Annals of Library and Information Studies

An Analysis of Research Publications on Reading Habits in the Digital Environment (RHDE): A Bibliometric Approach

2025-04-22T11:42:48+0530

The purpose of the study is to perform a bibliometric analysis of the literature related to reading habits in the context of the digital environment. For the study, researchers extracted the bibliographic details of 474 records indexed in Scopus and WoS databases, which were further used by Biblioshiny and VOS viewer software to carry out thematic analysis and visualisation, respectively. The study found that research publications on reading habits in the digital environment (RHDE) have consistently increased since 2007. “Digital reading” was the most popular topic from 1998 to 2023, with China leading in publications, followed by the USA. Further, Chen C.M. was the most productive author, Zhejiang University (China) was the most significant institution in RHDE research, whereas Lecture Notes on Computer Science was the most productive source and out of eight themes that evolved from the strategic diagram, themes like digital reading, reading, and mobile reading need to be explored more in the future. The findings of the study provide important insights into the most influential authors, institutions, and countries involved in this field. It also suggests potential directions for future research, making it a valuable resource for researchers and organisations interested in this area.

Scientific Connectivity in Space Sustainability Research: A Network-Based Study

2025-07-24T15:21:23+0530

Space sustainability emphasizes the long-term, secure, and responsible use of outer space to ensure its continued accessibility for future generations. With the rapid expansion of space activities—driven by mega-constellations and increasing private sector participation—concerns over orbital congestion and space debris have intensified. In response, space sustainability has emerged as a global research priority. This study employs bibliometric and scientometric methods to explore the evolution of scientific research on space debris, drawing data from the Web of Science database for the period 2020 to 2024. Through collaboration and co-citation network analyses, the study identifies key research trends, influential contributors, and patterns of international collaboration. The findings provide a comprehensive view of the dynamic and interconnected research landscape supporting the global dialogue on sustainable space operations

The Rise of AI-Driven Scientometrics: A Decade of Transformative Growth (2012-2023)

2025-04-28T15:17:29+0530

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into scientometrics has revolutionized the analysis of scientific literature and the impact of the search. This study presents a comprehensive scientific analysis of the growing impact of AI and ML in the field of scientometrics from 2012 to 2023. Using large-scale bibliometric data from major scientific databases like SCOPUS, Google scholar and also collected data from crossref, we use advanced data mining techniques, natural language processing and network analysis. to map the evolving landscape of AI-driven scientometrics.

Our results reveal a significant increase in publications combining AI/ML and scientometrics, with a compound annual growth rate of over the study period. We identify five main research groups: predictive bibliometrics, automated research evaluation, scientific mapping and visualization, citation analysis and recommendation systems, and research impact assessment. The analysis also reveals changing methodological trends, with a notable departure from traditional statistical approaches towards more sophisticated AI techniques, particularly in the areas of deep learning and graph neural networks.

This study contributes to understanding how AI and ML are reshaping scientometric research and practice, providing valuable insights for researchers, policy makers and research administrators navigating rapid quantitative landscape science studies in evolution.

Is LIS Education Future-Ready? A 56-Year Analysis of Emerging Topics and Research Trajectories

2025-04-09T16:56:52+0530

The LIS Education programs have seen significant changes over the last fifty-six years, which have impacted the LIS curriculum in several ways. The study aims to evaluate the evolving research trend and the growth of literature in LIS education and curriculum. Data were collected from the Scopus Database and processed using OpenRefine, VOSviewer, and SCImago Graphica. This study employed the bibliometric and topic modeling approach using the OpenAlex REST API service. The study involved 1296 bibliographic data on LIS education and curriculum, covering the period from 1968-2024. The findings, focusing on research productivity analysis, provide an overview of the most productive publishing channels, publishers, and country collaboration. In addition, it also offers an in-depth keyword analysis to identify emerging topics and includes topic modeling approach. The keywords analysis shows that a new topic, such as Web 2.0, Digital Curation, Research Data Management, etc., was brought to study every year. The emerging primary topics, such as “Information Literacy in Higher Education” and “Social Inclusion in Library Services for Newcomers,” etc. indicate the shifting research priorities and areas of growing interest in LIS. As a result, it is necessary to modify the LIS curriculum to reflect these current trends in LIS Education.

