An analytical study of content and context of keywords on physics

This paper is based on the analysis of author-assigned and title keywords and their constituent component words collected from 769 articles published in the journal Low Temperature Physics since the year 2006 to 2010. The total number of distinct keywords is 1155 of which 869 are single keywords having total frequency of occurrence of 2287. The single keywords have been categorized in four broad classes, viz. eponymous word, form word, acronym and semantic word. A semantic word bears several contexts and thus it may be considered as relevant in several other subject areas. The probable subject areas have been found with the aid of two popular online reference tools. The semantic words are further categorized in twelve classes according to their contexts. Some parameters have been defined on the basis of associations among the words and formation of keywords in consequence, i.e. Word Association Density, Word Association Coefficient and Keyword Formation Density. The values of these parameters have been observed for different word categories. The statistics of word association tending keyword formation would be known from this study. The allied subject domains also become predictable from this study

Content management by keywords: An analytical Study

Various methods of content analysis are described with special emphasis to keyword analysis. The paper is based on an analytical study of 97 keywords extracted from titles and abstracts of 70 research articles from INSPEC, taking ten from each year starting from 2000 to 2006, in decreasing order of relevance, on Fermi Liquid, which is a specific subject under Condensed Matter Physics. The keywords beginning with the letters ‗A‘ to ‗F‘ only are considered for this study. The keywords are indexed to critically examine its physical structure that is composed of three fundamental kernels, viz. key phrase, modulator and qualifier. The key phrase reflects the central concept, which is usually post-coordinated by the modulator to amend the central concept in accordance with the relevant context. The qualifier comes after the modulator to describe the particular state of the central concept and/or amended concept. The keywords are further classified in 36 classes on the basis of the 10 parameters, of which 4 parameters are intrinsic, i.e. associativeness, chronological appearance, frequency of occurrence and category; and remaining 6 parameters are extrinsic, i.e. Clarity of meaning, type of meaning, scope of meaning, level of perception, mode of creation and area of occurrence. The number of classes under 4 intrinsic parameters is 16, while the same under 6 extrinsic parameters are 20. A new taxonomy of keywords has been proposed here that will help to analyze research-trend of a subject and also identify potential research-areas under its scope

Ranganathan’s elucidation of subject in the light of ‘Infinity (∞)’

This paper reviews Ranganathan’s description of subject from mathematical angle. Ranganathan was highly influenced by Nineteenth Century mathematician George Cantor and he used the concept of infinity in developing an axiomatic interpretation of subject. Majority of library scientists interpreted the concept of subject merely as a term or descriptor or heading to include the same in cataloguing and subject indexing. Some library scientists interpreted subject on the basis of document, i.e. from the angle of the concept of aboutness or epistemological potential of the document etc. Some people explained subject from the viewpoint of social, cultural or socio-cultural process. Attempts were made to describe subject from epistemological viewpoint. But S R Ranganathan was the first to develop an axiomatic concept of subject on its own. He built up an independent idea of subject that is ubiquitously pervasive with human cognition process. To develop the basic foundation of subject, he used the mathematical concepts of infinity and infinitesimal and construed the set of subjects or universe of subjects as continuous infinite universe. The subject may also exist in extremely micro-form, which was termed as spot subject and analogized with point, which is dimensionless having only an existence. The influence of Twentieth Century physicist George Gamow on Ranganathan’s thought has also been discussed

A linguistic view of subject formation process as described by Ranganathan andothers

The basic implication of a subject in the context of library and information science is outlined here. It is pointed outthat the purview of library and information science mostly reckons any subject in the form of some either assigned orderived terms or keywords. The basic concepts of words as per the scope of linguistics are also provided. Different modes offormation of complex and compound subjects as enunciated by Ranganathan are described. The modes of formation ofcompound words as depicted in linguistics have been described and compared with different modes of formation of complexand compound subjects as portrayed by Ranganathan, Neelameghan, Seetharama and Sen. It has been observed that thereare similarities between modes of formation of words and subjects. As similarities are observed at the very basic foundationlevel between words and subjects, therefore it has been concluded that there may be some similarities of intrinsic propertiesbetween them. The specific words belonging to a particular subject domain or subject-specific words that are commonlyknown as keywords may thus be recognized as eventual denomination or fundamental building block of the concernedsubject. The keywords may thus be looked upon as molecule of a subject from linguistic viewpoint

INSDOC’S contribution to bibliometrics

Traces the history of bibliometric research, training and activities in INSDOC. Describes briefly the objectives, facilities, services, research activities, and publications of National Centre on Bibliometrics

Revisiting De Solla Price: growth dynamics studies of various subjects over last one hundred years

The stalwart historian of science, Derek J. De Solla Price delivered a series of lectures at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1962, which was dedicated to discussing science and its interaction with society. The collection of these lectures was published in 1963 as a book entitled Little Science, Big Science. Here, Price empirically established that the initial exponential growth pattern of literature reaches a ceiling after a certain time span, which results a logistic growth pattern. This paper analyses Price's empirical theory on the basis of 198 articles that presented growth of literature of variant subjects published since 1913 to 2018. In all, 214 growth models were reported by the 198 articles that analysed growth of literature of more than 50 subjects. It is found that growth patterns reported by nearly 50% articles followed Price's empirical theory, i.e., exponential and logistic growth pattern while remaining 50% articles followed other growth patterns, viz., power model, linear model, etc. All growth models reported by the 198 articles were broadly categorised into five groups on the basis of statistical characteristics, viz., (exponential + logistic), growing without definite pattern (GWDP), linear, non-linear and decaying models. The null hypothesis formulated states that 214 growth models observed by different subjects described in 198 articles will follow either of the five patterns that will be guided by Bradford's Law of Bibliographic Scattering. The null hypothesis is accepted by Chi-square test. It is inferred that the distribution of different models of growth of literature is guided by Bradford's Law where the core or nucleus zone is occupied by the logistic and exponential model, i.e. Price's empirical model prevails in Bradford's nuclear (core) zone

