession of the respondents

46


The above Table – 8 manifests that 50.68 % of the

respondents are farmers and a very small percentage


(3.378 %) of the respondents are Govt. Service

holders, 18.92 % of the respondents are students,

15.54 % are daily wage earners, 6.08% is

unemployed and the rest 5.405 is a housewife.

Table – 9: Information Requirement

47


From Table – 9, it is seen that the maximum of the

respondents requires Agricultural Information,

followed by Health Information, Economical

Information, Information about sanitation,

Information about Education and, Information about

housing.

Sources


Jamra Kamal Chandrapur Bainchi Norsona Elgram Sargram Print Total

Books 16 10 12 17 10 01 11 11 88

Journals &

02 01 02 02 00 00 01 02 10

Magazines

Radio 02 03 04 02 02 06 02 02 23

Television 18 13 16 19 12 12 13 13 116

Newspaper(s) 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Community

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Information Centre

Krishi Bigyan Kendra 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

websites 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Interpersonal

16 10 08 13 06 02 11 10 76

Communication

Census Report 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Government

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Document

Community Leader 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Priest or Religious 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

leader

Mythological Stories 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

from elders

Gossip n the

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

community meeting

place and

marketplace

Total 54 37 42 53 30 21 38 38 313

Table – 10: Sources of Information

Table – 10 reflects that Television is the most favored source of information. It is followed by Books,

interpersonal communication, Radio, Journals and Magazines.

Barriers


Jamra Kamal Chandrapur Bainchi Norsona Elgram Sangram Print Total

Physical problem(s) 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Don't have any Public 25 18 19 21 15 12 18 20 148

Library in the local area

Lack of Time 06 05 06 05 07 04 05 07 45

Lack of support from 24 17 18 20 14 11 17 20 141

local Government

Office(s)

Lack of familiarity with 02 03 04 02 02 06 02 02 23

the given source(s)

Language problem 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Illiteracy 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Total 57 43 47 48 38 33 42 49 357

Table – 11: Barriers to Information

Table – 11 narrates that the absence of a Public Library in the locality hinders most to get information. It is

followed by a Lack of support from the local government, a Lack of time and unfamiliar sources of information

Books



Fictions 18 13 13 18 11 02 13 13 101

Novels 14 09 10 15 10 01 10 09 78

Poetry 03 02 01 03 01 01 02 02 15

Drama 02 01 01 01 01 00 01 01 8

Text Books 04 03 03 02 06 03 03 04 28

Tours and Travels 02 03 02 04 03 02 01 01 18

Books for cooking 05 02 01 03 01 01 02 02 17

Books for career guidance 05 04 05 04 06 03 06 04 37

Government publications 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8

Government reports 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8

Books for children 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8

Religious books 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 16

Total 58 42 41 55 44 18 43 41 342

Table – 12: Preference for books reading

From Table – 12, it is observed that Fiction type books are most preferred and Novels followed by Books for

career guidance, Text Books, Tours and Travels, Books for cooking, Religious books, Poetry, Drama, Govt.

publications, Govt. reports, and books for Children.

48



Journals /


Magazines Jamra Kamal Chandrapur Bainchi Norsona Elgram Sangram Print Total

Academic 04 03 03 02 06 03 03 04 28

Career

05 04 05 04 06 03 04 06 37

Guidance

For competitive 05 04 05 04 06 03 04 06 37

examinations

Life style 05 02 01 03 01 01 02 02 17

Total 19 13 14 13 19 10 13 18 119

Table – 13: Preference of Journals / Magazines reading

Table -13 signifies that a maximum of Journal & Magazines are read for Career Guidance and Competitive

examination and these are followed by Academic Journals & Magazines for LifeStyle.

Newspapers



Ananda Bazar 12 07 07 06 04 01 06 03

Patrika

46

Pratidin 02 03 01 05 02 00 03 05 21

Aajkal 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Eisamay 02 02 03 04 03 01 02 04 21

Bartaman 01 01 02 03 02 00 02 01 12

The Statesman 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

The Telegraph 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0

Times of India 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1

Total 18 13 13 18 11 2 13 13 101

Table – 14: Newspaper reading

Table – 14 reveals that Ananda Bazar Patrika is mostly read News Paper and then Pratidin and Eisamay.

And these are followed by Bartaman and the times of India. But no of the inhabitant reads Aajkal, The

Statesman and the Telegraph.

Books



Fictions 18 13 13 18 11 02 13 13 101

Novels 14 09 10 15 10 01 10 09 78

Poetry 03 02 01 03 01 01 02 02 15

Drama 02 01 01 01 01 00 01 01 8

Text Books 04 03 03 02 06 03 03 04 28

Tours and Travels 02 03 02 04 03 02 01 01 18

Books for cooking 05 02 01 03 01 01 02 02 17

Books for career guidance 05 04 05 04 06 03 06 04 37

Government publications 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8

Government reports 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8

Books for children 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 8

Religious books 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 16

Total 58 42 41 55 44 18 43 41 342

Table – 15: Own Collection

It is very interesting to see that Table -15 is the

absolute same as Table – 12, i.e., the Table for

preference of book reading.

Findings

i. There are 72.55% of respondents of SGP

among which 85.81 % are male, and

14.19% are female;

ii. There is an absence of minority

communities in the whole area of SGP;

iii. Maximum of the respondents belong to

28-38 age group;

iv. 72.3% are married respondents, among

which 57.2% are graduates, but no one is

illiterate, and a maximum (50.68 %) are

farmers by profession;

v. Most of the respondents need

Agricultural Information;

vi. Information about health is the second

needed information followed by

Economic Information, Information

about sanitation, information about

education and information about

housing;

vii.

49


Television is the most preferred source

of information, and there is not a single

Public Library in the jurisdiction of

SGP;

viii. Fiction-type books are the most

preferred books for reading, and Journal

for Career Guidance and for competitive

examination is the required source of

information;

ix. AnandaBazar Patrika is the most

preferred News Paper;

x. The collection of books is the same as

the preference for book reading.

Limitations

i. Illiterate persons are not covered in the

research;

ii.

There is no Public Library in the

Locality;

iii. Community information centre like

"Sahaj Tathya Mitra Kendra" is not

spontaneous in disseminating

information;

iv. Lacking Krishi Bigyan Kendra in the

area of SGP;

v. Absence of Community Leader in SGP;

vi.

Lack of sufficient support from the

Local Government Office.

Suggestions

i. The mobile information method (i.e.

miking in the local area) should be

followed to cater information to the

citizens mainly to downtrodden people

(illiterates) so that " Information for all"

may come into action;

ii. Public Library is the "People's

University". Everybody may get the

chance to enrich themselves through its

ample resources. Therefore, it is

necessary to establish at least one Public

Library in the jurisdiction of SGP;

iii. "Sahaj Tathya Mitra Kendra "is

established for information catering. But

it is not active for the maximum time.

So, it is necessary to be active properly;

iv.

v. A positive attitude may resolve many

difficulties in a human's life. Therefore

the authority of the Local Government

should have a positive attitude.

vi. Sometimes verbal communication may

solve various problems. So, "gossip in

the marketplace" should be arranged

occasionally.

Conclusion

Maslow identified five types of needs in human life.

The needs are physiological, safety or security needs,

social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization

needs. Human beings meet their specified needs one

after another. This research identified six types of

information needs, i.e., Agricultural Information,

Economical Information, Health Information,

Information about Housing, Information about

Sanitation and Information about Education.

At first human beings asks for primary needs or basic

needs and 1 st level need, i.e. food, shelter, clothing

and sex. To meet or arrange the primary needs,

agricultural information and information for housing

are essential. After meeting the 1 st level needs, they

go for 2 nd level needs, i.e. Safety or Security needs

which include Economic security, security in a job,

and security in sickness. Economic Information and

Health Information provide the required information

to meet 2 nd level needs. After meeting the 1 st -level

and 2 nd -level needs, 3 rd -level needs, i.e. Social needs,

become predominant. Social needs include social

acceptance, friendship and affection. Education and

job security may enhance social needs. Next comes

4 th level needs, i.e. Esteem needs. This type of needs

is of two types – i. needs for appreciation, and

respect from fellow workers and of superiors; ii.

Needs for self-confidence, competence and

knowledge. One knowledgeable person gets respect

from everyone, and if he is knowledgeable and then

self-confidence will automatically grow. It is

possible through proper learning. Education

information provides such types of human needs.

And at the last level, self-actualization needs become

predominant. At this stage, human beings expect a

better opportunity for self-development. It comes

from educational Information. The research may

conclude that there is direct relation in seeking

information from various sources to meet the needs

mentioned by Maslow.

References:

Govt. of India (2011) Census-2011. Retrieve from

https://censusindia.gov.in/2011-

Common/Archive.html

Hazra, U. (2020) The information needs and seeking

from the olden days to the web dominated era: a

theoretical approach.In One Day National Seminar

on ICT and Library in Higher Education: An Indian

Perspective, 28 th February 2020, Khujutipara,

Birbhum, WB. 2020. 66-77pp.

Human Needs:A Critical Analysis.Retrieve from

https://fouziyagm.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/masl

ows-hierarchy-of-needs-a-critical-

Jerome, N. (2013) Application of Maslow's hierarchy of

need theory; impacts and implications on organizational

culture, human resource and employee's performance.

International Journal of Business and Management

Invention.2(3): 39-45. Retrieved

50



fromhttps://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b0bc/c8ca45193eaf7

00350a8ac2ddfc09a093be8.pdf

Laloo, B.T. (2002). Information needs, Information

seeking behavior. New Delhi: ESS ESS Publication,

63p.

Mcleod, S. (2018) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Simply Psychology. 2018: 1-15.Retrieve from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/simplypsychology.org

-Maslows-Hierarchy-of-Needs.pdf

Reid-Cunningham, A. R. (2014) Maslow’s Theory of

Motivation and Hierarchy of Human Needs:A Critical

Analysis.Retrieve from

https://fouziyagm.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/maslowshierarchy-of-needs-a-critical-

analysis.pdf

SGP. (2020) Annual Report of Saragram Gram

Panchayet. Saragram, 2019-2020.

Wikipedia. (2021) Abraham Maslow. Retrieve from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow

About Authors

Mr Uttam Kumar Hazrahas completed his M.Com.

and MLISc from the University of Burdwan, Burdwan

and presently pursuing his PhD in the Department of

Library and Information Science, the University of

Burdwan, Burdwan. Presently working as a Librarian in

Vivekananda Mahavidyalaya, Burdwan. His area of

interest includes : Public library, information seeking

behavior, library automation through open source

software, Koha, SOUL 2.0, LibSys, Digital Library

Applications, Web 2.0 Technology and applications. He

published many articles in many reputed Journals, such as

IASLIC Bulletin, Library Philosophy and Practice,

DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information

Technology, Weslyan Journal, etc. and presented a

number of research papers in many conferences and

seminars.

Dr Rajesh Das has obtained his Ph.D. from Jadavpur

University, Kolkata. Presently he is working as an

Assistant Professor at the Department of Library and

Information Science, The University of Burdwan,

Burdwan. His area of interest includes: data Science,

machine learning, open source software, semantic web,

linked open data, digital library, web database

applications, computer networking, Linux server

administration system, etc. He has published many articles

in reputed national and international journals and

published many book chapters too.

51



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Applicability of Lotka’s Inverse Square Law of Scientific

Productivity in the field of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1


18 th August 2022


1st September 2022


14 th October 2022


18 th October 2022

Richa Arya & Babita Jaiswal

ABSTRACT

Richa Arya

Junior Research Fellow(PhD)

Dept. of Lib.& Inf

ScienceUniversity of Lucknow,

Lucknow

richaarya095@gmail.com

Introduction-The scientometric study is the most frequently used method for

identifying the productivity of a particular author, subject and nature of the scientific

output during a given period.

Purpose- The present study aims to examine the conformity of Lotka's law and the

productivity of authors in the area of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1 from 2012 to 2021.

Research Problem-Is Lotka’s Inverse Square Law of Scientific Productivity fit for the

published literature on Diabetes Mellitus Type 1?

Objective-The primary objective of this study is to examine the applicability of Lotka’s

Inverse Square Law of Scientific Productivity in the field of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1

Methodology- To collect data on diabetes mellitus Type 1, the Pubmed database is

used. For the examination of Lotka,s Law there were two tests applied named,

Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) statistical test and the Chi-square test..

Findings- It is found that total 1570 review articles were contributed by total 5504

authors during the period of ten the years 2012-2021. The study also identified the

most productive author who has contributed the highest number of articles in the field

of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1 Mark A. Atkinson with 19 review articles. It is also found

that the applicability of Lotka’s inverse square law does not fit the present data set.

Dr Babita Jaiswal

Associate Professor & HOD


University of Lucknow, Lucknow

drbabitajaiswal@gmail.com

KEYWORDS:

Scientometrics;Lotka’s law; Diabetes Mellitus Type 1;Kolmogorov-

Smirnov (K-S) statistical test; Chi-square test;Lotka’s Exponent value

52


Introduction

Bibliometrics is a quantitative study of various

aspects of the literature on a particular topic and is

used to identify the pattern of publication,

authorship, citation and secondary journal coverage

to get an insight into the dynamics of the growth of

knowledge in the areas under consideration. There

are three basic laws related to Bibliometric studies.

First Law is the Inverse SquareLaw of Scientific

Productivity which is given by Alfred Lotka in the

year 1926, second is Samuel ClementBradford’s law

of Scattering of Scientific papers, which came in

1934 and the third is George Kingsley Zipf’s Law of

Word Occurrence in 1949. These laws are called the

pillars of Bibliometrics.

The Present study deals with the testing of the

applicability of Lotka’s Inverse Square Law of

Scientific productivity in the area of Diabetes

Mellitus Type 1 review articles published from 2012

to 2021 collected from the PubMed Database.

a. Lotka’s Law of Scientific Productivity

In 1926, Alfred J. Lotka published a classic paper on

his study about the frequency distribution of

scientific productivity of authors based on the

publications listed in the Decennial Index of

Chemical Abstracts for the period 1907-16 covering

only the letters A and B of the alphabet. The law

states, “The number of the author making ‘n’

contributions is about1/n 2 of those making one, and

the proportion of all the authors that make a single

contribution is about 60 percent.” 1 . It means that in a

subject or discipline, 60 % of the authors produce

one publication; 15 % produce two publications

(1/22 * 60); 7 % produce three publications (1/32 *

60), and so on.

Lotka plotted on a logarithmic scale, the number of

authors against their publications. He found that in

each case the points were closely scattered about a

straight line, having a slope of approximately two to

one. Based on this data. Lotka formed a general

equation:

x n * y = C-------------------- (1)

Where ‘x’ is the number of articles published (1, 2,

3, 4....);

'y' is the number of authors with frequency

'x' number of articles;

‘n’ is an exponent that is constant for a given

set of data; and

'C' is a constant. When n=2 is used for a data

set then the law is called the ‘Inverse square law of

scientific productivity.( Lotka, 1926)

Review of literature

There have been a lot of studies on the

application and validation of Lotka low which is

available in the literature.

Potter (1981) discussedLotka’s Law in his study. He

also attempted to identify the important factors of

Lotka’s original methodology which should be

considered when attempting to test the applicability

of Lotka’s law.

Kumar (2010)applied Lotka's law to research

productivity of the Council of Scientific and

Industrial Research (CSIR), India. The study shows

that Lotka's law applied to published articles in two

durations first is from 1988-1992 and the second is

from 2004-2008. Kolmogorov – Smirnov K-S test is

applied for the fitness of Lotka's law. But the

distribution frequency of the authorship doesn't

follow the exact Lotka's Inverse law.

Suresh Kumar (2017) examined the authorship

pattern of 556 papers published in the Journal of

Documentation from 2003 to 2015. Lotka’s Law was

tested on 2106 publications using Kolmogorov-

Smirnov goodness-of-fit. TheK-S test and the author

productivity graph revealed that Lotka’s law applied

to the set LIS publications.

Anandhalli&Latha (2019)presented the study to test

the conformity of Lotka Law for Authorship

distribution in the field of neuroscience using the

web of science database. The study was made on

57640 publications contributed by 132481 authors. It

was found that the study was almost following the

same pattern. Hence, it can be included that Lotka's

law of Author productivity is well-fitted/followed in

the field of Neuroscience.

Ahmad (2019)carried out a study on published

literature in the area of artificial intelligence from

2008-2017. The study identified that the average

growth rate of artificial intelligence per year

increases the rate of 0.862. The multi-authorship

pattern is 3.31. Collaborative Index is in the highest

range in the year 2014 with 3.50. The mean CI

during the period of study is 3.24. This is also

supported by the mean degree of collaboration at the

percentage of 0.83 . The mean CC observed is

0.4635. They found that Lotka's Law is fit for

artificial intelligence literature.

Kumar, Satish & Senthilkumar, R. (2019) tested

Lotka’s law in the field of Astronomy &

Astrophysics research in India. The productivity

distribution didn't fit when Lotka's law was applied

in generalized form as well as in its original form on

the data set. This confirms that Lotka's law doesn't fit

the literature on Astronomy & Astrophysics.

53



Naheem, Sivaraman; & Saravanan (2019)examined

the conformity of Lotka’s law to authorship

distribution in the field of parasitology using Scopus

during 2007-2016 on 5792 articles produced by 3473

unique first authors. The results showed that Lotka’s

law fit the author's productivity distribution pattern

in parasitology literature.

Kherde (2020)attempted to apply the popular quoted

statement of Lotka’s lawin the domain of DESIDOC

Journal of Library & Information Technology. He

found that Lotka’s law does not fit the collected

dataset.

Chaturbhuj & Sadik (2020)applied Lotka’s law of

the author’s productivity in the field of

Thermodynamic from 2015 to 2019. They applied

Kolmogorov – Smirnov (K-S) test to the data and

found that Lotka’s law confirmed with 0.003 level of

significance in the field of Thermodynamics.

ButLotka’s inverse square law does not fit the

present data. The study found that the most

productive author is ‘Wang, J.’ with 159 articles, and

the most productive journal is ‘Journal of Molecular

Liquids’ with 547 published articles in

Thermodynamics.

Suradkar and Kalbande (2021) analyzed the

productivity patterns of authors in Health Science

using publications indexed in Maharashtra

University of Health Services (MUHS) Consortium

from 2001 to 2013 based on Lotka’s Law. 20724

articles were reported to have been published during

this period. The findings of the study reveal that the

inverse square law of Lotka follows on the subject of

Health Sciences/Medicine.

Objectives

The present study is carried out with the following

objectives -

1. To identify the most productive authors who

contributed to the field of Diabetes Mellitus

type 1.

2. To examine the applicability of Lotka’s

Inverse Square Law of Scientific

Productivity in the field of Diabetes Mellitus

Type 1.