Assessing Research Support Services in Academic Libraries: A Systematic Literature Review

2025-04-30T14:58:49+0530

The study systematically analyzes Research Support Services (RSS) in academic libraries through a comprehensive review of scholarly literature. The objective is to evaluate publication trends, geographical distribution, sample populations, journal coverage, categorization models, core components, implementation challenges, and developmental insights. A systematic review methodology was adopted, utilizing databases Scopus and the Web of Science. The search strategy employed keyword combinations (e.g., “research support services,” “research services and library,” and “academic library”), supplemented by forward and backward citation tracking. This resulted in a final selection of 43 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1992 and 2024. The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines.

The analysis reveals a progressive increase in literature on RSS, with recent focus areas including research data management, bibliometric services, and open access initiatives. Core services identified encompass citation management, data curation, bibliometric analysis, and support for scholarly communication. Key challenges include limited resources, technological barriers, and professional skill gaps. The study emphasizes the need for strategic innovation, including integration of artificial intelligence and collaborative service models. The findings offer significant implications for library administrators, researchers, and policymakers, and represent a pioneering global synthesis of RSS trends and practices in academic libraries.

One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) Initiative: SWOT Analysis

2025-05-01T14:40:37+0530

One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) initiative, launched by the Indian government, intends to democratize access to global research by centralizing subscription services across India irrespective of locations and institutions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ONOS initiative and its implementation from a variety of perspectives to address challenges such as bridging the digital divide, closing digital resource gaps, eliminating educational disparities, removing linguistic barriers, and minimizing financial barriers, particularly between urban and rural areas. The ONOS draws mixed reactions, resulting in debates about its worth and praise for its benefits. The methodology used in this study is SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to address the internal and external factors driving ONOS implementation methods and make recommendations for future actions.

Findings indicate that the SO (Maxi-Maxi) strategy leverages ONOS's benefits to ensure equity and inclusivity, cover educational gaps, promote interdisciplinary collaboration, open access (OA), and research visibility. The WO (Mini-Maxi) strategy prioritizes high-quality journal subscriptions, combines research databases, and improves resource efficiency to bridge academic research gaps and advance digital literacy programs. The ST (Maxi-Mini) strategy combats external threats like content monopolization and growing costs by utilizing ONOS's capabilities while ensuring multidisciplinary research and worldwide democratic access. The WT (Mini-Mini) strategy minimizes internal vulnerabilities by addressing financial oversight, resource quality, and approaches to external problems, including predatory journals, infrastructural limitations, legal risks, and equity. This article offers useful strategies for publishers, academics, and policymakers to further the development of the ONOS for long-term viability.

Global Research on E-Resources: A Bibliometric Study of Global High-Cited Papers till 2024

2025-07-18T13:03:08+0530

A bibliometric analysis of the global research on electronic resources is presented to identify its current research status, hotspots, trends and collaboration networks based on 854 high-cited documents retrieved from the Scopus database, using MS-Excel and VOSviewer. The study focused on publications from 75 countries, 631 institutions, and 1598 authors, and they were published in 136 journals. The USA (n=304), the U.K. (n=136), Spain (n=78) and Netherlands (n=47) were leading in publication output, citation impact and international cooperation, the University of Granada, Spain (n=23), University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and University College London, UK (n=18 each), as key institutions; and D. Nicholas (n=16), H.R. Jamalli and M. Thelwell (n=14 each) as prominent authors. Research is predominantly focused on areas such as usage and users (158 papers), collection development (42 papers), information services & dissemination (31), accessibility & search ability (24 papers), and reading & readers (22 papers). Concludes that research on e-resources is increasingly becoming popular worldwide and stressed the need to continue exploring this important area. This study provides valuable insights for shaping future research directions in this field.

