Academic libraries as the flagships of publishing trends in LIS: a complex analysis of rankings, citations and topics of research

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify the most prevailing trends of research and publishing in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) based on the publications of the past five years. The study follows a complex methodology. First, the scope of the journals to be analysed were defined, using the results of the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) from the period between 2013 and 2017, and then their most cited articles were selected based on Web of Science (WoS) data. During the selection process we performed a comparative analysis of the journals as well, involving several criteria, to be able to finally choose 632 articles, published between 2014 and 2018 to be included in our research sample. We then examined (1) the authors occurring most frequently, (2) the most often cited articles, (3) the institutions with the highest publication activity, (4) the most common topics based on titles, keywords, and abstracts, and (5) the connections between all of the above. The results of the analyses provide an international overview and assessment of the leading research topics and the most prominent representatives of LIS, all of which are directly connected to the notion and the activities of academic libraries.