3. To apply the non-parametric Kolmogorov –

Smirnov (K-S) test and Chi-square test for

conformity with Lotka's law.

Hypothesis

The following hypothesis was set for the present

study.

1. Lotka’s Inverse Square Law of Scientific

Productivity is fit for the collected articles on

Diabetes Mellitus Type 1.

Methodology of the study

a Source of Data: PubMed is selected as a

source database for the collection of data on

Diabetes Mellitus Type 1.PubMed 12 is a free

search engine accessing primarily the

MEDLINE database of references and abstracts

on life sciences and biomedical topics. The

United States National Library of Medicine at

the National Institutes of Health maintains the

database as part of the Entrez system of

information retrieval.

b.Search strategy:Following search strategy is

used for the collection of data on Diabetes

Mellitus Type 1.

Search: diabetes mellitus type 1 Filters: Free

full text, Review, in the last 10 years, English,

MEDLINE

("diabetes mellitus, type 1"[MeSH Terms] OR

"type 1 diabetes mellitus"[All Fields] OR

"diabetes mellitus type 1"[All Fields]) AND

((y_10[Filter]) AND (freefultext[Filter]) AND

(review[Filter]) AND (medline[Filter]) AND

(english[Filter]))

c. Retrieval and recording of data: A total

1570 records were retrieved, under the category

of article type only Review Articles from 2012

to 2021 were collected and recorded according

to the need of the study on an excel sheet on 11 th

May 2022. Analysis was performed on these

1570 review articles along with 5504 authors

using MS-Excel.

d. Goodness of fit Test

There are many goodness-of-fit tests are

available for conformity and testing the validity

of data. The present study used Kolmogorov-

Smirnov (K-S) test and Chi-square test for

testing Lotka's Law.

(i)Kolmogorov-Smirnov(K-S) Test

To test the applicability of Lotka’s law on the set

of dataKolmogorov-Simonov (KS) statistic

suggested by Cooile (1977) is used to determine

the maximum deviation D.

D=Max| F(x)-S(x)|

54


Where F(x) is the expected cumulative

frequency distribution S(x) is the observed

cumulative frequency distribution of a sample.

The maximum difference is obtained by using

the above formula and then it will compare with

the critical value to accept or reject the

NullHypothesis.

(ii) Chi-square Test

The Chi-square Test is one of the simplest and

most widely used non-parametric tests for

Goodness. It was first used by Karl Pearson in

the year 1990. In a data set, it can be identified

whether the observed frequencies differ

considerably from the expected frequencies. It is

defined as:

X 2 = (O-E) 2 /E

Where O refers to the observed frequencies and

E refers to the expected frequencies.(Gupta,

2015)

Data analysis

their articles in the field of Diabetes during the

period 2012 -2021.

S.

No.

Producti

vity of

Authors

No. of

Authors

Total

no. of

Articles

% in

Total

Cumulative

%

1 1 4847 4847 88.06 88.06

2 2 398 796 7.23 95.29

3 3 148 444 2.69 97.98

4 4 43 172 0.78 98.76

5 5 29 145 0.53 99.29

6 6 12 72 0.22 99.51

7 7 10 70 0.18 99.69

8 8 3 24 0.05 99.75

9 9 5 45 0.09 99.84

10 10 2 20 0.04 99.87

11 11 1 11 0.02 99.89

12 12 4 48 0.07 99.96

13 13 1 13 0.02 99.98

14 19 1 19 0.02 100.00

Total 5504 100

Table: 2: List of Authors’ Productivity of articles

Most Productive Authors

S.

No.

Authors

No. of

Contributions

Rank

1 Mark A Atkinson 19 1

2 Aaron W Michels 13 2

3 Alberto Pugliese 12 3

4 David M Maahs 12 3

5 Kevan C Herold 12 3

6 Zhiguang Zhou 12 3

7 Matthias G von Herrath 11 4

8 Carmella Evans-Molina 10 5

9 Roman Hovorka 10 5

Table 1: Most Productive Author

Table 1 presents a list of all those authors, who

contributed at least 10 articles in the field of Diabetes

Mellitus type 1 during the period of the study. The

list is ranked in the order of decreasing productivity.

The author at the top-ranked position is Mark A.

Atkison, who contributed the highest number of

articles ie .19. Aaron W Michels got the second rank

with the contribution of 13 articles followed by

Alberto Pugliese and David M Maahs are ranked in

the third position with 12 articles each.

Authors’ Productivity

Table 2 entitled "Authors' Productivity of Articles"

represents the pattern of one-time and more than onetime

contributions of articles under study.Table 2

presents that 5504 total authors have contributed

55


Out of them, 4847(88.06%) authors contributed only

one article in the total contribution. Whereas 398

(7.23%) authors contributed two articles, 148

(2.69%) numbers of authors contributed three

articles. While some highly prolific authors have

contributed 13 and 19 articles which are

comparatively the highest in this study. It is found

that Mark A. Atkison and Aaron W Michels

contributed 19 and 13 articles respectively.

Lotka’s Law: Author Productivity

Table 3 shows the number of articles X, the number

of authors Y, and their respective natural logarithms.

The total value of all the logarithms of article X

is11.072 and the total value of the logarithms of

author Y is 15.71. A graphical representation of a

Logarithmic number of the Author's productivity is

drawn in Fig.1considering the log X and log Y axis

respectively. The graph showed an almost inverse

relationship between the two variables, the number

of authors and the number of publications. It is clear

from the graph that when the value of the logarithmic

number of the author is 3.6854, the value of the

logarithmic number of articles is 0.00.


No. of No. Of X

Y

X 2 XY x n 1/x n

Articles Authors (log x) (log y)

S. No. (x) (y)

1 1 4847 0.000 3.6854 0.000 0.000 1.000 1.000

2 2 398 0.301 2.5998 0.0906 0.78254 8.439 0.118

3 3 148 0.4771 2.1702 0.2276 1.035402 29.383 0.034

4 4 43 0.602 1.6334 0.3624 0.983307 71.209 0.014

5 5 29 0.6989 1.4623 0.4884 1.022001 141.492 0.007

6 6 12 0.7781 1.0791 0.6054 0.839648 247.954 0.004

7 7 10 0.845 1.000 0.714 0.845 398.443 0.003

8 8 3 0.903 0.4771 0.8154 0.430821 600.908 0.002

9 9 5 0.9542 0.6989 0.9104 0.66689 863.384 0.001

10 10 2 1.000 0.301 1.000 0.301 1193.988 0.001

11 11 1 1.0413 0.000 1.0843 0.000 1600.904 0.001

12 12 4 1.0791 0.602 1.1644 0.649618 2092.381 0.000

13 13 1 1.1139 0.000 1.2407 0.000 2676.725 0.000

14 19 1 1.2787 0.000 1.635 0.000 8604.484 0.000

Total 5504 11.0723 15.7092 10.3386 7.55623 18530.7 1.185

Table 3: Lotka’s Law: Author Productivity

On the other hand, when the value of the logarithmic

number of the author is 0.301, the value of the

logarithmic number of articles is 1.00. Based on the

above data it can be concluded that a large number of

authors contribute a few numbers of articles while

few authors contribute a large number of articles.

determined with help of the calculation made in the

above Table03.

i. Calculation of exponent ‘n’-The first step in the

application of Lotka’s law is to determine the

value of exponent ‘n’ which is to be determined

by the Linear Least Square (LLS) method which

is given by ‘Pao (1985) using the following

formula.

--------------------(1)

N= Number of articles

X= logarithm of the number of publications (x)

Y=logarithm of number of authors (y)

Fig: 1 Logarithmic number of Author’s Productivity Distribution

a. Determination of the exponents ‘n’, ‘c’

and ‘cv’

To test the applicability of Lotka’s Law on the

present data set, the value of ‘n’, ‘C’ and ‘Critical

value’ of the data set has been

To compute the parameter ‘n’ data given in Table 3

is used. By substituting the values in the

above equation, the value of ‘n’ is calculated as

n= ∗..∗.

∗.(.)

n= ..

..

56


n= .

.

n=-3.077

ii Estimation of value ‘c’

The value of parameter n is calculated as, n= -3.077.

‘c’ can be calculated with the following formula

c=∑

--------------- 2

c=

.

c=0.844

iii Estimation of value ‘cv’

Critical value (cv)can be calculated with

c.v. =

∑

-----------3

c.v. = .

√

c.v=0.0414

Thus the value of the exponent determined by the

above mention formula is n=-3.077, c=0.844 and

c.v.=0.01414.

Expected Authors Value

S.

No.

No. of

Articles Observed % Expected %

1 1 4847 88.06323 4847 63.53388

2 2 398 7.231105 1212 15.88675

3 3 148 2.688953 539 7.065146

4 4 43 0.78125 303 3.971687

5 5 29 0.52689 194 2.542928

6 6 12 0.218023 135 1.769564

7 7 10 0.181686 99 1.29768

8 8 3 0.054506 76 0.996199

9 9 5 0.090843 60 0.786473

10 10 2 0.036337 48 0.629178

11 11 1 0.018169 40 0.524315

12 12 4 0.072674 34 0.445668

13 13 1 0.018169 29 0.380128

14 19 1 0.018169 13 0.170402

Total 5504 100 7629 100

Table 4: Articles wise Expected Authors Value

In table 3 the expected value can be calculated based

onthe observed number of author using the following

formula

a(n) = a(1)/n 2 ------------------ 4)

Where a(1) is the number of authors contributing one

article

a(n) is the number of authors contributing ‘n’ number

of articles

‘n’ is the number of articles

Kumar, (2010)and Kherde,(2020) used a formula for

deriving the expected value of authors. The present

study also used the same formula for deriving the

expected value of the author.

The first step for calculatingthe expected number of

authors is considered as 4847 and therefore a(1) is

4847.

A(1)= 4847*/1 2

= 4847

Now for 2 articles expected number of authors can

be calculated by putting the value in the above

mathematical formula,

a(2) = 4847/(2)2

= 4847/4 = 1212

Further, for 3,4,5,…articles, the expected number of

authors was calculated by above mention method.

b. Kolmolgorov-Smirnov (K-S) Test

(n=3.077)

To test the applicability of Lotka’s law to a present

set of data, a statistical test is needed. Coile

recommends the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S)

statistic. The K-S goodness-of-fit test was conducted

to determine whether Lotka's law predicts author

publication productivity from the observed values.

Looking at the difference column entitledD=|Fo(x)-

Sn(x)|in Table 4, the maximum difference between

the cumulative distributions, Dmax, is 24.52935.

K-S Test

If we check the statistical table it will be observed

that at 0.01 level of significance, K-S Statistics =

1.63/√n

57


Here n is the number of authors observed during the

study which is 5504 (from Table 2)


Frequency of Authors

Cumulative frequency

Expected D=|Fo(x)-Sn(x)|

S. No. No. of Articles Observed Expected Observed Sn(x) Fo(x)

1 1 88.06323 63.53388 88.06323 63.53388 24.52935

2 2 7.231105 15.88675 95.294335 79.42063 15.873705

3 3 2.688953 7.065146 97.983288 86.485776 11.497512

4 4 0.78125 3.971687 98.764538 90.457463 8.307075

5 5 0.52689 2.542928 99.291428 93.000391 6.291037

6 6 0.218023 1.769564 99.509451 94.769955 4.739496

7 7 0.181686 1.29768 99.691137 96.067635 3.623502

8 8 0.054506 0.996199 99.745643 97.063834 2.681809

9 9 0.090843 0.786473 99.836486 97.850307 1.986179

10 10 0.036337 0.629178 99.872823 98.479485 1.393338

11 11 0.018169 0.524315 99.890992 99.0038 0.887192

12 12 0.072674 0.445668 99.963666 99.449468 0.514198

13 13 0.018169 0.380128 99.981835 99.829596 0.152239

14 19 0.018169 0.170402 100.000004 99.999998 6E-06

Total 100 100

Table 5: K-S Test of Observed and Expected Distribution of Authors

K-S Statistics = 1.63/√5504

K-S Statistics =1.63/74.189

K-S Statistics =0.02197

From table 4 it is observed that the maximum

deviation between the cumulative frequencies of the

observed and expected value is 24.529.

It means D = Max | Fo(X) - Sn(X) | = 24.529

Here D max 24.529 is greater than K-S Statistics

0.02197, the given data does not fit Lotka's law. The

critical value for the given data set is 0.0414 which is

less than D max value 24.529 which also indicates

thatLotka’s law does not follow in the present study.

c. Chi-Square Test for the productivity of

the Author

To check whether the author's productivity

distribution follows Lotka’s law or not, the Chisquare

test is applied to the data of the present study.

The results of the analysis are tabulated in Table 6.

At a 5% or 0.05 level of significance for 18 Degrees

of freedom, the table value of the chi-square is 37.2

which is much less than the calculated chi-square

1653.074 (1653.074>>37.2).ThusLotka’s law is not

applicable in the field of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1

Conclusion

The present study has provided an overview of

author productivity in the field of Diabetes Mellitus

Type 1 literature published from 2012 to 2021. The

study reveals that the most productive author in the

area of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1 isMark A. Atkison

who has contributed comparatively the highest 19

articles. According to Lotka's Law, the proportion of

all the authors that make a single contribution is

about 60 % but in the present study, there is 88.06%

of the author who has only one article. Both the K-S

test, as well as the Chi-Square test, has been applied

to verify the applicability of Lotka's Law on the data

set but both of the goodness of fit tests have rejected

the null hypothesis. It can be concluded from the

studied data set that Lotka's Law of scientific

productivity doesn't fit the collected articles on

Diabetes Mellitus Type 1.

References

Table 6: Chi-Square Test of Observed and Expected

Distribution ofAuthors

Ahmad, Muneer & Batcha M, Sadik

(2019).Testing Lotka’s Law and Pattern of

Author Productivity in the Scholarly Publications

of Artificial Intelligence. Library Philosophy and

Practice (e-journal). 2716. Retrived from:


58


Anandhalli & Latha (2019). An Examination of

Lotka’s Law of Authorship Productivity in the

field of Neurosciences. International Journal of

Current Research.11 (05) : 371.DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24941/ijcr.35094.05.2019

Chaturbhuj, S.B. & Batcha M.Sadik (2020)

Application of Lotka’s Law to the research

productivity in the field of Thermodynamics

during 2015-2019, Library Philosophy and

Practice (e-journal). 4523. Retrived from:


Coile, R. C. (1977).Lotka’s Frequency

Distribution of Scientific Productivity. Journal of

the American Society for Information Science,

28 (6):366-370.

Gupta, J. (2015).Citation Studies: A Performance

Evaluation Technique of LIS Scientists.EssEss

Publications, New Delhi.241-255.

Kumar, N.(2010). Applicability to Lotka's law to

research productivity of council of Scientific and

Industrial Research (CSIR), India. Annals of

Library and Information Studies.57:1-5. Retrived

from:

http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/82

77/4/ALIS%2057%281%29%207-11.pdf

Kumar, Satish & R., Senthilkumar.(2019).

Applicability of Lotka’s Law in Astronomy &

Astrophysics Research of India. Library

Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) 2129.

Retrived

from:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2129.

Kherde, M. R.(2020). Applicability of Inverse

Square Law of Scientific Productivity in


Technology,Library Philosophy and Practice (ejournal).

3789. Retrived from:


Lotka, A. J.(1926).The Frequency Distribution of

Scientific Productivity. Journal of the

Washington Academy of Sciences.16: 317-323.

Naheem, K.T., Sivaraman, P.& Saravanan,

G.(2019).Applicability of Lotka’s Law in

Parasitology research output of India. Library

Philosophy and Practice (ejournal).2958.Retrived

from:


National Library of Medicine. Retrived from

:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/

Pao. M. L.(1985). Lotka's law: A testing

procedure, information processing, and

management,21(4):305-320.

Potter, W. G.(1981). Lotka’s Law Revisited.

Library Trends.21-39.

Suradkar, Priya &Kalbande, Dattatraya.

(2021).Testing Lotka’s Law and Pattern of

Author Productivity in the Maharashtra

University of Health Services (MUHS)

Consortium: A Bibliometric Approach. Library

Philosophy and Practice (e-journal).6050.

Retrived

from:


Suresh Kumar ,P.K.(2017). Author productivity

and the application of Lotka’s Law in LIS

publications.Annals of Library and Information

Studies.64:234-241. Retrieved from:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/229208203.pdf

About Authors

Richa Aryais a Junior Research Fellow in the

Department of Library & Information Science,

University of Lucknow. She obtained Master's

Degree in Library & Information Science from the

University of Lucknow, Lucknow. Her contributions

in the current study are: selecting the area, Research

design for the study, collecting, analyzing and

interpreting the data and deriving the findings and

writing the article.

Dr Babita Jaiswal is working as an Associate

Professor and Head of the Department of Library and

Information Science, University of Lucknow. She

received her Ph.D. in Library and Information

Science from Lucknow University and she was

awarded first Ph.D. from the department. Her

academic writing is the example of scholarly rigor,

full documentation and original thinking. She has

written more than 50 research papers/articles. She

has two books in her credit. Her text book “A manual

of Library Classification” is a resource for the

students of Library Science. Her research areas are

Library Classification, Metric Studies, Knowledge

Management, and Communication. She has guided

the research, reviewed the draft and finalized the

research paper.

59



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Growth of interdisciplinary subjects and its reflection in

classification schemes: a case study of Biophysics


30 th August 2022


14st September 2022


19 th October 2022


20 th October 2022

Santashree Basu & Udayan Bhattacharya

ABSTRACT

Santashree Basu

Research Fellow (Ph.D.)


Jadavpur University, Kolkata

santashree.b@gmail.com

Dr Udayan Bhattacharya

Professor


Jadavpur University, Kolkata

udayanbhattacharya1967@hotmail.com

Introduction: The growth of interdisciplinary studies is a time taking complex process.

Often the boundary of such subjects is not well defined. Even the relationship that

exists between the two subjects cannot be determined. However, for the inclusion of

any newly developed subject in any classificatory devices it is necessary to identify the

stage and nature of the relation existing between the subject. Only then the core

component of the subject can be identified and the correct place to include the new

subject in the Classification scheme can be determined.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the development of the subject of

Biophysics and its reflection in the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme.

Research Problem:Is there any well-defined principles to analyse the growth of

Biophysics as a separate main subject.

Objective: The objective of the study is to make an attempt to understand the modes of

formation of the subject Biophysics and how the subject has been incorporated into

indifferent editions of the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme.

Methodology: To study the subject development an intensive document search has

been conducted on Biophysics to collect relevant information.

Findings: The main findings of the study are that Biophysics as a subject has

developed through three different modes of formation. This includes Loose

Assemblage, Lamination and Fusion. 15 th edition of DDC firstassigned a class

number, 574.191, in the main schedule The 21 st edition saw a shift in its class number

to 571.4.