The Role of ORCID in Advancing Authorship, Research Visibility, and Institutional Integration in the Digital Knowledge Ecosystem

2025-06-05T06:59:54+0530

The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) is essential in the digital research landscape as it provides a consistent and interoperable way to identify researchers. This study examined ORCID's influence on authorship recognition, research visibility, and integration within institutions, utilizing data from 2014 to 2024. A mixed-methods approach was employed, incorporating global registration statistics, the distribution of work types, and case studies on integration. The findings indicate a steady increase in ORCID usage, with notable surges in 2017 and 2020 owing to institutional mandates and the transition to digital research processes. Journal articles were the predominant output, but the inclusion of datasets, software, and creative works highlights ORCID's interdisciplinary nature. Countries such as India, Brazil and Nigeria have experienced higher adoption rates following outreach initiatives. Institutional platforms such as IRINS and DSpace ease administrative tasks and enhance metadata quality through ORCID integration. Verified affiliations and contributor roles improve transparency in academic records, although adoption remains inconsistent in Southeast Asia, Central Africa, and smaller institutions. These results underscore ORCID's importance of ORCID in bolstering research infrastructure and emphasize the need for broader outreach and policy-level integration to bridge adoption gaps and enhance global influence.

AI-Powered Citation Classification: Understanding Contrasting and Supporting Citations in Scholarly Research

2025-05-24T22:04:23+0530

Citations play a critical role in the assessment of scholarly research. This study employs scite.ai, an artificial intelligence-based citation tool, which classifies citations into three categories: supporting, contrasting, and mentioning. The objective of the study is to explore the relationship between these citation types—particularly supporting and contrasting citations—and total citation counts in journals published by Elsevier. Using the journal-level search feature provided by Scite, data were manually collected from 3,151 Elsevier journals. Key metrics analysed include the Unweighted Scite Index (USI), total citation count, and the distribution of supporting, contrasting, and mentioning citations. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses were conducted to examine these relationships. The results reveal statistically significant and positively correlated associations (p < 0.01) between supporting, contrasting, and total citation counts, highlighting a meaningful linkage between citation polarity and overall citation impact in scholarly publishing.

CSIR-Funded Research in India: Insights from Bibliometric and Altmetric Analysis

2025-07-02T19:52:16+0530

Purpose

This study investigated the scholarly productivity, citation impact, and Altmetric score of the research funded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India, over the past decade (2014-2023). The purpose was to assess and understand the influence of CSIR-funded research among academia and its engagement on social media.

Methodology

Bibliographic and citation data of 70,501 CSIR-funded publications published during 2014-2023

were extracted from the Web of Science using the authors’ country affiliation (India) and funding agency - CSIR, India. Altmetric Explorer was used to retrieve Altmetric data. The citation and Altmetric data were then tabulated using Microsoft Excel and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).

Findings and Suggestions

CSIR-funded research is being disseminated predominantly in the form of articles (91.97%). This approach is validated by the fact that 87% of total citations have been garnered by articles, highlighting the significant impact of publishing in standard journal formats.

The yearly average relative growth rate of CSIR-funded research during the last decade stands at 0.28, indicating a stable and gradual increase in research output. On the other hand, the citations of these publications have received an annual average of 1.35 lakh citations, with a 0.18 yearly average relative growth rate. To better understand the citation trends, citation data were divided into two five-year block periods: 2014-2018 and 2019-2023. During the first block period, the mean relative growth rate for citations was 0.34, while it decreased to 0.06 during the second. This trend highlights the most important factor, i.e., ‘Time’ associated with citation accumulation. The social engagement of CSIR-funded research was considerably high across platforms. X (formerly Twitter) emerged as the leading platform, accounting for 1.43 lakh mentions, followed by News mentions (9290), Patent mentions (4154), and 4019 Facebook interactions. Further, over 11 lakh Mendeley reads indicated substantial scholarly influence of the CSIR-funded research. As CSIR conducts cutting-edge research, leveraging Altmetrics is an effective way to reach a broader audience and enhance visibility. Only 24% of research funded by CSIR is published on open-access platforms, receiving an average of 22.46 citations per paper. There is an urgent need for stricter implementation of the open-access mandate to include all CSIR-funded research, regardless of author affiliation, to enhance its visibility and impact. Chemistry dominates in CSIR-funded research, comprising 43% of total publications. However, there is a need to adopt refined criteria for funding allocation to ensure a more balanced distribution across diverse scientific disciplines.