An analytical study of content and context of keywords on physics

45-55This paper is based on the analysis of author-assigned and title keywords and their constituent component words collected from 769 articles published in the journal Low Temperature Physics since the year 2006 to 2010. The total number of distinct keywords is 1155 of which 869 are single keywords having total frequency of occurrence of 2287. The single keywords have been categorized in four broad classes, viz. eponymous word, form word, acronym and semantic word. A semantic word bears several contexts and thus it may be considered as relevant in several other subject areas. The probable subject areas have been found with the aid of two popular online reference tools. The semantic words are further categorized in twelve classes according to their contexts. Some parameters have been defined on the basis of associations among the words and formation of keywords in consequence, i.e. Word Association Density, Word Association Coefficient and Keyword Formation Density. The values of these parameters have been observed for different word categories. The statistics of word association tending keyword formation would be known from this study. The allied subject domains also become predictable from this study

One hundred years of Indian LIS periodicals

This paper briefly traces the hundred years journey of Indian LIS periodicals. In all, 186 periodicals have been found tobe published since 1912, of which 63 periodicals have ceased publication and the remaining 123 are continuing. The oldestperiodical entitled Library Miscellany was started in the year 1912 from Baroda and ceased after eight years, in 1920.Another periodical entitled Granthalaya Sarvaswamu that started in 1915 from Vijayawada is still continuing. It is abilingual periodical and publishes articles both in English and Telugu. This periodical may be reckoned as the oldest IndianLIS periodical today. A few of the periodicals are indexed in well known indexing, abstracting and bibliographic databases.It is observed that most journals were from Delhi followed by West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Nearly eighty percentperiodicals are in English, while 17% are multilingual (English with one or more regional languages). The leading regionallanguage is Bengali followed by Marathi and Hindi. It is found that 78% periodicals appear in printed form, 10% in onlineelectronic form and 12% publications appear in both printed and electronic form. Also, 93% periodicals are found as closedaccess publication, while only 7% are open access. Among Indian LIS periodicals, 35% are (quarterly) and 31% (bi-annual).The proportion of monthly and annual periodicals is 9% each. Mushrooming of open access LIS periodicals has beenobserved since 2010. In the hundred-year period, the highest number of periodicals (35) was started in the year 2011

Higher education in library & information science in India

Lists universities and colleges providing postgraduate LIS education in India through regular and distance mode

An Analytical Study of Traditional Knowledge in Indian Astronomy during Ancient and Medieval Period

This poster titled "An Analytical Study of Traditional Knowledge in Indian Astronomy during Ancient and Medieval Period" was presented in the National Youth Conference on Indian Knowledge Systems (NYCIKS 2023) at IIT Roorkee, India during 25-27 August 2023. The basic idea of all branches of science essentially includes the concept of natural laws to visualize the natural phenomena as an ordered sequence of events linked together by a chain of cause-and-effect relationships. It is interesting to note that of all science disciplines, astronomy is the first stepping stone towards the scientific mission of systematic observations followed by mathematics. The astronomy here indicates only observational or positional astronomy, which introduced the concept of linking movement of celestial objects and seasons on the earth. India has a rich legacy in astronomy dating back more than two millennia. The remarkable contributions by Aryabhatta, Varahamihira, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara-I and Bhaskara-II glorify heritage in Indian astronomy. However, the footstep of modern astronomy in India was in tow with the Europeans. The earliest recorded use of a telescope in India was by Jeremiah Shakerley (1626-1655), who viewed the transit of Mercury in 1651 from Surat in western India. In 1689, Jesuit priest Father Jean Richaud (1633-1693) discovered from Pondicherry that the bright star Alpha Centauri is a double-star. In 1764, Major James Renell (1742-1830) was appointed as the East India Company surveyor and astronomy was hitherto used in the process of surveying. This particular application of astronomy paved the way towards the institutionalisation of modern astronomy in India. In 1787, Madras Observatory was initiated by William Petrie, an officer of the East India Company with the use of two 3" achromatic telescopes, two astronomical clocks and a transit instrument. Around hundred and ten years later in 1899, astronomical activity of the observatory was shifted to Kodaikanal and Madras observatory became a purely meteorological observatory. The systematic solar observations were commenced at Kodaikanal Observatory in early 1901. Apart from the study of the sun to which the observatory was primarily devoted, magnetic, meteorological and seismological observations were also carried out there since inception. As reported by B. K. Sen, there were 103 observatories in India in 1878, which was increased to 128 in 1885. All these observatories carried out observations, and many of them brought out varieties of periodic publications, though any periodical or journal solely devoted to astronomy did not appear in India before the year 1902. 2. Objectives This paper intends to present some glimpses of the traditional knowledge of Indian astronomy during ancient and medieval periods. 3. Methodology The study will be carried out using the secondary sources of information, including the Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar and other bibliographic databases. 4. Results and Significance of the work The first research articles on modern astrophysics were published in Asiatik Researchers. Nearly 70 research articles on modern astrophysics were published from India up to independence. The article highlights the significant works carried out by the Indian astronomers during the ancient and medieval period, emphasizing the prominent ones as reflected in the the books of History of Indian Science