KEYWORDS:

Interdisciplinary Subjects, Biophysics, Modes of Formation of Subjects, Loose

Assemblage

60


Introduction

The constant pursuit of the human mind to find

something new, to generate new ideas, to identify the

unidentified has made the Universe ever-growing.

Researches, discoveries, and inventions often result

in the emergence of new areas of study. Thus like the

Universe itself, the Universe of Subjects is also

constantly expanding. But this process of expansion

lacks uniformity. Traditional subjects have grown

naturally and over time led to specializations.

Subjects like Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics

have well-demarcated boundaries and have their own

specialists who contribute to their respective

subjects.

The scenario however started to change in the post-

World War II period. Team research comprising

specialists across disciples gained momentum. This

paved the way for interdisciplinary studies. In the

present era, the notion of interdisciplinarity plays a

pivotal role in the growth and development of the

universe of a subject. While the traditional subjects

continue to exist separately, more and more research

are being conducted that involves overlapping of

different aspects of two already existing discipline

and thereby gradually resulting in the formation of a

new interdisciplinary subject. Since the last century,

the world has already been witnessing the coming up

of many such subjects in the field of science. One

such subject is Biophysics. Encyclopaedia Britannica

defines Biophysics as a "discipline concerned with

the application of the principles and methods

of physics and the other physical sciences to the

solution of biological problems” (Biophysics, n.d.).

The development of an interdisciplinary subject is

not an overnight phenomenon. The interaction and

collaboration of the two subjects take place over

decades and hence undergo different stages. To

understand this stage of subject development S.R.

Ranganathan put forward the concept of Modes of

Subject formation. Broadly seven modes of

formation can be identified: Loose Assemblage,

Lamination, Fission, Fusion, Distillation, Clustering,

and Agglomeration. A subject may pass through

more than one mode of subject formation. Prior to its

establishment as a Basic Subject, the interaction can

also lead to the formation of new Complex or

Compound subjects. Complex subjects arise from the

initial interaction that marks the beginning of loose

assemblage.No coherent relation is established here.

Compound subjects are the results of Lamination

between one main subject and an isolate. New Basic

subjects are formed by modes like fusion,

distillation, or clustering.

For the classification of the Universe of subjects,

different classificatory devices have been developed.

But they are largely discipline oriented.

Accommodating interdisciplinary subjects at the

right place in classification schemes came as a

challenge. Thus, understanding the nature of the

61


interaction between the subjects, their stage of

interaction, the core entity of the interaction, and the

type of subject formed (complex, compound, or

Basic subject) became a priority.

While studies in some interdisciplinary subjects like

Biochemistry, Geopolitics can be found, no

significant work has been done on Biophysics. This

study tends to reflect the growth and evolution of

Biophysics as an interdisciplinary subject by

considering Ranganathan’s modes of formation of

subjects and tracing its reflections in all twenty-three

editions of Dewey Decimal Classification Schemes.

Literature Review

In the area of subject formation Neelameghan and

Gopinath (1972) in their paper "Fused Main Subject"

explored the formation of main subjects through

fusion mode and also gave an insight into how these

newly developing fused main subjects can be

positioned in different classification schemes. For

this purpose, he considered Interdisciplinary subjects

Biolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Astrophysics,

Astrochemistry, and Astrobiology. On another paper

titled “Primary Basic Subject by Fusion

Neelameghan (1973) again discussed the formation

of primary basic subjects by fusion and their

arrangement in a helpful sequence in Colon

Classification. Satija (2001) in his article

"Ranganathan's Colon Classification" discussed the

various modes of formation of the subject and gave

special mention of the modes that result in the

development of Interdisciplinary Subjects.Binwal, J

C (1988) in his Ph.D. thesis "Modes of formation of

subjects and their role in information retrieval"

showed that Ranganathan's identified modes of

subject formation provide a model of the typology of

relations and help to analyze the structuring of the

basic, complex and compound subject. He was of the

opinion that lamination is still the major mode of

subject formation.

Research on the relation between Interdisciplinary

subjects and classificatory devices has also been

carried out. Neelameghan (1974) in the paper

“Interdisciplinary Research and Classification

problems: a case study” described the problems that

the area of classification has to face because of the

emergence of Hybrid disciplines. He took Cycle

Research as a case study.

Gopinath and Seetharama (1975) in their paper

"Interdisciplinary Subject and their Classification"

studied the development and typology of relations in

the fields of Biochemistry, Survey Research

Methodology, and Marketing. They also studied the

use of such relations in the designing of

Classification Schemes. Satija (1979) compared the

classification schemes like DDC, UDC, and LCC

and stated that CC has the maximum scope to


represent complex subjects. He cited an example of

the complex subject "Geopolitics".

Objective

The objective of this paper is as follows:

To trace the development of Biophysics as a

subject and identify the different modes of its

formation

To study the reflection of the development of the

subject in all editions of Dewey Decimal

Classification Schemes

Methodology:

In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives

at first a thorough document search has been

conducted to collect information on the history of

Biophysics. Sources like online and offline journals,

books, theses and dissertations have been considered.

After that, an analytical study has been done to

identify the different stages of formation of the

subject of Biophysics. For identifying the stages

Ranganathan's modes of formation of subjects have

been considered. Next, a comparative study of the

reflection of the subject Biophysics in various DDC

editions has been performed. Dewey Decimal

Classification has been accessed in their digital

versions of the first 20 editions collected from the

Internet Archive (https://archive.org/) and the rest

three (21st to 23rd ed.) have been studied from

Jadavpur University. All the collected data is then

analyzed and interpreted to fulfill the objectives.

Growth and Development of

Biophysics

As stated previously Biophysics involves the use and

application of various techniques in physics to

understand living organisms. Thus, the two already

existing basic subjects interacting here are Physics

and Biology. There overlapping however predates

any conscious efforts taken toward their interaction.

This can be regarded as a pre-loose assemblage

stage.

Pre-Loose Assemblage: The first sign that a

probable interaction between biology and physics is

possible can be traced to the fact that some living

organisms have the potential to emit light which

caught the attention of ancient philosophers. This

later came to be known as Bioluminescence. Initial

attempts for understanding the process of life

through the application of physics mostly considered

mechanical models. This included "mechanistic

theories of processes of life and insights into their

dynamics, for example, Heraclitus in 5 th century

BC”. (Glaser, 2012). The Renaissance period

witnessed the study of mechanical principles

involved in bird flight by Leonardo Da Vinci, the

publication of the book “De motu animalium” by

Alfonso Borelli in 1680 in which he gave a

biomechanical analysis of movements during

swimming, mobility of limbs, etc. The book Ars

Magna Lucis et Umbraewritten by German Jesuit

priest Athanasius Kircher in the 17 th century

probably for the first time attempted to study animal

luminescence scientifically. Abbé J.A. Nollet's study

of osmotic pressure (the force responsible for the

passive flow of matter in living organisms) further

contributed to this development.

Although these studies reflected interdisciplinary

interactions those who were involved had very little

interest in establishing any scientific basis for these.

Many of these interactions even did not involve any

specialists from either of the fields.

Loose Assemblage: In 1786 physician Luigi

Galvani’s experiment to show the effects of static

electricity on frog's muscles marked the beginning of

loose assemblage between biology and physics.

However, the results of his experiment were not

accepted and even led to many controversies.

Research and experiments carried out by Volta put

Galvani's research on the backfoot. As a result, the

study of electrical potential in animals slowed down.

However, when galvanometers came and production

from muscles as well as the differences in nerve

membranes were successfully measured Galvani’s

claim that tissues can produce currents was finally

accepted. In the late 18 th century P. S. de Laplace, a

French physicist studied the production of heat

caused due to changes in temperature in mammals.

Interactions can also be observed in experiments

carried out in areas like Human vision and hearing

by Thomas Young (1773-1829), an English

Physicist. Thus, significant growth in research

involving electrical phenomena and cellular

physiology took place.

Lamination: In 19 th century Herman Von Helmholtz

(1821-1894) carried forward similar works like

Thomas Young on optical and auditory aspects of

human beings. At this time a group of physiologists

in Berlin formed The Berlin school of physiologists

of which, Emil DuBois-Reymond, Ernst von Brücke,

Carl Ludwig and Hermann von Helmholtz were

members.

French scientist René Dutrochet wrote in 1828, “it

appears from these new studies that the endosmotic

and exosmotic phenomena, which I discovered,

belong to a new class of physical phenomena, whose

powerful intervention in the vital phenomenon is no

longer doubtful.” (Biophysics, n.d).

Afterbotanist W.F.P.Pfeffer’s first quantitative

measurements ‘the fundamental laws governing

62


diffusion were enunciated by Adolf Fick, who

in1856 published what is probably the first

biophysics text, Die Medizinische Physik(“Medical

Physics”)’(Biophysics, n.d)

In 1891 French Physicist Arsonval in his paper

“Action physiologique de courants alternatives”,

discussed the possibility of application of

electromagnetic fields for therapy. Many other

significant contributions were made during this

period by German physicist Karl Franz Nagel

Schmidt. All these experiments account for the

development of biology as a co-related subject with

physics and this paved the way for the formation of

Biophysics as a separate subject. Karl Pearson coined

the term Biophysics in 1892.

The most significant and epoch-making incident

towards the development of biophysics is the

discovery of X-ray in 1895 by German physicist

Wilhelm Konrad Rontgen.

The breaking of two world wars accelerated the

process of the fusion of biology and physics. The

application of radiation in the field of Medical

Science came as a boon to mankind. During the

second world war, extensive and effective use of

radiation was found in the treatment of soldiers.

More and more instruments and techniques of

physics were being incorporated for understanding

biological phenomena.

Fusion: The concept that genetic information in

covalent bonds is stored in a molecule present in

living beings first appeared in the book "What is

life"? in 1944. The book is a compilation of lectures

by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger delivered in

Dublin. Thereafter researchers like James Watson

and Francis Crick in their endeavor to find and

define the genetic material used Rosalind Franklin's

x-ray crystallography work and successfully

deciphered the double helix structure of DNA in

1953.

While these investigations, on one hand, led to the

study of the structure of microorganisms as well as

of hemoglobin and viruses it also necessitated the

advancement of instruments such as electron

microscope and ultracentrifuge that in turn facilitates

the study of the biological phenomenon on the other.

Thus, at this stage, a separate field that was

developing independently of Physics or Biology can

be identified. This field was then reaching a stage

where Biophysics itself as a subject started to

collaborate with other basic subjects, for example

Nanotechnology, Mathematics, etc.

The significance of Biophysics can also be felt in the

field of the Space program.

The impact of radiation on living things dominated

the area of studies in Biophysics in the early 20 th

century. Its' applications can be seen in varied areas

like the preparation of Vaccines, advancement of

imaging techniques (MRI & CAT scans), in

treatments like dialysis, radiation therapy, and

63


pacemakers. Also, living microorganisms are taken

into consideration to produce Biofuel Biophysicists.

In 1957 after much communication and collaboration

among Biophysicists across the world, there came

into existence the Biophysical Society (1957). It was

made responsible for conducting research for the

development of the subject. The Society had

members like Ernest C. Pollard, Samuel A. Talbot,

Otto Schmitt, Kenneth S. Cole.A massive revolution

has come after the formation of society.

The “First National Biophysics Conference”, was

held in Columbus, Ohio on March 4–6, 1957.

Since 1960 Biophysical society has been publishing

a peer-reviewed Journal called "Biophysical Journal"

whose major aim is to reflect the new developments

taking place in this field. In recent years number of

other Biophysics journals are being published-

Annual Review of Biophysics, European Biophysics

Journal, and Quarterly Review of Biophysics to

name a few.

Now a day many universities around the world have

separate departments for Biophysics offering courses

on it as an independent subject.

All these developments clearly indicate that

Biophysics has definitely emerged as a separate

interdisciplinary subject that has its own theories as

well as specialists.

Reflection of Biophysics in DDC

This section shows the extent of representation of the

growth of Biophysics in twenty-three editions ofthe

13th edition of Dewey Decimal Classification.

DDC Editions

Class Number

1 st – 12 th ed. (1876-1927) Not included

13 th ed. (1932) 574.1

14 th ed. (1942) 574.1

15 th ed. (1951) 574.191

16 th ed. (1958) 574.191

17 th ed. (1965) 574.191

18 th ed. (1971) 574.191

19 th ed. (1979) 574.191

20 th ed. (1989) 574.191

21 st ed. (1996) 571.4

22 nd ed. (2003) 571.4

23 rd ed. (2011) 571.4

Table 1: Reflection of Biophysics in all editions of DDC

13 th edition: Although the term got included it

was mentioned only in the index. The class

number assigned in the index 574.1doesnot exist

in the main schedule. The base number 574

stands for Physiologic and Structural Biology.

Natural history.


14 th edition: Here again the term is mentioned

only in the index. The class number remains the

same as the 13 th edition under the main class

574 (Physiologic and structural biology Natural

history).

15 th edition: A separate class number 574.191

was assigned for Biophysics. It can now be

found both in the main schedule and index. The

class includes physical phenomena of life. The

name of the main class 574 got changed to

Biology. Also, class number 574.1 now

represented Physiology. 574.19 was assigned to

Biochemistry. Thus, Biophysics was represented

as a subordinate class to Biochemistry.

16 th edition: In this edition, the class number for

Biophysics 574.191 remained unchanged. But

574.1 was again renamed as Biophysiology.

574.19 represented the Physics and Chemistry

of Vital Processes. Thus, Biophysics no longer

remained a subordinate class to Biochemistry.

17 th -20 th edition: 574.191 continued to represent

Biophysics in these editions. It is in the 17 th

edition that for the first-time subordinate classes

for Biophysics were enumerated. This included

classes like Mechanical factors (Gravity,

velocity, etc.), Sound, Radiation

(x-ray, ultra-waves, etc.), Temperature,

Electricity and Space Biology. 18th edition saw

the inclusion of the new subclass 'Physical

Phenomenon in Organism' that further included

Bioluminescence, Bioelectricity, etc. Not many

changes happened in the 19th and 20th editions.

21st - 22nd edition: This edition witnessed the

change in the class number of Biophysics from

574.191 to 571.4 where 571 stands for

Physiology and related subjects. New concepts

like Biomechanics, Radiobiology got listed

under Biophysics.

23 rd edition: The class number continues to be

571.4 for Biophysics.

Findings

The findings of the study are divided into two parts.

One is the Modes of formation of the subject

Biophysics; and another is its reflection in Dewey

Decimal Classification Scheme.

Modes of formation of the subject

Biophysics

Till 17 th -century Biophysicswas mostly at a

aPre-Loose Assemblage stage.

The 18 th century witnessed the Loose

assemblage stage in which living organisms

were studied in light of physics.

In 19 th century Biophysics went through the

Lamination stage. Researchers used

electromagnetic fields in therapy, radiation

(x-ray) in medical fields etc.

After World War II, the nature of Biophysics

drastically changed. The deciphering of the

double helix structure of DNA in 1953, and

the growth in the study of microorganisms

using electron microscopes made it evident

that a field has emerged where experiments

can no longer be conducted either by a

physicist or a biologist singlehandedly. New

areas of specialization who can be regarded

as Biophysicists became the need of the

time.

The formation of Biophysical Society

(1957), and publications of different

biophysics journals even more solidified this

emergence.

Reflection in DDC

The development of Biophysics as a fused

main subject did get reflected in the editions

of DDC. However, making a clear-cut

picture of this development is not possible.

The inclusion of Biophysics in DDC has

taken place much late compared to its span

of development

Initially, it was only included in the Index.

Later on, just a class number was merely

assigned without any enumeration of its subconcepts.

However, the changes in the use of terms and

scope notes did reflect the evolution.

In 1965 the 17 th edition for the first time saw

its subordinate classes getting enumerated.

The emergence of Biophysics as a fused

main subject has already taken place prior to

this.

Although Biophysics has now come up as a

separate area of study which in turn is giving

rise to other new areas like Radiobiology,

Biomechanics, etc. unlike biochemistry it is

still enumerated as a subordinate class to

Physiology.

Conclusion

To conclude it can be said that the growth of an

interdisciplinary subject as the main subject may take

decades. But before it comes out as a separate

discipline numerous interactions take place between

the core components of the subject. The crucial part

is to identify the core entity of the new emerging

subject and also understand the type of relationship

that exists between them. In this study, it has been

seen that the core component of Biophysics is the

Organism which in turn is part of Biology. That is

why Biophysics has been classed under the broad

subject of Biology in DDC. Thus, for the proper

64


inclusion of such subjects in the classification

schemes at the right place more efforts should be

taken to study the history and course of development

of the such interdisciplinary subject.

References:

Binwal, J. C. (1988). Modes of formation of subjects

and their role in information retrieval. (Doctoral

Dissertation, Karnatak University, Karnataka, India).

Retrieved

from

https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/94558#

Biology Dictionary. (n.d.) Retrieved from

https://biologydictionary.net/biophysics/#history-ofbiophysics

Biophysical Society. (n.d.) Retrieved from

https://www.biophysics.org/

Biophysics. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/science/biophysics

Cotterill, R. (2003). Biophysics:

An

Introduction. Germany: Wiley.

Dewey, M. (1876). A classification and subject

indexfor cataloguing and arranging the books

andpamphletsofa library. (1st ed.). Amherst: Forest

Press. Retrieved from

https://archive.org/details/decimal01dewe/page/n57?

q=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index

Dewey, M. (1885). Decimal classification and

relative index. (2nd ed.). Boston: Library Bureau.

Retrieved

from




relative index. (3r ed.). Boston: Library Bureau.

Retrieved

from


q=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index.


relative index. (4th ed.). Boston: Library Bureau.

Retrieved

from





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from


q=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index.



Retrieved

from


q=decimal+classification+edition+7.

Dewey, M. (1911).Decimal classification and

relative index. (7th ed.). Lake Placid Club, N.Y.:

Forest Press. Retrieved from


q=decimal+classification+edition+7




https://archive.org/details/decimalclassific00deweric

h/page/n5?q=decimal+classification+edition+7.




https://archive.org/details/de00cimalclassificdeweric

h/page/n3?q=decimal+classification+edition+7.




https://archive.org/details/decimal10dewe/page/n5?q

=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index




https://archive.org/details/decimal10dewe/page/n5?q

=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index.




https://archive.org/details/decimal12dewe
















https://archive.org/details/decimal16v2dewe/page/n9

?q=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index



Forest Press.Retrieved from






?q=dewey+decimal+classification+and+index





?q=dewey+decimal+classification

Dewey, M. (1989). Dewey decimal classification.

(20th ed.). New York: Forest Press.

65




(21st ed.). New York: Forest Press.


