A Scientometric Analysis on Global Digital Library Research During 1991-2022

Abstract

This study conducts a comprehensive scientometric analysis of global digital library research from 1991 to 2022. The research employs the BibliometrixR and Vosviewer packages to analyze a diverse set of 6157 scholarly publications from the Scopus database and evaluate key bibliometric indicators i.e., publication output, collaboration networks, citation patterns, and thematic trends. The findings provide that the field of digital library research experienced exponential growth, with the highest number of publications in 2022 (9.53%). Lecture Notes in Computer Science (12.81%), Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (5.77%), and D-Lib Magazine (3.43%) are the top ranked journals during this time. Top prolific authors in digital library research are Nelson ML from Old Dominion University (USA) with 54 publications and Fox EA from Virginia Polytechnic (USA) with 50 publications. The top most relevant affiliations are Nanyang Technological University of Singapore with 191 articles and the University of California with 172 articles. The USA ranks first in scientific production, followed by the UK and India. The top most cited countries are the USA with 26535 citations and India with 635 citations. Keyword cooccurrence analysis reveals themes in digital library research, including digital libraries, information retrieval, systematic review, and artificial intelligence.