(22nd ed.). New York: OCLC.


(23rd ed.). New York: OCLC

Glaser, R. (2012). Biophysics:AnIntroduction. Germ

any: Springer.

Gopinath, M. A., &Seetharama, S. (1975).

Interdisciplinary subjects and their classification. In

Ordering systems for global information networks:

Proceedings of the Third International Study

Conference on Classification Research, 6-11 January

1975, Bombay, India, pp. 121-135.

Neelameghan, A. (1973). Primary Basic Subject by

Fusion. Library Science with a Slant to

Documentation. 10(2): 173-179.

Neelameghan, A. (1974). Inter disciplinary research

and classification problems. Library Science with a

Slant to Documentation. 11:1-4.

Neelameghan, A. and Gopinath, M.A. (1972). Fused

main subjects. Library Science with a Slant to

Documentation. 9: 322.

Neelemeghan, A. (1967). Research on the structure

and development of the universe of subjects. Library

Science with a Slant to Documentation. 4: 337.

Ranganathan, S. R. (1937). Prolegomena to library

classification. Madras: Madras Library Association.

Satija, M. P. (1979). Extension of two-phased

subjects in the Colon Classification. Retrieved from

http://pascalfrancis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDet

ail&idt=PASCAL8030408730

Satija, M.P. (2001). Relationships in Ranganathan’s

Colon Classification. In Relationships in the

Organization of Knowledge. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299729925

_Relationships_in_Ranganathan's_Colon_Classificat

ion

Sybesma, C. (2012). Biophysics:An

Introduction. Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.

About Authors

Santashree Basu is a research scholar at the


Jadavpur University. She has obtained her B.A. and

M.A. degree from the Department of International

Relations, Jadavpur University and thereafter

completed her BLIS and MLIS from the same

university. Currently she is pursuing her Ph.D. as a

Senior Research Fellow under the guidance of

Professor Udayan Bhattacharya.

Dr Udayan Bhattacharya is presently working as

a Professor in the Department of Library and

Information Science, Jadavpur University. He has

more than 26 years of experience in teaching. He

obtained his BLIS, MLIS, Ph.D. from Jadavpur

University. He has published many articles in

National as well as in International Journals and has

also authored books. His area of interest includes

Digital Reference, Information Retrieval, Library

Classification, Information Science and Application

of Artificial Intelligence in the field of Library and

Information Science.

66



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Use of DRDO e-journals consortium by Scientists and Technical

officers: An assessment of fifty DRDO laboratories in India


16 th August 2022


30 th August 2022




18 th October 2022

Senthil, V. & Margam Madhusudhan

ABSTRACT

Senthil, V.

Research Fellow (Ph.D.)

Dept. of Lib.& Inf

ScienceUniversity of Delhi, New

Delhi

&

Scientist 'F' and Group Head

TICL & IPR at Gas Turbine

Research Establishment, Bengaluru

senthildrdo@gmail.com

Dr Margam Madhusudhan

Professor


University of Delhi, New Delhi

mmadhusudhan@libinfosci.du.ac.in

Introduction: The DRDO e-journals consortium was formed to support the DRDO

scholarly community's R&D activities in defence technologies. An effort was made to

investigate the users from fifty (50) DRDO laboratories on the use of publishers

covered in the Consortium, the adoption of new publishers, the role of e-journals in

R&D, and user access issues.

Purpose: To investigate how the DRDO scientific community uses the Consortium of e-

journals to develop defence advances for the nation.

Research Problem: The DRDO Lab Libraries' subscription to and use of the e-

journals made available through the DRDO e-journals C onsortium was the main

focus of the current article. The study was carried out on a sample of 1000 (10.28 per

cent) from the total strength of 9724 targeted users, of which Scientists (Group-B to

Group-G = 7,013) and Technical officers (Group-B to Group-D=2,711), who are

working permanently in 50 DRDO labs during the study period and also extended to

other staff members working in DRDO labs.

Objective: To find out the perception of Scientists about e-journals and DRDO e-

Journals Consortium in DRDO labs in India, to ascertain users' satisfaction with usage

patterns, impact, content, and coverage of e-journals. Also, to make out the preferences

in file formats and search techniques among scientists, understand the benefits of e-

journals and the problems/barriers that discourage them from the use of e-journals,

and propose practical steps for the effective use of the DRDO e-Journals Consortium.

Methodology: The selection of 1000 samples has been taken from the scientific

community working in 50 DRDO labs with the help of the stratified random sampling

method & interaction with users available during the survey period.

Findings: The study indicates that the DRDO research community prefers to use e-

journals for R&D activities rather than publish papers and technical reports.

According to the survey, most users gave it a high rating and presumed their use of e-

journals had enhanced. The most significant problem faced by the respondents was

free Wi-Fi connectivity. The study indicated that none of the DRDO studies libraries

provides access to e-journals to mobile devices within the lab premises. Respondents

also expressed a desire for training in accessing and retrieving specific information

from e-journals.

KEYWORDS:

e-journals consortium, DRDO, Information seeking behaviour, Scientific

community-DRDO, Information Literacy Programme

67


Introduction

Electronic journals play a significant role in

transmitting current information to researchers who

have engaged in innovative work activities,

developed new products, and provided in-depth

knowledge. E-journals aid in the development of

technological advances, as well as in understanding

and efficaciously resolving research issues. It has

transformed the concept of research by making

information more accessible. However, there is still a

lack of consistent and relevant data identified in

DRDO laboratories in India using e-journals and

search strategies used by the scientific community.

DRDO e-journals Consortium

The scientific community uses the e-journals

consortium established by the Defence Research and

Development Organisation (DRDO) to improve

research activities. “The mission of the DRDO e-

journals consortium is to provide scientists with

information and access to information in support of

scholarly activity and research. It covers multidisciplinary

subject areas to fulfil the information

needs of the DRDO scientific community and was

implemented by DESIDOC on 01 January 2009,

covering 446 titles from ACM, ACS, AIAA, AAAS

Science, IEEE, Jane's and Elsevier) and one service

provider (JCCC Service)" (Senthil and

Madhusudhan, 2018). The online access to these e-

journals has been provided to the research

community on their desktop and invested Rs. 20

crores (approx.) for subscribing these e-journals for

all DRDO labs per year" (DRDO e-journal

consortium, 2020).

Review of related studies

"In India, during the last two decades, many leading

scientific and technical organizations have

established consortia to share their human and

electronic resources" (Moorthy, 2009).

"Electronic resources are invaluable research tools

which complement print-based resources in any

traditional library" (Madhusudhan, 2008). Scientists

are always looking for new ways to solve problems

in R&D, and e-journals are one of them. "Journals

are a vital source of information for scientific

research and development" (Moorthy, 2009), directly

related to research activities.Senthil and

Madhusudhan (2018) “highlight the usage of e-

journals publisher-wise in the Consortium and would

be helpful in the efficient collection development

policy of e-journals." Another study by Moorthy and

Pant (2012) reported that "most of the labs in DRDO

require a different set of journals and it is hard to

fulfil their demands and to negotiate with the

publishers for better terms, which concurs with the

findings of this study."

Electronic journals present advancement in the

manner logical data is imparted to the local

examination community. “Knowledge about the

nature of the organization and exact needs of users

are the essentials of good strategy" (Bachchhav,

2016). “DRDO’s research output in terms of

publications compares well with the other leading

scientific institutions of the country” (Moorthy,

2009).“However, in the R&D community especially

for defence R&D, where scientists are involved in

core technology areas, the value of information is

more important instead of its utilization" (Modi et

al., 2018).

The following publishers are covered under the

DRDO e-Journal Consortium to benefit the DRDO

scientific community.

(i) Association for Computing Machinery

(ACM)

(ii) The American Chemical Society (ACS)

(iii) The American Institute of Aeronautics and

Astronautics (AIAA)

(iv) The American Society of Mechanical

Engineers (ASME)

(v) Elsevier

(vi) Institute of Electrical and Electronics

Engineers (IEEE)

(vii) Jane’s

(viii) Nature

(ix) Science

(x) Taylor and Francis (T&F), and

(xi) Wiley

68


“Search strategy in Information retrieval is an

important task to get proper results without wasting

time. There were many developments in searching

the articles in e-journals” (Tamizhchelvan and

Dhanavandan, 2013). Qasim & Khan (2015) found

that "all scientists at the CSIR-IGIB prefer to use

electronic journals daily. The findings of the study

reveal that PDF format (97.7 per cent) is found to be

the most preferred online format for reading articles.

The most popular method for accessing e-journals is

by journal title (81.8 per cent). The least used search

technique is Boolean operators (2.3 per cent). The

low use of Boolean operators (2.3 per cent) shows a

weakness in terms of technical knowledge on behalf

of the users since these operators can be used for

efficient and fruitful information searching."

“Studies that use the perspective of the journal reader

have identified various aspects of content and

functionality as features that seem likely to influence

whether users will adopt e-journals. This implies that


a user's satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the

content of the journals is based on the experiences

he/she encounters in the use of a particular purpose”

(Brennan et al., 2002). “The greatest advantages

included the direct accessibility from the researchers

desktop, the prompt availability, the possibilities of

downloading (or printing out) the desired document

or information segment, the currency of the contents,

and the full-text retrieval facilities"(Voorbij &

Ongering, 2006).

Bar-Ilan et al. (2003) "the older the faculty member

is, the less he or she uses electronic services and the

less he or she prefers the electronic format over the

printed one". "High-quality information may be

difficult to access because of poorly designed

websites" (Hoggan, 2002). “User satisfaction concept

in libraries has evolved to include a focus on the

users’ perspective of the library and abundance of

resources available and the difficulty in being able to

determine these resources also create problems for

users” (Ijiekhuamhen et al., 2015).

The current study provides an in-depth examination

of the DRDO research community's use of the

DRDO e-Journals Consortium in all DRDO labs in

India, as well as the current status of DRDO libraries

in terms of their readiness to oversee e-library

services. Numerous studies in the literature review

revealed the utilization of e-journals in academic

institutions. Nonetheless, DRDO Lab libraries have

never been a combination of their assessment, and

this investigation fills the information gap.

Research Objectives

This study's main objective is to look into the usage

of e-journals by the scientific community. The other

objectives are:

(i) to identify the perception of Scientists

about e-journals and DRDO e-Journals

Consortium in DRDO labs in India;

(ii) to ascertain users' satisfaction with usage

patterns, impact, content, and coverage of

e-journals;

(iii) to make out the preferences in file formats

and search techniques among scientists;

(iv) to know the benefits of e-journals and

problems/barriers that demotivate them

from using e-journals; and

(v) to suggest valuable measures for the

efficient utilization of the DRDO e-

Journals Consortium.


The researcher used a survey method with the help of

a structured questionnaire. The questionnaires were

distributed to 1300 users from fifty (50) DRDO labs

located all over India, with a total strength of 9724.

The sample selection has been taken from the

scientific community working in 50 DRDO labs with

the help of the stratified random sampling method&

interacting with users available during the survey

period.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

A total of 1000 out of 1300 questionnaires have been

returned (both personally and electronically),

eliciting a response rate of 76.92%. The study covers

only working 730 Scientists (Scientist-B: 40,

Scientist-C: 50, Scientist–D: 190, Scientist-E: 220,

Scientist-F: 150, and Scientist-G: 80) and 270

Technical Officers (Group-B:110, Group-C:90 and

Group-D:70). The responses received to 23 questions

were analyzed and presented in 08 Tables and 08

Figures.

Personal Information/Profile of Users

The demographic information provided by the

respondent (Scientist and Technical Officer) is

essential because it assists in knowing the short

profile of respondents, which forms the base for

other parts (Table 1).

Sl. No Particulars Respondents Percentage

Demographic Information

1 Male 691 69.10

2 Female 309 30.90

Age-wise distribution

01 Below 25 years 079 07.90

02 Between 26-30 277 27.70

years

03 Above 30 years 644 64.40

Designation-wise distribution

1 Scientist -E 220 22.00

2 Scientist -D 190 19.00

3 Scientist -F 150 15.00

4

Technical

Officer-B 110 11.00

5

Technical

Officer-C 90 09.00

69


6 Scientist-G 80 08.00

7

Technical

Officer-D 70 07.00

8 Scientist -C 50 05.00

9 Scientist -B 40 04.00

Discipline-wise distribution

1 Missile 205 20.50

2 Armaments 132 13.20

3 Life Science 104 10.40

4 Electronics 98 09.80

5 Materials 89 08.90

6 Aeronautics 81 08.10

Computer

7 Science 67 06.70

8 Mathematics 59 05.90

Microelectronics

9

57 05.70

10 Naval Science 48 04.80

Human

11 Resources 35 03.50

12 System Analysis 25 02.50

Table 1: Demographic Information (n=1000)

Respondents’gender also influences an assessment of

their skills in accessing e-journals. Table 1 reveals

that males constitute 691 (69.10 per cent) users,

while female users constitute 309 (30.90 per cent).

The findings indicate that the male portion is more

than twofold that of the female counterparts. Table-1

also depicts respondents aged above 30 years using

e-journals more (60.40 per cent), followed by those

aged between 26-30 years (27.70 per cent), and very

few users (7.90 per cent) are below 25 years.

Life Sciences with 9.80 per cent. Materials and

Aeronautics were reported at more than 8.00 per

cent, computer science said 6.70 per cent, and

mathematics & micro-electronics had more than 5

per cent. A meagre percentage of respondents from

human resources (3.50 per cent) were reported,

which occupies the last but one position.

Aware of e-Journals and DRDO e-journals

Consortium

Every scientist must be aware of e-resources to use

them effectively and intellectually. Table 2 reveals

that first place occupies the respondents from the

Missile cluster with 21.65 per cent, followed by the

Armaments cluster (15.23 per cent). The third and

fourth place clusters are Electronics (14.47 per cent),

and Naval Science & Materials has reported 13.71

per cent positive responses. Interestingly, the users

from the four (4) clusters, Life Science, Aeronautics,

Micro Electronics, and Human Resources, accounted

for 32.44 per cent. The least number of respondents

were from the cluster Simulation, with 2.50 per cent.

According to Table 2, only 855 (93.03%) of the 919

users were fully aware of the DRDO e-journals

consortium mentioned in 2009.It is interesting to

note that 21.87 per cent of respondents from Missile

labs were aware of the DRDO e-journals consortium,

which occupies the first position, followed by

Armaments clusters with 15.55 per cent. The

Electronics and Naval Science & Materials clusters

were placed in third and fourth position, respectively.

DRDO staff consists of Scientists (Group-B to

Group-G) and Technical officers (Group-B to Group-

D). Table 1 portrays the category of respondents

based on their designations. Of 1000, Scientist-E (22

per cent) occupies the first position, followed by

Scientist-D with 19 per cent. Scientists-F responded

with 15 per cent, prominently placed in second and

third positions, respectively. Technical Officers

Group-D, Group-C & Group-B have occupied 27 per

cent of the total data collected strength. Scientist-G

has only 8 per cent, and Scientist-C & Scientist-B

occupy only 9 per cent.

Table-1 clearly show that out of 1000 respondents,

the highest number of respondents represented the

discipline missiles (20.50 per cent), followed by

Armaments (13.20 per cent), Life Sciences (10.40

per cent). In contrast, Electronics has a close range of

70


Table 2: Awareness of the availability of e-Journals


Use of publisher/s under DRDO e-journals

Consortium

Table 3reveals that Elsevier occupies the first

position with 60.41 per cent, followed by IEEE

(40.36 per cent). Nature and Taylor & Francis

occupy third and fourth positions, respectively, with

39.98 per cent and 36.87 per cent. ACS and Janes

have occupied the last two positions with 8.15 per

cent and 6.59 per cent.

Sl. Publishers Respondents Percentage

No

1

Elsevier 467

60.41

2

IEEE 312

40.36

3

Nature 309

39.98

4 Taylor & Francis 285 36.87

5

6

7

8

9

10

ASME 239

30.92

AIAA 227

29.37

Science 164

21.22

ACM 118

15.26

ACS 63

08.15

Jane’s 51

06.59

Table 3: Use of publisher/s under DRDO e-journals

Consortium (n=773)

The average number of articles downloaded

in a month

"In the electronic environment, access to the resource

and number of downloads of articles from a

particular resource is treated as the usability criterion

to judge the relevance of that resource and the higher

the number of downloads from the resources, the

more is the usage of its resources" (Moorthy and

Pant, 2012).

Fig. 2 indicates that downloading up to 10 articles

was the topmost option exercised by the 521

respondents (67.4 per cent), followed by 11 to 20

downloads (20.70 per cent). Interestingly, 9.4 per

cent of the users were downloading 21 to 30 articles

which occupies third place and downloaded more

than 40 articles with 0.6 per cent. Very meagre

respondents (0.65 per cent) were downloading option

'41 and more’ articles in a month.

Note: Multiple answers are permitted.

Component /Part of e-journal accessed

Researchers prefer to access only a few components

or sections of e-journals that meet their information

requirements. Each part could have a different value

depending on the users' expectations. The users'

expectations and perceptions determine the value of

each e-journal component.

In connection with this supplemental multiple-choice

question, six (6) pre-constituted e-journal

components/parts were asked to the respondents. A

glimpse of data in Fig.1 reveals that 'full-text was the

topmost e-journal component/part accessed by 540

respondents (69.85 per cent), followed by 'abstracts'

(30.65 per cent) and 'Table of contents (28.46 per

cent) are the top three e-journal components/parts.

However, 21.86 per cent of the users also access

references and alerting services.

Fig.1: Component /Part of e-journal accessed by respondents

(n=773)

71


Fig.2: The average number of articles downloaded in

a month (n=773)

Recently used five titles of e-journal and

publishers

A supplement question was asked to 773 respondents

who mentioned “Yes” in using e-journals for

research work (Table 3) to mention recently used

five (5) titles of e-journals and publishers covered in

the Consortium. This question was raised to find the

most favourite titles among the user group

irrespective of the publishers (Table 4).

Table 4 divulges that the ‘Journal of Propulsion and

Power' (39.59 per cent) was the most highly used

journal among other journals, which belongs to the

publisher of AIAA and occupies the first position.

The second highly used journal was 'Defence weekly'

(39.49 per cent) from Jane's publisher. The third

position is 'Nature' (33.76 per cent), and the fourth is

from the Elsevier publisher 'Journal of Virology and

Methods' (30.79 per cent). The last place is dedicated

to 'IEEE Transactions on Automation Science &

Engineering (20.43 per cent).

Sl.

No Title Publisher Respondents Percentage

1 Journal of

Propulsion

and Power

AIAA 306 39.59

2 Defence Janes 274 35.49

Weekly

3 Nature Nature 261 33.76

4 Journal of Elsevier 238 30.79

Virology

Methods

5 Journal of ASME 203 26.26

Engineering

Materials

Technology

6 Artificial Elsevier 194 25.10

Intelligence

7 Composite Elsevier 189 24.45

Structures

8 Signal Elsevier 177 22.90

Processing

9 International Wiley 160 20.70

Journal of

Communicati

on Systems

10 IEEE IEEE 158 20.43

Transactions

on

Automation

Science &

Engineering

Table 4: Recently used five titles of e-journal and publishers

(n=773)

Note: Multiple answers were permitted.

Awareness and Use of remote access

facility

Table 5 uncovers that 69.30% of users were aware of

the DRDO e-journals consortium's remote access

facilities. The remaining 30.70 per cent responded

that they were unaware of the remote access facility

to access e-journals provided by the DRDO e-

journals consortium.

Sl

.

N

o

Aware

of

Remote

access

facility

Respond

ents

% Use of

Remote

access

facility

Respondent %

1 Yes 693 69.30 Yes 564 81.39

2 No 307 30.70 No 129 18.61

Total 1000 100.00 Total 693 100.0

0

Table 5: Awareness and Use of remote access facility (n=1000)

It is clear from Table 5 out of 693 respondents, who

knew about remote access facilities, 564 (81.39 per

cent) had used remote access facilities to access e-

journals when they were out of office premises. Only

129 (18.61 per cent) of the respondents have not used

remote access facilities.

Information Literacy Programme and Wi-

Fi Facilities

The information Literacy Programme (ILP) is vital in

increasing e-journal usage by enhancing knowledge

and accessing e-journals without difficulty (Table 6).

Table 6: Information Literacy Programme and Wi-Fi

Facilities (n=1000)

Table 6 reveals that 65.40 per cent responded that

they were unaware of the ILP provided by the

DRDO lab libraries for the DRDO e-journals

consortium and 34.60 per cent of the users were

aware of ILP provided by the DRDO lab libraries for

the DRDO e-journals consortium. Table 6 also

reveals that out of 346 users aware of ILP, 298

(86.12 per cent) respondents were affirmative and

attended the IL programmes. Only 48 (13.88 per

cent) of users have not heard of such a programme in

their career for various reasons. After analyzing the

data in Table 6, the reasons varied in nature. Most

users, i.e., 31(64.58 per cent), have pointed out that

they were unaware of such programmes organized by

the lab or the publishers. Also, another group of

users, 17 (35.42 per cent), could not attend due to

official engagements. Table 6 clearly shows that per

cent of respondents disagree with any Wi-Fi facility

provided by their libraries to accelerate access to e-

journals.

Preferred file format

72


"The format of electronic journals is considered one

of the many parameters that affect their use, and PDF

uses less computer memory, and the look of the

original article is maintained” (Galyani Moghaddam


and Talawar, 2008). Each user has a different

preference for accessing and using various file

formats. Fig.3 mirrors that 613 (79.30 per cent) users

preferred PDF file format, followed by HTML

(19.14 per cent). However, the text file format has

attracted only 1.56 per cent, and none liked the E-

Pub file format. According to the data, users are

more familiar and comfortable with PDF file formats

than other formats.

Impact of using e-journals

The impact of e-journals is directly related to any

R&D project to determine its usefulness. According

to Fig.5, 40.23 per cent of users believe that e-journal

usage has increased over time, while 33.89 per cent

believe that impact has decreased. 17.08 per cent of

respondents stated that usage increased first, then

decreased, while only 8.80 per cent of users stated

that usage decreased first, then increased.

Fig.3: Preferred file format by the respondents (n=773)

Use of Search Techniques

"The value of information increases in the process of

its use" (Bachchhav, 2016). Keep the above in mind

and figure out preferred search techniques for

accessing e-journals by respondents. The choices

established top-notch formal insightful

correspondence exercises and practices made

conceivable using e-journals. These alternatives were

adopted from the previous studies and observed in

different e-journals. Fig.4 shows that out of 773 users

who were using e-journals, 638 (82.53 per cent)

preferred to use Keyword as a most preferred search

option, which occupies first place, followed by

Author search 457 (59.12 per cent), Title search 443

(57.31 per cent) and journal search with 314 (40.62

per cent).

Fig.5: Rating the impact of usage of e-journals (n=773)

Benefits of using e-journals

E-journals provide numerous benefits, but this study

shortlisted only prominent ten (10) benefits of using

e-journals for research work during the last five years

(Table 7) to provide multiple benefits accrued from

accessing e-journals.

According to Table 7, out of 773 respondents, 70.24

per cent cited finding strategies to research problems

as the most beneficial feature of using e-journals,

followed by completing research work (64.29 per

cent) and collation of resources (61.06 per cent). The

other benefits are less than 50 per cent.

Interestingly Phrase search has 312 (40.36 per cent),

which is near to Journal search, followed by Boolean

operators (13.32 per cent) and DOI (07.24 per cent).

Surprisingly, the Federated search technique is a

minor preferred search technique (3.62 per cent)

among the users.

Fig.4: Use of Search techniques by respondents (n=773)

Sl.

No.

73


Benefits Respondents Percentage

01 Finding solutions to the

research problem 543 70.24

02 Completing research work

swiftly 497 64.29

03

Collation of resources 472 61.06

04 Finding a place in research

consultancy 339 43.85

05 A new experience in e-

learning 281 36.35

06 International Collaborative

projects 135 17.46

07

Increase citations 38 04.91

08

Any other 23 02.97

09 Knowing download

Statistics 02 00.25

10

Getting Lab Award 00 00.00

Table 7: Benefits of using e-journals (n=773)

Note: Multiple answers were permitted

Research consultancy constitutes 43.85 per cent of

responses. The novel familiarity with e-learning

(36.35 per cent), international collaborative projects

(17.46 per cent), and add to citations 4.91 per cent)

were also other benefits that the user group with less

response highlighted. The different purposes account

for 2.97 per cent, including patents, standards, thesis,

and dissertations. Interestingly, none of the

respondents is using e-journals for obtaining lab

awards which may be the least interesting among the

users.

Satisfaction level with the content

Fig.6: Satisfaction level with the content (n=773)

As is evident fromFig.6, out of 773 users who are

using e-journals, 46.18 per cent of the users

responded that their satisfaction level is above

average, which occupied the first position.

Interestingly, 21.74 per cent of the users replied that

their satisfaction level is very high, which occupies

second place. These two factors cumulatively have

around 68 per cent, which is a positive sign in terms

of satisfaction level with the content of the e-

journals.

The data shows in Fig.7 that the satisfaction level

stayed somewhat better at 48.38 per cent in the first

place and stayed the same at 24.84 per cent in the

second place. Only 20.57 per cent of them are much

better in terms of coverage of e-journals in the

Consortium than other statements.

Surprisingly, meagre (6.21 per cent) users were

unhappy with the e-journals and publishers coved in

the consortia and rated somewhat worse and much

worse. This is an alarming sign for the DRDO

consortium, even though the per cent is small.

Publications published by Respondents

Scholarly publishing has made a direct connection

between authors and users" (Kumar and Grover,

2007). The scientific community of the DRDO

publishes various publications, including books,

research papers, technical reports, and patents. To

strengthen the previous sectionsand better understand

the number of publications published by the

scientific community during the nine (9) year period

(i.e., from 2009 to 2017, the inception of the DRDO

e-journals consortium). This helps to uncover the

impact of the DRDO consortium on publishing

activities.

Satisfaction level with the coverage

The previous section (Fig.7) reveals that the content

of e-journals was above average. However, the

DRDO e-journals consortium authorities consider

steps to cover the e-journals for their labs. This

specific aspect has been covered in this section. The

respondents asked a five-point rating question about

satisfaction levels regarding the coverage of e-

journals covered in the consortia.

Table 8: Number of publications published by Respondents

Table 8 shows that all DRDO labs published a total

of 9116 publications. The scientific community has

published 6631 research articles that occupy the first

place compared to reports that occupy second place

with 2245 publications. The scientific community

published the books and patents with 163 and 77

respectively, occupying third and fourth positions.

It can be inferred that the labs were publishing fewer

patents than other publications. Furthermore, the data

reveals that in 2009, 1637 publications were

published compared to the remaining years.

Surprisingly, 2017 reported more occasional

publications with 1037, which occupies the last

place.

Fig.7: Ssatisfaction level with the coverage (n=773)

74



Problems/Barriers to using e-journals

Scientists and technical officers identified the various

problems/barriers using e-journals (Fig.8).

DRDO Labs carry out various defence-related

projects directly relevant to all three services, i.e.,

Army, Navy, and Air force. These labs are situated

across India and work in multi-disciplinary areas

ranging from Armaments, aeronautics, missiles,

combat engineering, naval systems, electronics,

materials, computers, artificial intelligence, and

Science & technology. These labs are grouped in

various clusters depending on their nature of work.

Electronic journals have become crucial pieces of

data for different purposes. However, it is concluded

from the data in Table 2 that meagre respondents

(8.10 per cent) were unaware of the availability of e-

journals for various reasons across all clusters.

v Fig. 8: Problems/Barriers in using e-journals (n=773)

Fig. 8 reveals that free Wi-Fi connectivity (63.00 per

cent) for accessing e-journals was the topmost barrier

cited by users, followed by Limited access to PC

(60.54 per cent), Slow Internet connectivity (54.72

per cent), and lack of training/ guidance (38.16 per

cent). The other problem such as difficulty accessing

the full text (35.45 per cent), difficulty reading from

the computer (24.84 per cent), and poorly designed

websites (3.36 per cent). Any other option is the least

cited problem by respondents while accessing e-

journals (2.98 per cent).

Discussion

Scientists and Technical officers are successive

clients of e-journals, and their age assumes an

essential factor in accessing e-journals. The findings

indicate that the respondents' level over 30 years is

more than other age ranges. It is inferredthat the

respondents join DRDO after completing a

Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Master's degree

in Science which requires a minimum age of 22

years. Further, it reveals from Table 1 that Scientist-

D, Scientist-E & Scientist-F together occupy 56 per

cent, which was more than half the strength of the

total sample population. This also shows that more

Scientist-D, Scientist-E & Scientist-F were working

in DRDO than in other designations. Scientist-B,

Scientist-C, and Scientist-G were reported less in

DRDO labs than Technical Officers.

This study grouped major disciplines into twelve

(12) categories. The least number of respondents are

from the system analysis (2.50 per cent). It is

concluded from the data (Table-1) that more

respondents were working in the Missile discipline

followed by the Armaments discipline. Only a few

users worked in the System analysis and human

resources discipline.

75


It is inferred from Table 3 that the publishers

Elsevier and IEEE are available to all DRDO labs in

addition to more journals subscribed, which resulted

in occupying the top two positions. The publisher

Nature is mostly subscribed to the life sciences

laboratories, which have around 40 per cent of

positive responses. The usage of Taylor & Francis

and ASME has also reported 30 per cent to 37 per

cent, which has fewer subscriptions than other

publishers. The publishers AIAA and Janes' are

mainly subscribed for Aeronautics cluster labs, and

ACM is focused on Micro-electronic clusters,

resulting in less usage. Surprisingly, less use of ACS

was caused due to the discontinuation of the

publisher in the Consortium. This current

examination's outcome consents to the investigation's

discoveries directed by Senthil and Madhusudhan

(2018), which uncovers that "the publisher Elsevier

has been used heavily by the DRDO scientific

community and occupied the top position with 30

lakh downloads followed by IEEE with 11.80 lakhs

downloads." Another study also attested to the same

finding. Modi et al. (2018) also affirmed the same

results, which reveal that "the Elsevier is in 01

rankings and IEEE is in 02 rankings."

An advantage that databases/e-journals have over

web indexes is their capacity to refine the hunt to

diminish the list items according to client-favoured

articles and increment the significance of the output

to the client's need. Fig.1 reveals that the low

position of components accessed attributes is

ascribed to the absence of attention to clients about

these attributes of e-journals. Additionally, this

finding infers that these attributes are the most

unutilized and need user mindfulness through

Information Literacy Programmes. As a result of the

findings, it is clear that most respondents were

accessing full-text content and finding it extremely

useful for their research.

The average number of articles downloaded by users

depends on their article requirement for research

work and varies the user to user. If an exciting topic

or articles related to the research are published, the

download rate also increases. This download also

proportionates to free time or scientists' time for

accessing e-journals. Findings (Fig.2) show that most

users downloaded at least ten articles monthly. To

increase the download trend among the scientific

community, the content and coverage of the e-

journals must congregate the users' prospects in line

with the lab's R&D activity.

Interestingly, the finding of recently used five titles

of e-journals (Table 4) shows that out of 10 recently

used e-journals, four (4) were from Elsevier

publishers, which has nearly 40 per cent strength of

the top ten e-journals. The remaining publishers

share one journal with their credit. In the DRDO e-

journals consortium, more e-journals from Elsevier

publishers are covered than other publishers, which

resulted in the publisher having more e-journals used

by the respondents.

In the current scenario, e-journal access has not

limited to the IP ranges and can be accessed beyond

the organization's boundary. The access can be from

home or travel through a remote access facility.

Almost all publishers have extended this service,

particularly in the DRDO e-journals consortium

(Table 5). Interestingly, note that all DRDO libraries

support remote access facilities to the user

community to obtain full-text content from remote

locations either their houses on the official tour, but

poor to abreast the same to all users. The findings of

this study conform to Modi et al. (2018), which

reported similar results with various degrees that the

"majority of officials in category-2 were keen to

access e-journals remotely (≥ 85 %)." In line with the

study's findings, it is suggested to conduct a special

Information Literacy Programme (SILP) for remote

access facilities for DRDO e-journals consortium to

unaware users. This SILP enhances the usability of

e-journals and obtains the full-text content of e-

journals without any difficulties remotely by users.

Further, it is inferred from Table 5 that most

respondents were mindful of remote access facilities

and using them effectively for the research activities.

Information literacy is one of the community's

abilities for utilizing information, including digital

information. With this literacy capability, it is

expected to be able to realize digital literacy (Table

6). IL programs help the clients help the utilization of

abilities expected to discover, assess, and use data

that will add to their scholarly research work and

make them lifelong learners.

According to the study findings, users are more

familiar and comfortable with PDF than any other

format. The PDF file format is always considered a

preferred medium of access among the user

community in e-journals. Even though they have

introduced new file formats such as e-pub and

existing HTML and PDF formats, publishers must

take note of this. Users are interested in PDF, which

is an essential factor in the preferred file format

(Fig.3).

E-journals provide various search options for

accessing the full text of articles or the bibliographic

details of articles. Instead of remembering multiple

fields, these search options will allow users to find

known or unknown content quickly. Numerous

search techniques exist for accessing different e-

journals and vary from one publisher to another

(Fig.4). Interestingly, the study reveals that none of

the users uses an ISSN number to search the e-

journals. The reason may be that remembering the

ISSN number is not more accessible for the users.

The low position of these search techniques is

affected by their uncommon use, if not unused.

Besides, the respondents are generally ignorant of

these advanced search techniques.

The study tried to understand the satisfaction level of

users regarding different features available in the

form of e-journals. It is established from the data that

DRDO e-journals consortia even covered some of

the major publishers. However, more publishers need

to be included in the areas of work related to the

researchers so that they may get their desired

information/articles as and when required.

Journals are essential to keep pace with worldwide

research activities and play an important role in any

R&D organization. According to the data (Fig.5),

nearly 49% of users gave a positive score and were

convinced usage had increased. However, use was

reduced by almost the same percentage, sending an

alarming signal to the implementing lab.

Sustainability is imperative in any work/project that

has direct relevance in the e-journals consortia case,

and more publishers and e-journals must be included

in the consortia.

The data in Table 7 reveals that researchers primarily

consult e-journals for R&D activities. The

discoveries of this examination agree with Moorthy

and Pant (2012), which gave a similar outcome: "the

usage analysis has shown, the R&D community of

DRDO is utilizing the resources in a positive way

that has left a good impact on their minds."

Fig. 6 reveals that 32.08 per cent of the users were

shown their satisfaction level was either average or

below average, or very low with the content covered

by the publishers in the consortia. This 32.08 per

cent should not be ignored since one-third of the

76



research community will play a significant role in

research work and more e-journals with rich content

in the Consortium.

The findings of satisfaction level with the coverage

(Fig.7) demonstrated that the inclusion of the e-

journals should be improved compared to the content

of e-journals and publishers in the consortia. There is

a dire need to organize training programmes and

include more e-journals and publishers in the

consortia.

Libraries are constantly under pressure to show their

value to their institutions. Return on Investment

(ROI) studies in libraries demonstrate how

investments in library e-journals bring returns to the

institutions. As calculated, the ROI, resulting in a

50% decrease in usage, directly impacts the cost of e-

journals and demonstrates that half of the budget

spent on subscribing to e-journals is underutilized.

The analysis of Table 8 concludes that, on average,

1300 publications were published by the

respondents, which include books, research articles,

reports, and patents. This study's result is

inconsistent with the recent survey by Modi et al.

(2018), which reveals that a "total 7,339 research

articles were published during the period 2009 to

2016, i.e. per year average rate of publishing the

articles was 917.38 after implementation the

Consortium."

Every new resource has both advantages and

disadvantages. There may be a barrier in the activity

that encourages scientists to use it. This issue/barrier

is determined by the user's perception and may differ

from person to person. Scientists face many

challenges in harnessing e-journals. The data in Fig.

8 proves that the hindrance or barriers to accessing e-

journals mainly relate to free Wi-Fi connectivity,

slow internet connectivity, and limited access to PC

in the organization. The libraries need to provide

more PC, high-speed Internet connectivity, and Wi-

Fi facilities for accessing e-journals, enhancing the

usage of e-journals. The study's findings indicate that

users have barriers to accessing e-journals, but the

problems are diverse and must be rectified. If the

trend is continuous, the user may be decreased in the

future. Further, DESIDOC may redesign the e-

journals website with a more responsive

website/mobile website or Library App to overcome

the hindrance in accessing e-journals.

Suggestions

Suggestions are a significant part of any research

work. In the present research work, the suggestions

for improvement in DRDO e-journals were asked by

the users and compiled suggestions for improving the

e-journals consortium are mentioned below:

77


(i) It is suggested to subscribe to citation

databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and

Scopus to enable scientists to improve their research

work visibility. Publishers like Emerald, Sage,

Springer, Institute of Physics (IOP), and American

Institute of Physics (AIP) in the Consortium meet

the research requirements in libraries by users.

Furthermore, standards databases like ASTM,

ASME and SAE, and the Consortium's patent

database and technology trends will benefit the labs.

(ii) Create a new responsive website for the

DRDO e-journals consortium and provide access to

video tutorials for new features available in the e-

journals platform.

(iii) Send alerts through either email or mobile

devices to all the users to keep abreast of the latest

information published in the e-journals for better

usage.

(iv) DRDO lab Libraries need to enhance alert

services to users through smart-based applications,

social media (WhatsApp & Facebook), academic,

social networking sites (ResearchGate), RSS feeds,

and Mobile library websites.

(v) Create a Mobile library app for accessing the

DRDO e-journals through smart devices.

(vi) Provide awareness on advanced/federated

searching of e-journals on a priority basis and

conduct training programs from time to time on

changes in e-journals subscription to the labs and for

access to e-journals without any hindrance by users.

(vii) DRDO lab libraries help scientists track the

impact of their research and extend possible help to

use academic and social networking sites to make

their work more visible.

Conclusion

The findings also identified several significant areas

of concern. Wi-Fi connectivity was not available in

any of the libraries. This was one of the deficits in

DRDO labs that need to be addressed, at least for

library use, to avoid the users visiting the library to

access e-journals. The study indicated that none of

the DRDO studies libraries provides access to e-

journals to mobile devices within the lab premises.

Further, as far as alert services are concerned,

libraries were not up to a satisfactory level, and more

than fifty-five per cent were not providing alert

services to their users.

In conclusion, most respondents are proactive and

eager to learn many new features available in the e-

journals platform. The examination results

demonstrated that the inclusion of e-journals should

be improved compared to the content of e-journals

and publishers in the consortia. Sustainability is

imperative in any work/project with direct relevance

in the e-journals consortia case, and more publishers

and e-journals must be included in the Consortia.

The study's findings suggest that integrating webbased

and SMS technology in the DRDO libraries is

the ultimate way to take advantage of today's

technology to enhance the usage of e-journals and

the return on investment (ROI) of the DRDO e-

journals Consortium. The study assumes profound

research significance and is the first of its kind. It

covers scientists and Technical officers working in

all fifty DRDO labs in India and helps solve some of

the challenges faced in the DRDO e-journals

consortium.

References

Bachchhav, K P . “Information retrieval: search

process, techniques and strategies.” International

Journal of Next Generation Library and

Technologies, vol. 2, no.1, 2016, pp. 1-10.

Bar-Ilan, J, Peritz, B.C and Wolman, Y. “A survey

on the use of electronic databases and electronic

journals accessed through the web by the academic

staff of Israeli universities.” The Journal of

Academic Librarianship, vol. 29, no.6, 2003, pp.

346-361.

Brennan, M.J et al. “A Snapshot of early adopters of

e-journals: challenges to the library.” College &

Research Libraries, vol. 63, no.6, 2020, pp. 515-526.

DRDO E-Journal Consortium. Defence Research and

Development Organisation E-Journal Consortium.

2020,https://www.drdo.gov.in/e-journals/e-journalservices

#nolink, accessed 2 Jun. 2022.

Galyani, M G. and Talawar, V.G. “The use of

scholarly electronic journals at the Indian Institute of

Science: a case study in India.” Interlending &

Document Supply, vol. 36, no.1, 2008, pp. 15-29.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1019&context=ejasljournal, accessed 2 Jul.

2022.

Ijiekhuamhen, O.P, Aghojare, B and Ferdinand, O.A.

“Assess users’ satisfaction on academic library

performance: A study.” International Journal of

Academic Research and Reflection, vol. 3 no.5,

2015, pp. 67-77.

Kumar, Shiv and Grover, V.K. “Electronic Journals:

impact on scholarly communication, user and

library.” Library Herald, vol. 45, no.4, 2007, pp.

325-336.

Modi, Y., et al. (2018). Utilization of Scholarly

Communication through DRDO E-journal

Consortium during 2012-2017. DESIDOC Journal of

Library & Information Technology, 38(6), 423-428.

Moorthy, A.L. “DRDO e-journals consortium”.


Technology, vol. 29, no.5, 2009, pp. 18-23.

Moorthy, A.L. and Pant, A. “Assessing the use of

electronic information resources in DRDO institutes:

An analytical study of DRDO e-journals

consortium.” Annals of Library and Information

Studies, vol. 59, no.3, 2012, pp. 194-203.

Qasim, J. and Khan, A.M. "Use of e-journals by the

scientists of CSIR-Institute of Genomics and

Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, India: A

study." The Electronic Library, vol. 33, no. 5, 2015,

pp. 928-942.

Senthil, V and Madhusudhan, M. “DRDO e-journal

consortium in defence science and technology.”


Technology, vol. 38, no.1, 2018, pp.16-20.

Tamizhchelvan, M and Dhanavandan, S. “Federated

search engines for online journals: A study.” Indian

Journal of Information Sources and Services, vol. 3,

no.1, 2013, pp. 48-52.

Voorbij, H and Ongering, H. “The use of electronic

journals by Dutch researchers: a descriptive and

exploratory study.” The Journal of Academic

Librarianship, vol. 32, no.3, 2006, pp. 223-237.

Hoggan, D B. “Challenges, strategies, and tools for

research scientists: using web-based information

resources.” Electronic Journal of Academic and

Special Librarianship, vol. 3, no.3, 2002, pp.1-26,

78



About Authors

V. Senthil is a PhD Research Scholar at the

Department of Library and Information, University

of Delhi. Presently working as Scientist 'F' and

Group Head, TICL & IPR at Gas Turbine

Research Establishment, Bengaluru. He received the

'Laboratory Scientist of the Year' award in 2006,

2013 and 2016. He has published 17 papers in

journals and conferences. His interests include

Library automation, digital library, institutional

repository, e-journals consortium, open data analysis

and IPR. He can be contacted

at senthildrdo@gmail.com

Dr Margam Madhusudhan is working as a

Professor in the Department of Library and

Information Science, University of Delhi. He

received a dozen awards, including the "Life

Achievement Award" and "Research Excellence

Award" in 2022. He has highly valued 56

publications in International reputed journals,

published/edited 07 books, 166+ research

publications, and presented many

national/international conference papers. Under his

supervision, 13 PhDs, 26 MPhils, and 170+ Project

reports have been awarded. He has also completed

one major research project for DRDO and two minor

projects. His areas of interest include designing and

evaluating websites, Web-OPACs, ICT in libraries,

Social Networking Sites, e-Resources, Mobile-based

Library Services, and Text mining. He is the

corresponding author and can be contacted at

mmadhusudhan@libinfosci.du.ac.in.

79



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750


30 th August 2022




19 th October 2022


20 th October 2022

Voyant: a Text Analytic Tools in Digital Humanities

Sudip Ranjan Hatua

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Last couple of years a new subject has been emerging and getting

popularity in the academic fraternity. It is digital humanities. At first glance, it may

mean the application of the digital environment in the humanities discipline. But it

reflects a very big connotation. Many academic institutions in India as well as in the

world have already introduced this subject as a course curriculum. Among many

subjects one important tools, they have included in the digital humanities course as a

practical application is Voyant. This paper is trying to present a bird’s eye view of

both digital humanities and one of its course content Voyant.

Purpose: The basic purpose of this paper is to understand one of the newly growing

subject along one of its practical facets Voyant.

Research Problem: the basic research problem is what is digital humanities. How it

has taken shape? What is the course content of digital humanities? How Voyant

works?

Objective: The basic objective is to provide glimpses into a newly developed subject

and how a text analytic tool- Voyant works and has been included as one of the

practical courses.

Methodology: This paper has two parts the first part has followed the survey method

using literature and course curricula and the second part follows the application

method.

Findings: Digital humanities as a subject is getting popularity among the academic

fraternity. Two foreign and four Indian universities' course content of digital libraries

have been found. There are varieties of degrees offered. Voyant is one of the good text

analytic tools.

Dr Sudip Ranjan Hatua

Associate Professor

Dept. of Lib.& Inf. Science


Kolkata

s.r.hatua@rbu.ac.in

KEYWORDS:

Digital Humanities; Voyant; Text analytic tool;

80


Introduction

“Digital humanities” is a robust professional

apparatus as explained by Cynthia Selfe in ADE

Bulletin stated Matthew G. Kirschenbaum (2010).

During 1989 there was an organization called the

‘Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations’ that

hosted a series of an international conferences on

'Digital humanities'. Till then, a series of

international conferences on 'digital humanities' has

already been organized globally and a glimpses list

has been available on Wikipedia (7 July 2022).

Therefore it is not really a new concept. The concept

was probably first hosted in India in 2013 at

Bangaloreby HEIRA, Centre for the Study of Culture

and Society, Tumkur University, the Tata Institute of

Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai the Center for

Cultural Studies (CCS) and Access To Knowledge

Programme of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)

(Centre for Internet & Society()). Afterwards, lots of

programmes in this topic have been initiated by

various institutions in India and it was accelerated in

the last couple of years.

The most common concept of digital humanities has

been given in Wikipedia (11 September 2022). that

was cited by several kinds of literature are “…the

digital humanities, also known as humanities

computing, is a field of study, research, teaching,

and invention concerned with the intersection of

computing and the disciplines of the humanities”

cited from Druker (2013). Now the question is what

‘Humanities’ is? The Encyclopaedia Britannica has

explained it as a branch of knowledge that deals with

the human being and their culture. It 'includes the

study of all languages and literature, the arts,

history, and philosophy’ (Britannica()). Liu (2014)

cited humanities from the National Foundation on

the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965 as “the study

and interpretation of the following: language, both

modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history;

jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology;

comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism

and theory of the arts; those aspects of social

sciences which have humanistic content and employ

humanistic methods” . He also used another

definition of humanities from Report of the

American Academy of Arts & Science's Commission

on the Humanities and Social Sciences to the U. S.

Congress in June 2013 as "the study of languages,

literature, history, jurisprudence, philosophy,

81


comparative religion, ethics, and the arts..".

Therefore from the above two exhaustive definitions,

it is clear what academic branches are included under

the umbrella of the Humanities discipline. These are

–

Literature Language

The arts History

Philosophy, Linguistics,

Jurisprudence, Religion,

Archaeology, Ethics

Philology

Musicology

After the invention of the Internet and very

specifically www the massive transformation of

knowledge, society, culture and pedagogy

accelerated towards the digital age. This

transformation brought a new opportunity to expand

the potentiality of creation, preservation,

dissemination and interpretation of culture and

humanities and simultaneously the discipline and

pedagogy.

Humanities was first engaged with computing and

networking way back in 1940s as a result of a project

to create a digital archive at Oxford was taken in

1970s (Burdick(2012)). Last two decades we have

experienced a significant move, from scalable

databases to information visualizations, from

PowerPoint presentations to online real-time lectures

in virtual platforms, serious con-

tent and rigorous argumentation take shape across

various learning resource management tools and

platforms. It got a revolutionary change after 2019

when the world was threatened by Covid-19 Virus

and people were habituated to a new normal. The

concept of 'Digital Humanities' now become

popularised. Our senior colleagues, faculties

(especially arts and humanities) those who were

always habituated to a black and white mode like

printed documents, blackboard – chalk-duster, notes,

classroom lectures etc, all of a sudden they

compelled to adopt the colourful pedagogy, by start

using Google meet, YouTube and various learning

apps and learning management system.

Research Problem

The basic research problem is to find out the concept

of digital humanities? How it is taking shape?


Objective

The basic objective is to provide glimpses

into a newly developed subject;

To find out the course content of digital

humanities;

To understand the text analytic tools;

To understand how a popular text analytic

tool, Voyant works

Line

Voyant

Burkley University

Methodology

This paper has two parts; the first part is to

understand the theoretical understanding and

presentation of the subject which has

followed the survey method using literature

and course curricula;

The second part where a text analytic tool-

Voyant has been tested with a valid example

to see how it works; therefore this

application part follows the application

method.

The popularity of 'Digital Humanities'

as a Course

As on date 18,839,253 Results have been found

while searching WorldCat by 'digital humanities'.

Among them 43000 are printed books and 1.7

million e-books, 790k articles and 15 million

downloadable articles indicating how this domain is

increasing exponentially in recent times.

Simultaneously it gets popularity as a new attractive

course. Lots of academic institutions/ universities

along with MOOCs have introduced and offered

'Digital Humanities as a course.

By studying MOOCs offered by edX/ Harvard

University, Ashoka University- Hariyana, Jamila

Millia Islamia University, Burkley Universiy as a

sample it is observed that the following is the thrust

area of 'Digital Humanities' courses in various levels-

edX/ Harvard University

Digital

Humanities

and Data

Digital

Humanities

Projects and

Tools

Acquiring,Cleaning,

and Creating Data

Digital

Humanities for

Medieval

Studies

Theory and

Method in the

Digital

Humanities

(Re)presenting

Humanity at the

Margins: Curating

and Visualizing

Cultural Memory

in the Digital

Humanities

Digital

Humanities and

Archival Design

GIS mapping

and webscraping

Savitribai Phule Pune University (Certificate)

The

humanities:

transitions

Digital

Libraries and

Archiving

Ashoka University

literary data

acquisition

The digital

humanities:

Development

Digital

Humanities:

meaning and

nature

Data Mining

Text Encoding

natural

language

processing

Using digital

technology for

academic

purposes

Geographical

Information

Systems (GIS)

and narrative

visualization.

Jamia Millia Islamia University (Certificate)

The

Command

Working with

Tools -

Introduction to Digital

Humanities

Digital Futurisms

82


Jadavpur University (PG Diploma)

Conceptualizing

the Digital

Humanities

(Compulsory)

Digital

Publishing in the

Humanities

The Photograph

and its Digital

Surrogates

Theory of Digital

Texts

Material

Culture of the

Book: Digital

Models

Scholarly

Editions

Online

Digital

Preservation

of Moving

Images

Quantitative

Methods in

Humanities

Research

Software

Studies as the

New

Humanities

Digital Music

Archiving

Advanced Text

Technologies

Other major facets under digital humanities

course (University of California, Los Angeles)

Analysis of DH Projects, Platforms, and

Tools

HTML

Ontologies and Metadata

Database and Narrative

Data Mining

Text Analysis

Text Encoding, Mark-Up, and TEI

Interface, Narrative, Navigation

Text Analysis

o Wordsmith

o Many Eyes

o Voyant

Data visualization

o Tableau

o Gephi

o Cytoscape

Exhibits

o Omeka

Maps & Timelines

o GeoCommons

o Neatline

From the sample course content of the above six

universities, it is found that academic institutions are

trying to make a shape by the amalgamation of a few

digital technologies with traditional "Humanities"

subjects. They also try to teach "Humanities"

students with a few specific digital technologies like

word press, voyant, data mining, text encoding, GIS

mapping, web scrapping, digital archive and

preservation etc. Some universities have included

some advanced computing technologies like NLP,

Command Line, Big Data etc along with lots of data

analytics. Most of them are the burning subjects the

Library and Information Science people are culturing

of the last couple of years. Among all these subjects

Voyant tools,

Google Ngrams, Story Maps and

Social Media Analytics are the very burning research

area of the scholarly community.

Voyant: a text analytic tool

Voyant Tools provides text analytics opportunities to

a researcher for example, word frequency lists,

frequency distribution plots, and KWIC (Key Word

in Context) analysis etc. It provides a web-based text

reading and analysis environment (Text Analysis

101). Voyant Tools can be accessed online at

https://voyant-tools.org. It can be installed in a standalone

system too.

By uploading the article:

AComparativeAnalysisofStructuralLayout

Changesin1stTo23rdEditionofDewey

DecimalClassificationScheme by SATARUPASAHA

and DR. SUDIPRANJANHATUA

Lib. Herald Vol59No3 September- October 2021

page 60-68 into the Voyant web application interface

The Voyant Tools interface displays five panels with

different text analysis tools.

83


Context tools


Cirrus tools

It is a word cloud that visualizes the top-frequency

words of the document. The term occurs in the

highest frequency and appears in the centre with

the largest size. Some words also appeared small in

size within the spaces left by larger words that do

not fit together closely.In this example font size of

DDC is highest as it appears 45 times followed by

edition 43 and so on. If we put the mouse over the

term the frequency of that word will display.

It provides an option called links – which shows

the various links among the various terms

By default Voyant (Voyant Tool ()) provides five

text analysis tools-

1. Cirrus tools

2. Reader tools

3. Trends tools

4. Summary tools

84


Reader Tool

In this panel, the complete document will be

displayed for reading to see the content

which scrolls to see more. Here also if

weput the mouse over any word displayed

will be shown the frequency of that word.

(multiple occurrences of words) in the corpus. It

provides three options-

Summary

Documents and

Phrases

Trends tools

It is also known as the Terms Frequency Chart which

provides graphical distribution plots that represent

the frequencies of terms across texts as shown in the

corpus. Several lines appeared in a different colours

with a lightly display of the bar diagram.

In the document section, we can compare more than

one document by various aspects. In this example,

one document has been analysed where we see the

vocabulary density, readability index etc. In the

document section of this example, we have found the

following result-

In the phrase, we can compare various phrases about

their count, length and trends as shown in cirrus.

Context tools

It shows each occurrence ofa keyword with its

surrounding text in context. It has three options-

Context

Bubbleliness

Correlations

In our example, it is found that the five most frequent

terms are displayed with a different colour at the top

of the graph a legend displays. On mouse over the

line, bar and legend display will show the number of

frequencies of that particular term. The line shows

the trends.

Summary

It displays the number of documents in the corpus

and the total number of words and unique words

85



It shows the main term in the middle column and the

context terms in both left and right columns as

shown in the above example.

The Bubbleliness is the same representation of

contextual words represented by a coloured bubble

with different sizes and colour as shown in the

following figure-

Lots of academic institutions have introduced this

subject as course curricula and offer different levels

of degrees. With computing, text mining,

preservation of cultural heritage etc they have

focused more on the various text analysis using

Voyant tools, Google Ngrams, Story Maps and

Social Media Analytics tools etc. Voyant is one of

the effective text analytic tools which represents text

in various quantitative forms to analyse and

understand the subject flavour insight.

References

The co-relation also provides interesting results of

correlation and level of significance among two

terms as shown in the following figure for our

example.

At the top of the cirrus panel, there are three logos [

] are there in the blue colour menu

bar. Those will display by on mouseover ? symbol.

By selecting the Window button we will find a

variety of other tools that canperform different

visualizations and text analyses.

Conclusion

“Digital humanities” is a fast-growing subject getting

popularity among students and the academic

fraternity. This is an application of computing in the

subject of Humanities especially the art, culture,

language and other subjects which deal with and for

humanity. This gets popularity as when a large

number of digital impacts have been found in

different aspects of our day-to-day life, especially

during covid-19 pandemic's new normal situation.

Britannica().Humanities

Scholarship.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanities

Burdick, Anne [et.al]( 2012). Digital Humanities.

London. MIT Press.. Pg.8.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161026210950/https:/

/mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/9780262018470_

Open_Access_Edition.pdf

Centre for Internet & Society (). Digital Humanities

in India? The centre for Internet Society. https://cisindia.org/raw/digital-humanities-in-india

Drucker, Johanna [et.al] (September 2013).

"Introduction to Digital Humanities: Course Book".

UCLA Center for Digital Humanities.

https://ia801202.us.archive.org/4/items/Introduction

ToDigitalHumanities/IntroductionToDigitalHumaniti

es.Concepts,Methods,andTutorialforStudentsandInstr

uctors.pdf

Liu, Alan (2014). What are Humanities?.

4Humanities-advocating for humanities.

https://4humanities.org/2014/12/what-are-thehumanities/

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum (2010). What Is Digital

humanities and What’s It Doing in English

Departments?. ADE BullEtin ◆ numBEr 150, 2010.

https://mkirschenbaum.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/

ade-final.pdf

Text Analysis 101: Voyant

Tools:https://library.villanova.edu/application/files/9

815/8739/5480/VoyantToolsParadiseLostTutorial.pd

f

86


Voyant Tools: https://voyanttools.org/?corpus=3f0de6084ea422fd25c533341a1ad

7d0

Wikipedia (11 September 2022). Digital Humanities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities#cite

note-:0-2

Wikipedia (7 July 2022). Digital Humanities

conference.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Hu

manities_conference

About Authors

Dr Sudip Ranjan Hatua,a DRTC alumni presently

working as Associate Professor in Department of

Library & Information Science, Rabindra Bharati

University, Kolkata, India. He has awarded PhD

from VidyaSagar University. Prior to 16 years

teaching experiences he served 7 years as working

professional at ICAST, National Aerospace

Laboratories, Bangalore, Karshak Engineering

College, Hyderabad, followed by Central Library,

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He has

authored around than 50 articles published in

National, International Journals, seminars,

conferences proceeding, book chapters etc. and 5

books. He was performed as a content writer of

B.Lib.I.Sc course of NSOU and translator of a course

content of IGNOU. 7 Research Scholars awarded

Ph.D. till 2021 under his supervision.

87



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Learning Information necessities of Indian Small-Scale Weaver

Community


16 th August 2022


30 th August 2022




20 th October 2022

Mohd Shoaib Ansari , AdityaTripathi & Sneha Tripathi

ABSTRACT

Dr. Mohd Shoaib Ansari

Librarian

Government Kaktiya Post Graduate

College, Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh

akhtarshoaib323@gmail.com

Dr Aditya Tripathi

Professor


Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi

aditya@bhu.ac.in

Introduction - Information is essential in meeting professional goals in the 21st

century. As an emerging economy in a developing continent, India has already made

many interventions to use information technology to support different communities.

However, information service in some areas is still severely limited. The overall impact

of the changing information environment on the weaver information needs and access

channels has not been thoroughly studied.

Purpose - The study primarily aims to know about the information-related aspects of

the weavers of Benaras. Its primary purpose of dealing with the problem faced by

weavers due to a lack of information about raw materials, market, technology capital,

etc.

Research problem – The weavers are exploited by Middlemen/Brokers, Commission

agents, Whole-sellers and Retailers Due to a lack of information. These people cut the

maximum shares from profit, and the weavers get nothing. They are unaware of

different government schemes which are implemented for them. They lag in finding

appropriate information about the raw materials, designs, trends, and markets.

Objective - The paper’s objectives mainly focused on assessing the level of information

and identifying the gap in getting information from weavers. It also focused on

identifying the sources of information used by weavers and the information needs of the

weavers.

Methodology - This study systematically assesses the level of information, the source of

information and the gap in getting information among weavers in Varanasi, India. The

data was collected among 200 weavers by scheduled interview. The scheduled

interview was conducted because most of the population was not friendly with

questionnaires due to their low educational background. The field survey also provided

an opportunity to observe the actual scenario.

Findings - The results indicate that most weavers are unaware of their occupational

information needs. The findings show that most weavers depend upon agents and

mediators for banking and government finance schemes. Informal sources like friends,

family members and colleagues are the primary source of information for the weavers.

Dr Sneha Tripathi

Deputy Librarian

Central Library

Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi

sneha.tripathi10@bhu.ac.in

KEYWORDS:

Information needs; Information seeking behaviour; Information source; Indian

Small Scale Industries; Weavers

88


Introduction

The present era is called the "Information era," and

information plays a vital role in the development of

society. To thrive in this modern era, one needs

various types of information, no matter how wellversed

one is in a field or profession (Case, 2002).

Every person needs information to work correctly in

his field. In this 21 st century, possessing the right

information at the right time is of utmost importance

in everyone’s life. Individuals have different

information needs in their daily life, whether for

work or non-work purposes. With the advancement

of information and communication technologies

(ICT), various digital-enabled information products

and services have emerged and replaced traditional

information sources to meet individuals’ information

needs. Nevertheless, not everyone is fortunate to

have access to ICT to fulfil their information needs.

The existing literature offers no universally accepted

definition of information need and informationseeking

behaviour. Different scholars focused on

different perspectives of the concepts. Generally, the

research community agrees that information needs

are an abasic aspect of human needs that constantly

changes with new and sensory inputs. Shera (1972)

defines information as a message, a signal, or a

stimulus transmitted by the act or process of

communication. It assumes a response in the

receiving organism and, therefore, possesses

response potential. However, Davis & Olson (1985)

define information as processed data in a meaningful

form to the recipient and is of actual or perceived

value to take present decisions or in the future. The

term information-seeking behaviour was developed

after the first half of the twentieth century. After that,

it took several decades for the subject to be presented

as a significant field of information science.

According to Kuhlthau (2004), "The process of

construction within information-seeking involves

fitting information in with what one already knows

and extending this knowledge to create new

perspectives."

Banarasi Saree weavers

The Silk industry has played a significant role in the

Indian Economy, generating employment, earning

foreign exchange, and contributing handsomely to

national income. Banarasi silk sarees, dress

materials, and home furnishing products are famous

in India and abroad. It is believed that the weaving of

the Varanasi saree gained prominence during the

Mughal rule. The traditional Varanasi handloom

product is exclusively known for the handwork of

conventional weavers who developed the Varanasi

saree brand, which is much sought after for its

intricacies, art forms, and aesthetics (Mukherjee,

2019). Silk weaving is the dominant manufacturing

industry in Varanasi. The weaving is typically done

within the households, and most of the weavers are

89


Ansari Muslims. Varanasi is known throughout India

for its production of exquisite silk and

BanarasiSaree’s brocades with gold and silver thread

works used for weddings and social occasions

(Singh, 2015).

The weavers are exploited mainly by the Gaddidar,

the middleman and the trader. They control the

production and marketing of silk fabrics and

considerably influence the weaving community's

social, cultural, economic and political life.

Individual weavers have poor connections in the raw

material market and retail market of finished fabrics.

The weavers, cut off from the market, cannot

actively participate in the price negotiation of their

products and are at the trader's mercy. The traders

extract twin advantages as they have market

information and mercantile capital. At the same time,

the fluctuating prices of silk and artificial shortages

created by the suppliers caught the weavers in a

precarious situation. The saree industry is not seeing

much growth in demand, whereas the growing influx

of supply from other areas adds more to the woes of

skilled weavers (Bose, 2008).

Most of the weavers are not much aware of the

government's help and support facilities. The

intermediaries often benefitted from these schemes

because the weavers cannot avail of the facility

provided by the government. The government needs

to put in some more effort. Due to the poor literacy

rate among the weavers, they usually seek help from

intermediary money lenders (Mahajans) who benefit

instead of the actual beneficiary(Singh & Kumar,

2018).

Literature review

Many studies have been conducted to study the

different communities' specific information needs.

Hassan & Wolfram (2020) provide evidence that

refugees had specific information needs centred on

housing, health care, employment, and education.

However, they were not necessarily satisfied with the

information they could find and needed better

information support. The migrants mainly required

cultural information about their present country.

They also valued their collections as information

sources and the impact of personal information

management practices on preserving and sharing

information about their cultural heritage (Krtalic,

2021). The language, cultural differences, the digital

divide, unfamiliar information systems, and

psychological factors are five significant challenges

immigrants face while searching for information

(Wang et al., 2020). While studying the information

needs of homeless people, Hersberger (2005) found

nine kinds of information needs for them. The

information includes Finances, Relationships with

others, Childcare, Housing, Health and health care,


Employment, Education, Transportation and Public

assistance-related information.

Many researchers have studied occupational

information needs. Ren (1999) examined the

government information-searching behaviour of

small business executives. The findings show that

most executives considered government information

vital to their business operations, but their awareness

of the availability of government information was

relatively low. Rufaro, Chiware, & Dick (2008) find

that SMMEs in Namibia require a wide range of

information about finance, marketing, training,

production and business services. Interventions by

both government and business service providers are

necessary to improve access to business information

services by SMMEs. Kassim (2010) studied the

information need of Bumiputera would-be

entrepreneurs who had attended entrepreneurial

development courses. The leading information needs

were preparing the business plan, followed by

planning of cash flow, examining business

opportunities, creativeness and innovativeness in

business and profit planning. The study found that

respondents obtained most of the information by

talking to other entrepreneurs, followed by sharing

the experience with other entrepreneurs, discussing

with friends/relatives, reading newspapers and

magazines, and asking clients. Rollin et al. (2013)

studied the occupational hazards or diseases related

information needs among French workers. The study

reported that most of the workers needed OHDrelated

information. The primary source for

searching for information were the Internet,

Newspapers, General physicians, Occupational

physicians, Trade union representatives and

Employers. Most workers trust occupational

physicians, but they used less reliable sources, such

as the Internet or general physicians.

Nwankwo et al. (2010) found that Farmers seek

information constantly based on the need to

overcome risk and farming constraints or improve

income enhancement opportunities. Water managers

required historical, weather, and seasonal forecast

information for climate change projections. They use

climate information to adapt to climate variability

and change (Khosravi, Taylor, &Siu, 2021). Tripathi

et al. (2021) found that farmers needed information

on mineral mixture and computation of ration and

feeding schedule as per age and stage of the animal.

They also required information about disease control,

control of external parasites, and vaccination

schedule under health management. In addition,

farmers expressed the need for information on

farmers’ training and warning systems about diseases

and weather forecasts.

Sánchez-Soto (2016) presented an analysis of

information needs and information behaviour of blue

agave farmers in Mexico. The findings show that

farmers with land are more prosperous than those

who rent another land for farming. The farmers

acquire information about skills and knowledge to

improve their farm operations and agriculture. The

farmers consult persons, manuals, institutions, and

secondary and tertiary sources. While Chen & Lu

(2020) found that farmers seek health and medical

information, social security and daily consumption

account for the highest proportion. The findings

show that environmental factors have a significant

impact on information needs. The leading

information channels for farmers are TV, fellow

villagers, relatives, friends, mobile calls, fixed-line

phones, colleagues or classmates. Age, education

level, Gender, Language ability and income level

have a significant influence on the preference for

various information access channels.

Kumar et al. (2020) find the occupation-related

information needed among farmers and found that

getting weather information, such as rainfall

intensity, cyclone and thunderstorm signals, at an

early stage reduces unexpected crop damage.

Cultivation practices, seasonal variability,

technology, and other socio-economic related

information also need special attention to understand

the needs and better design information services.

Naveed& Anwar (2013) found that Pakistani farmers

required information about soil preparation, seeds,

taking care of crops, harvesting activities, and animal

husbandry. They mainly depended upon co-workers,

friends and neighbours, and mass media and printed

materials were deficient. They face a lack of timely

access, a low level of education, and a language

barrier while getting the required information.

Objective of the study

The study is primarily aimed at knowing about the

problem faced by weavers due to a lack of

information about raw materials, market, technology

capital, etc. The specific objectives related to the

present study were as follows:

1. To access the level of information among the

weaver community.

2. To identify the gap in getting information by

weavers.

3. To identify the sources of information used

by weavers to meet their information needs.

4. To identify the information needs of the

weavers.

Methodology

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Sample and Sampling Procedures

The population of the study consists of the

Banarasisaree weavers of the Varanasi district. The

exact population figure of weavers is not available to

the government. So the sampling frame is not

accessible; a non-probability sampling procedure is

used in this study. Among the many types of nonprobability

sampling techniques, quota sampling is

chosen to represent the population of weavers in

seven better geographical regions and be used for

sub-group analyses. Four areas were selected from

the Municipal corporation, and three areas were

chosen from the rural area using the quota sampling

procedures. The selection criteria are expected to

achieve the higher representativeness of weavers of

Varanasi, and a total of 200 responses were

collected.

Demographic

Information

Area/Locality

Age

Frequency

Percent

Alaipura 30 15.0

Madanpura 30 15.0

Lallapura 30 15.0

Bajardhia 30 15.0

Lohta 30 15.0

Kotwa 25 12.5

Kakarmatta 25 12.5

Below 20 years 33 16.5

21 – 30 years 103 51.5

31 – 40 years 56 28.0

41 – 50 years 08 04.0

51 – 60 years 0 0

Educational Level

Illiterate 44 22.0

Primary 63 31.5

Secondary 49 24.5

Graduation 24 12.0

Post Graduation 20 10.0

Income Level

Below 5000 86 43.0

5001 – 10000 62 31.0

10001 – 15000 29 14.5

15001 – 20000 23 11.5

More than 20000 0 0

Loom Type

Handloom 34 17.0

Power loom 166 83.0

Ownership status of

looms (Nos.)

0 36 18.0

1 38 19.0

2 33 16.5

3 70 35.0

4 12 06.0

5 3 01.5

5> 8 04.0

Table 1 – Population Sample characteristics

It was found that most of the active working

population is from the young age group and the

second representation in the population is from the

adolescent age group. There is very little

representation from the old age category, which

shows that the retirement age of the weavers is very

early. Early engagement in work and low living

standard is the leading causes of early retirement.

Most of the weavers are illiterate or semi-literate. At

the same time, one-fourth of the population has a

secondary education, and one-fourth of the

population has higher education. This situation

shows that participation in higher education is

meagre and people are not enrolling in graduation or

post-graduation courses. The weavers are

economically weak, and they hardly survive on their

livelihood. Half of the population earns less than half

the per capita income of the country (Rs. 94,566 or $

1400 {approx} during 2019-20). They hardly survive

and cannot afford adequate food, better medical

facilities, education, and better living standards. The

majority of weavers are now shifting focus from

Handloom to power loom. The people having capital

(Gaddidars or traders) are installing power loom to

produce more fabrics at a low cost. The poor section

of weavers can not afford the power loom cost and

are forced to work as labour under Gaddidars. The

majority of people have one or two looms to only

earn for their bread butter.

Data Collection Method

The survey method was used to gather responses

from the weavers concerning their level of having

information, use of information sources, time of

getting information, and their information needs. The

scheduled interview was conducted because most of

the population was not friendly with questionnaires

due to their low educational background. The field

survey also provided an opportunity to observe the

actual scenario.

The schedule contained questions concerning the

significant variables of information and relevant

demographic information. In addition, the schedule

was prepared in two languages – English and Hindi

for a better understanding of the weavers. The

aspects covered in the schedule are described as

follows:

The Level of having information

The level of having information denotes awareness

about a particular thing. The appropriate level of

information can help people with better tools for

making decisions. Having more information about

anything allows people to reach sound decisions.

Conversely, having little information can affect the

accuracy of our decisions (Todd, 2007). The level of

having information is a mental status of a person, and

it can not be expressed in quantity. To measure the

level of having information, a five-point Likert was

used. The respondents were asked to select the

91


appropriate level of information by their

understanding.

The frequency of getting information

The amount of information created by the world’s

population has been growing at a dizzying speed, and

it is projected to grow 50X over the next decade

(Computer World, 2011). The information is in many

places, hurling at us at unbelievable speeds. People

lose a lot of time searching for information; an

average knowledge worker loses 6.2 hours each

week looking for information and not finding it. So

getting the right information at the right time is the

most important thing. The information got at the

right time helps to take appropriate action on the

problem. Even in business, access to information at

the right time is equal to money.

The sources of information

Information sources are defined as sources that

provide information and knowledge to users. The

literature on information-seeking behaviour has

widely examined the frequency and preferences of

using different information sources to meet

information needs. The information source categories

may include traditional and non-traditional, print and

online, and personal and impersonal (Agarwal, Xu,

& Poo, 2011). The information sources also can be

categorised as individual information sources like

friends, relatives, neighbours, and community

members (Chakrabarti, 2001) and impersonal

information sources like TV and radio, Newspaper

and the Internet (Folitse, Sam, Dzandu, &Osei, 2018)

(Momodu, 2002).

The information Need

The information need is a requirement that drives

people into information seeking. Information needs

comprise the information which a person needs for

their task. The work-related information includes

information about production, technologies, market,

product prices information, financing/credit, policies

and regulations, trading/business, and job

opportunities information. Non-work-related

information includes education and training

information, health and medical information,

religious information, entertainment, leisure and

sports information, social welfare information,

community information and consumer information.

Result and discussion

Scaling of having information

The majority of people think that they have enough

information about their professional field (M=3.15,

SD=1.097). They are well aware of the local market

(M=3.09, SD=1.126) but did not have much

information about the national level market (M=2.51,

SD=1.252). Most weavers think that they are

92



adequately aware of the price of the raw materials

(M=2.78, SD=1.383), the market of raw materials

(M=2.84, SD=1.358) and kind of raw materials

(M=2.79, SD=1.252). The weavers also think that

they have sufficient information about colour

combination making (M=2.86, SD=1.307) followed

by new designs and trends (M=2.72, SD=1.296) and

trending products in the markets (M=2.70,

SD=1.372). They are appropriately informed about

handling new machinery (M=2.86, SD=1.309) but

are not well aware of the latest technologies

introduced from time to time in weaving (M=2.74,

SD=1.277). They have more information about the

banking finance scheme (M=2.36, SD=1.264) than

the governmental finance schemes (M=2.23,

SD=1.247). The findings show that most of the

weavers are not aware of trade fairs organised by the

government and other agencies (M=2.47, SD=1.283).

Sl.

No

Type of information Mean SD

1 Information related to

professional field

3.15 1.097

2 Price of the raw material 2.78 1.383

3 Markets of the raw materials 2.84 1.358

4 Kind of raw materials 2.79 1.252

5 Colour combinations making 2.86 1.307

6 Latest technologies in

weaving

2.74 1.277

7 Handling new machinery 2.86 1.309

8 Governmental finance scheme 2.23 1.247

9 Various banking finance

scheme

2.36 1.264

10 Local markets to sell products 3.09 1.126

11 National level market to sell

products

2.51 1.252

12 Trade fairs organised by the

government and other

2.47 1.283

agencies

13 New designs and trends 2.72 1.296

14 Trending products in the

markets

2.70 1.372

Table 2 – Scaling of having information

Note: Level of having information measured on fivepoint

Likert scale labelled as 5 = ‘Very much’, 4 =

‘Much’, 3 = ‘sufficient’, 2 = ‘Less’ and 1 = ‘Very less,’

The lack of awareness is the major cause of the poor

status of the weavers. It was found that most of the

weavers are not much aware of their profession. The

findings were based on the fourteen categories of

information and it was found that most of the

weavers are not much aware of the above categories

of information. The low awareness caused

exploitation by mediators and agents. They are not

aware of the finance schemes by the government and

banks. They sell their product to the local market and

the mediator takes away a considerable part of their

profit. They are not even aware of the recent

technologies, trends, fashion and designs, which

worsens the situation. They still produce oldfashioned

products and the demand for their products

is declining.

The frequency of getting recent information

The information got at the right time helps to take

appropriate action against the problem. So getting the

correct information at the right time is the most

important thing. The data reveal that weavers quickly

get information about new local markets for the

products (M=3.2, SD=1.378), followed by Designing

patterns (M=3.17, SD=1.322) and changes in the

price of raw materials (M=2.89, SD=1.601). At the

same time, the information about the introduction of

new raw materials (M=2.77, SD=1.584), recent

development in the professional field (M=2.75,

SD=1.595), and new product trending in fashion

(M=2.61, SD=1.459) are not far behind. Reaching

information about new national-level markets for the

products (M=0.72, SD=1.281) took the most time,

followed by New banking finance scheme (M=1.65,

SD=1.765) and new finance schemes introduced by

the government (M=1.66, SD=1.711). Nevertheless,

the frequency of getting information about trade fairs

organised by Govt. and NGOs (M=2, SD=1.977),

new markets of raw materials (M=2.3, SD=1.581),

latest technologies introduced in weaving (M=2.37,

SD=1.642), new colour combinations introduced by

reputed designers (M=2.43, SD=1.621) and handling

new machinery (M=2.51, SD=1.623) are not far

behind.

Sl.

Type of information

Mean

Std.

Deviation

No

1 Recent development in

the professional field 2.75 1.595

2 New markets for raw

materials 2.3 1.581

3 Change of price of raw

materials 2.89 1.601

4 Introduction of new raw

material 2.77 1.584

5 New Colour combinations

introduced by reputed

designers 2.43 1.621

6 Latest technologies

introduce in weaving 2.37 1.642

7 Handling new machinery 2.51 1.623

8 New finance scheme

introduced by the

government 1.66 1.711

9 New banking finance

scheme 1.65 1.765

10 New Local Markets for

the products 3.2 1.378

11 New National Markets for

your products 0.72 1.281

12 Trade fairs organised by

Govt. and NGOs 2 1.977

13 Designing patterns 3.17 1.322

14 New product Trending in

fashion 2.61 1.459

Table 3 – The frequency of getting information

Note: The frequency of getting information measured on five

scale labelled as 4 = '1-3 months', 3 = '4-6 months', 2 = '7-9

months', 1 = '10-12 months' and 0 = 'I do not get.'

Getting the correct information at the right time may

help them to take appropriate decision on the

problem. The frequency of getting information can

be measured by the duration of time it takes between

getting information and when it origins or changes.

The findings show that only a few weavers get

information quickly, whereas most get it when it

becomes old or irrelevant. It is also found that a

significant part of the community is unaware of the

recent development in their field. The wealthy part of

the community quickly gets information about new

trends, fashion, products and markets but the poor

section of the society is unaware of these things and

is forced to work as a labour.

The sources of information

An information source is a person, thing, or place

from which information comes, arises, or is obtained.

The source informs a person about something or

provides knowledge about it. The information source

can be formal or informal. The formal information

sources include newspaper, television, radio,

Internet, government, or official NGO sources. The

informal sources include mostly oral sources like

friends, family and colleagues. The findings show

that most weavers depend upon agents and mediators

for banking and government finance schemes.

Informal sources like friends, family members and

colleagues are the primary sources of information for

the weavers. As shown in figure 1, it has an equal

impact on all kinds of information. The dependency

on formal sources of information like TV, Radio,

newspapers, and the Internet is very low. Thus,

people are often not friendly about formal sources of

information. The official sources of information like

the government and authorised NGOs contribute

significantly less to providing information to the

weaver community.

Figure 1 – The sources of information

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The information source can be formal or informal.

The formal information sources include newspapers,

television (TV), radio, Internet, Government (Govt.)

or Non-Government Organisations (NGOs). The

informal sources include mostly oral sources like

friends, family and colleagues. It was found that

most of the weavers largely depend upon informal

sources of information for their information needs. It

is also observed that education plays an essential role

in information seeking because most weavers are

illiterate or semi-literate and cannot consult formal

sources of information. Thus they primarily depend

upon their family members, friends, relatives and

colleagues to get information and the educated part

of society uses formal and modern sources to get

information. The younger generation claimed that

they now use the Internet to follow the changes in

their profession. They also learn new techniques to

develop new products. They have started promoting

their products over social media, which helps them

eliminate the mediator and broker.

The information needed by the weavers

As shown in Figure 2, the weavers have the highest

needs of information for the price of raw materials

(98.50%) followed by the market of raw materials

(97.00%), latest technologies in weaving (94.50%),

and new designs and trends (93.00%). The lowest

needs are for information about the online market to

sell the products (56.50%), followed by Trade fairs

information (67.00%) and National level market to

sell products (71.50%). The result shows that getting

raw material at a low price is the priority of the

weavers, whereas less prefer information about the

online and national level market. Nevertheless,

weavers need information about governmental

finance schemes (92.50%), colour combinations

making (91.50%), kinds of raw materials (90.50%),

and local markets to sell products (89.50%) are also

the priority. However, the information needed for

handling new machinery (88.50%), new machinery

and its market (87.50%), banking-finance scheme

(85.00%), consumer requirements (83.50%), and

Trending products in the markets (83.00%) are on

the less priority.

Figure 2 - Information needed of the weavers

The findings revealed that a large number of weavers

prefer to get information about the price of raw

94



materials followed by the market of raw materials,

the latest technologies in weaving and new designs

and trends. The lowest needs are information about

the online market to sell the products with, followed

by trade fairs information and National level market

to sell products. The result shows that getting raw

materials at a low price is the priority of the weavers.

In contrast, only a few prefer to have information

about the online and national markets. Nevertheless,

weavers also seek information on priority about

governmental finance schemes, colour combinations

making, kinds of raw materials, and local markets to

sell products. However, the information needed for

handling new machinery and its market, bankingfinance

scheme, consumer requirements, and

trending products in the markets are less prioritised.

Conclusion

The results of this study, covering the information

level of the weavers, their information needs, and the

sources they use to find the information, provide

important implications for public policymakers and

practice. Public policymakers such as those in the

Handloom Board, Ministry of Textiles, and state

government could use the findings to develop

appropriate measures for improving weaver

information provision, evaluate the effectiveness of

existing weaver development strategies and policies,

and identify areas for further improvement. In

particular, NGOs are placed at the bottom of the

information sources in terms of information seeking

to promote the use of government officials’ sources.

Based on the frequency of using information sources,

the role of TV, Radio, News Paper and the Internet

must be improved. The government must advertise

its schemes over TV, Radio and Newspaper. Internet

connectivity must be improved in urban areas.

Mobile services providers should continue to identify

and develop useful and easy-to-use mobile

applications for the needs of weavers. Government

officials, social enterprises and NGOs should

establish a more robust presence among the weaver’s

community by having regular communication and

community services activities to reach out and

engage with the weavers for socio-economic

development and integration.

This study also acknowledges that a survey

instrument could not adequately understand human

behaviour. Future researchers may consider using

other research designs and data collection methods to

explore the information-seeking behaviours of

weavers.

It is hoped that understanding the level of having

information, information needs, and the use of

information sources by weavers will bring about the

economic and social development of the weaver

community. This research work may also reference

similar studies among other occupational

communities in India and beyond.

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About Authors

Dr MohdShoaib Ansari is working as Librarian in

the Government Kaktiya PG College, Jagdalpur,

Chhattisgarh. He received his BA (Economics) and

MLISc (Library & Info. Sci.)from Banaras Hindu

University in 2011 and 2013, respectively. He

completed his doctoral dissertation in 2021 from the

same university. His areas of interest are Community

information, information seeking, library services,

traditional knowledge and cultural preservation.

Dr Aditya Tripathi is a Professor and Head of the

Department of Library and Information Science

Department, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

His areas of interest are Multilingual information

retrieval systems, design and development of digital

libraries, e-learning, web technologies, automated

indexing tools, machine-readable cataloguing,

metadata, semantic web, extensible mark-up

language, etc.

Dr. Sneha Tripathiis working as Deputy Librarian

in Central Library, BHU. She is post-graduate in

Documentation and Information Science from Indian

Statistical Institute and received her doctorate in

Library & Information Science from University of

Kalyani. Her research interests include digital

libraries, metadata, semantic web technologies and

academic integrity. She is recipient of Flanders

Interuniversity Council (VLIR-UOS) scholarship

(Brussels, Belgium). She has authored several

research articles in reputed SCOPUS indexed

journals.

96



UGC-CARE

Peer Reviewed

ISSN: 0972-2750

Journal Metrics of Web of Science (WoS) Indexed Library and

Information Science (LIS) Journals


21 th July 2022


21 st August 2022


16 th October 2022


18 th October 2022

Renjith V. R. &

Sudhi S. Vijayan

ABSTRACT

Dr Renjith V. R

Librarian

Department of History

Kariavattom Campus,

University of Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

renjithlib@keralauniversity.ac.in

Introduction: Web of Science (WoS) is the primary citation database frequently used

to rank journals in a discipline in terms of its citation impact.

Purpose: The present study is undertaken to analyze the different quartile LIS journals

included in the 2022 JCR of WoS with respect to their publishers, the status of journals

(Open Access (OA) and Non-Open Access (Non-OA)), and the different journal indices

like Total Citations, Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Journal Citation Indicator (JCI),

and percentage of gold open access status.

Research Problems: Selection of a suitable journal to publish Library and Information

Science (LIS) scholarly journal articles based on WoS journal metrics.

Objectives: To analyze the journal metrics and to identify publishers and status (Open

Access (OA) and Non-Open Access (Non-OA)) of different quartile LIS journals

included in the 2022 JCR of WoS.

Methodology: Data were collected from included journals from Journal Citation

Reports (JCR) 2022 of Web of Science

Findings: International Journal of Information Management is the top journal in the

2022 JCR of WoS with a JIF value of 18.958 and JCI 5.51. MIS Quarterly is the

leading journal with a citation of 29352. The third quartile (Q3) LIS journal, the

Journal of the Medical Library Association, has the highest gold open access status

percentage (99.05%). The non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test revealed

statistically significant differences among different quartile LIS journals in respect of

their journal metrics 2022 of JCR of WoS.

Dr. Sudhi S. Vijayan

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Lib.& Inf. Science

University of Kerala,

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

sudhivijayan@keralauniversity.ac.in

KEYWORDS:

Journal Metrics; Journal Indicators; Journal Citation Index; Library and Information

Science Journals;

97


Introduction

The Web of Science (WoS) is the central citation

database frequently used to rank journals in a

discipline in terms of their productivity and the

total citations received to indicate the journal's

impact influence, or prestige (Abrizah et al.,

2013). This database, grounded by certain

principles, covers selectively important journals

in all knowledge fields. The information

generated by WoS indicates the active journals

covering relevant and current research and

influence in shaping future research fields. The

most powerful indices used by this database to

rank journals are the journal impact factor (JIF)

(Garfield 1999, 2005). The concept of Quartile

Score (Q Score) of scientific journals is used by

WoS (Asan&Aslan, 2020). The Q scores of the

journals give us information about the citation

performance of a given journal and its place in

the community of journals in the given scientific

category. The Q values are related to the JIF

score of the concerned journals in the JCR of

WoS. The present study is undertaken to analyze

the different quartile LIS journals included in the

2022 JCR of WoS concerning their publishers,

the status of journals (Open Access (OA) and

Non-Open Access (Non-OA)), and the different

journal indices like Total Citations, Journal

Impact Factor (JIF), Journal Citation Indicator

(JCI), and percentage of gold open access status.

Review of Literature

Sudhi S Vijayan&Renjith (2021)analyzed

the sixty (60) quartile one (Q1) journals in LIS as

appeared in the SCImago Journal & Country

Ranking (SJR) databases for the year 2020. The

top Q1 journals in LIS in respect of their

scientometric indicators such as SJR, h-index,

CiteScore and IF are discussed in the paper. It

also examined the continent, country, and

publisher-wise distribution of Q1 LIS journals in

SCImago for 2020.

Scopus and WoS are the world's leading

citation and indexing databases of global peerreviewed

literature in different subject

disciplines. These two databases also cover

scholarly literature on the LIS subject field. A

study by Renjith, Sudhi S Vijayan, and

Arunkumar (2021)analyzed the WoS-indexed

LIS journals in Scopus in terms of their journal

metrics available in these two database

platforms. Data sources used for the analysis

were Scopus CiteScore metrics and the Journal

Citation Report (JCR) of WoS. Thus ranking of

145 LIS journals indexed in both Scopus and

WoS databases were analyzed.

Renjith et al. (2022) evaluated quarter one

(Q1) Geology journals in the Scopus database

using journal metrics such as CiteScore,

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), Eigenfactor Score

(ES), Source Normalized Impact per Paper

(SNIP), h-index and JIF. Sixty-one Q1 Geology

journals were selected from the Geology subject

category of Scopus Source List (SSL). It is found

that a substantial difference exists only in one

indicator, the h-index, when comparing Open

Access (OA) and Non–Open Access (Non-OA)

journals concerning their journal metrics CS,

SJR, h-index, ES, SNIP, and JIF. A high

Spearman’s correlation coefficient was found

between SNIP and JIF (0.852). SJR and

CiteScore have the next highest and strongest

correlation (0.791). The study concluded that the

JIF is the most important metric the scholarly

community can use to measure the quality of Q1

Geology journals, followed by CiteScore and

SJR.

Objectives of the Study

1. To identify the publishers of different

quartile LIS journals included in the 2022

JCR of WoS.

2. To identify the status (Open Access (OA)

and Non-Open Access (Non-OA)) of

different quartile LIS journals included in

the 2022 JCR of WoS.

3. To analyze the journal metrics of different

quartile LIS journals included in the 2022

JCR of WoS.

Methodology

98


Data Collection

Data were collected from included journals

from Journal Citation Reports 2022 of Web of

Science. For the sake of analysis, only 84

journals with all of the journal metrics were

chosen for the current study.

Journal Metrics

For each journal selected, we extracted the

following variables:

Total Citations

The total number of times that a

journal has been cited by all journals included

in the database in the JCR year. Citations to

journals listed in JCR have been compiled

annually from the JCR years combined

database, regardless of which JCR edition lists

the journal and irrespective of what kind of

article was cited or when the cited article was


published. Each unique article-to-article link is

counted as a citation(Roldan-Valadez et al.,

2018).

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

All citations to the journal in the

current JCR year to items published in the

previous 2 years, divided by the total number

of scholarly items (these comprise articles,

reviews, and proceedings papers) published in

the journal over the last2 years. Though not a

strict mathematical average, the journal impact

factor provides a functional approximation of

the mean citation rate per citable item (Roldan-

Valadez et al., 2018).

Quartiles

Quartile One (Q1): Top 25% of the highest

impact factor score of journals in a scientific

category.

Quartile Two (Q2): Second, 25% of the

highest impact factor score of journals in a

scientific category.

Quartile Three (Q3): Third, 25% of the

highest impact factor score of journals in a

scientific category.

Quartile Four: The last 25% of the highest

impact factor of journals in a scientific

category.

Journal Citation Indicator

The Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) is

based on the mean category normalized

citation impact (CNCI) for the journal. CNCIs

are calculated at the document level and are

based on citations from all documents in the

three previous years and the JCR Year to

articles and reviews published in the previous

three years. The JCI is normalized for

document type, publication year, and category.

The average JCI for any category is 1. A JCI of

2 indicates that a journal is receiving twice the

expected number of citations for the average

journal in the category. A JCI of 0.5 indicates a

journal is receiving half the expected number

of citations for the average journal in the

category. As citations distributions are skewed

toward larger numbers of papers with fewer

citations, the majority of journals in a category

may have a JCI < 1 (Rank, n.d.).

Gold Open Access (Gold OA)

The Gold OA label on the JCR profile

page refers to papers tagged as DOAJ

Gold or Other Gold in the Web of

Science Core Collection. The data are current

as of the time of JCR extraction from the Web

of Science. (Open Access Journal Profile, n.d.)

Statistical Analysis

For statistical analysis of the data, the EZR

Version 1.37 was employed. We report data in

the median form in the descriptive analysis

section (25 percent to 75 percent quartiles) along

with the mean value for journal metrics.Shapiro-

Wilk normality test was run to find the normality

of journal metrics, total citations, journal impact

factor, journal citation indicator, and percentage

of gold open access. Since the data follows nonnormality,

the non-parametric test Kruskal-

Wallis rank sum test was employed to find the

difference in journal metrics among four quartile

values.

Analysis of Data

1. Publisher-wise Analysis of Different

Quartile LIS Journals in 2022 JCR

of WoS

Academic LIS scholarly journals are published

by prominent publishers from different parts of

the world. Table 1discloses the leading

publisher-wise analysis of different quartile LIS

Journals in the 2022 JCR of WoS.

Publisher

No. of

Journals

Q1 Q2 Q3

Elsevier 11 7 3 1 0

Emerald Group Publishing

Ltd.

Q

4

10 2 2 5 1

Taylor and Francis Ltd. 9 2 5 1 1

SAGE Publications 6 0 2 3 1

Wiley-Blackwell

Publishing Ltd

American Library

Association

4 2 2 0 0

3 0 0 1 2

Springer 3 1 2 0 0

IGI Publishing 2 1 1 0 0

Johns Hopkins University

Press

2 0 0 1 1

Oxford University Press 2 1 1 0 0

Walter de Gruyter 2 0 0 0 2

American Association of

Law Libraries

Archlib and Information

Services Ltd

Association for Computing

Machinery (ACM)

Association for Information

Systems

Association of College and

Research Libraries

CSIC Consejo Superior de

InvestigacionesCientificas

El Profesional de la

Informacion

Faculty of Computer

Science and Information

Technology

1 0 0 0 1

1 0 0 0 1

1 0 0 1 0

1 1 0 0 0

1 0 0 1 0

1 0 0 1 0

1 0 1 0 0

1 0 0 1 0

99


GondolatKiado 1 0 0 0 1

Indiana University Press 1 1 0 0 0

RBU Journal of Library and Information Science Vol24-2022

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