Application of Bradford’s law of Scattering to the Physics literature: A study of Doctoral theses citations at the Indian Institute of Science

One of the areas in bibliometric research concerns the application of most commonly used bibliometric laws such as Bradford’s Law of Scattering. The paper gives a review of the scholarly contribution on the various facets of Bradford’s Law. In addition to the theoretical aspects of the law, review covers papers dealing with the application of the law in the various subject fields. A study on five-year data of journals (2004-2008) cited by the physicists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangaluru was carried out to examine the applicability of Bradford’s Law of Scattering, which include 690 periodicals containing 11,319 references collected from 79 doctoral theses during the period 2004-08. Ranked list of journals was prepared, and Physical Review-B with 9.53 per cent citation, followed by Physical Review-A with 7.69 per cent, and Astrophysical Journal with 5.47 per cent citations were the most preferred journals. Applicability of Bradford’s Law in various methods was tested. The journal distribution pattern of the IISc doctoral theses does not fit the Bradford’s distribution pattern. The Bradford multipliers were calculated, and the law found to be applicable with the value of k as 1.2. The distribution of the journals in three zones was made and the number of references in each zone was then estimated. The applicability of Leimkuhler model was also tested with the present data

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE LITTCRIT – AN INDIAN RESPONSE TO LITERATURE

This paper presents a bibliometric study of the LITTCRIT – An Indian Response to Literature journal for the period from 2011 to 2015 (five years). The purpose of the study is to give a gist of research output in the journal and the content of the coverage in it. The study showed that, out of the 263 published documents, the highest percentage was articles (83.65%). Among the 220 contributors, 56.64% were females and the remaining 102 males (46.36%). The study identified that most of the articles were single authored (94.55%) and the rest by joint authors (6.43%). The degree of collaboration was 0.07. Most of the contributors (94.55%)were from India and 5.45% are foreign contributors. The maximum number of articles were contributed by Asha N Rabb and Bebasree Dattaray (05). More than ten page articles are more (44) and on an average, the Littcrit authors have cited over 7.34 references per article.It was found that majority of the authors were from Kerala (46.04%) followed by Delhi (11.80). The study demonstrates the features of the contents of the of the journal which will helpful for the publishers to improve the scope of the journal

Scientometric Profile of Biochemistry research in India: A Study based on Web of Science.

The paper examines 25,132 biochemistry research contributions of Indian scientists covered in the Web of Science for a period of 10 years (2004-2013). It was found that the biochemistry research is gradually growing and average annual growth rate was 36.84 per cent. The solo research was not prevalent and team research is more in the Indian biochemistry research and 97.46 per cent publications were contributed by multi- authors. It was observed that the value of co- authorship index was generally increasing and it varied from 93 to 105 during the period of study. Journal articles contribute 89.43 per cent of the total output followed by reviews (7.14 %). Indian researchers collaborate largely with the researchers of USA (2.49 %). The geographical distribution shows that Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi lead the list. The study shows that, C. Abdul Jaleel (58) and L. Pai (37) are the top ranked authors in the field. ‘Plos One’ is the top ranked journal and it published 296 papers during the study period. Academic institutions contribute more number of papers (50.26 %) followed by research institutions (28.24 %). The Lotka’s law was not found fit with the observed author productivity distribution of Indian biochemistry research

Library Professionals’ Adoption of Cloud Computing Technologies: A Case Study on Kerala University Library, India

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the awareness and use of cloud computing technologies among the library professionals in the Kerala University Library system, India. A survey was conducted using questionnaire among the 102 library professionals employed in the central and departmental libraries of the University of Kerala. The study revealed that 42.16% of the library professionals did not have much idea about cloud computing technology. Analysis showed that Facebook and Google Apps like Gmail, Google Doc etc are the cloud computing technologies used by majority of the respondents. It is also worth to note that the library professionals in Kerala University Library are using cloud computing technologies without being aware of doing so. Library professionals’ awareness of cloud service models is relatively very low. Web OPAC and Journal Discovery Service are the areas known to the respondents in applying cloud computing technologies in libraries. Out of 102 respondents, 14.71% of the library professionals in the University of Kerala have average skill in using these technologies. The findings of the study throw lights into the need of providing training for the library professionals in handling technology enriched library services to the users

LIBRARY AND INFORMATION NEEDS OF DIFFERENTLY-ABLED STUDENTS IN KERALA: A STUDY

The study was conducted to investigate the information needs of differently-abled students in the school libraries of Kerala. The study was done among students belonging to the category of visually challenged (VC), hearing and speech impaired (HI), and physically challenged (PC) from special schools and schools under Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS). The study was based on a questionnaire survey, conducted in the three districts of Kerala state ie; Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulum & Kozhikode. The analyses revealed that the information needs of differently-abled students have become complex and problematic due to the insufficiency of adequate information sources and services and there are quite a number of challenges faced by these students in accessing information from the libraries. The overall result of the study was that, though the library services provided in the school are useful for their studies, the respondents cannot make use of them because of barriers. The study comes out with some practical suggestions to improve the library services for differently-abled student

Use of Mobile Phones in Scholarly Publications: A Review of the Emerging Behaviour of the 21st Century Scholars

Scholars engage in intellectual enquiries which is why they are considered to be the cornerstones of any research geared towards solving societal problems or testing phenomena. This makes their research outputs needed to be readily available for public consumption. For quite long, scholars are rated based on the number of scholarly contributions they make. While mobile phone has diffused, adopted and used as part of our everyday life, researchers neglected the dimensions of attitudes of scholars for adopting and use of mobile phone technology in the course of their scholarly communication. The components of attitudes of scholars for adopting and the use of technologies depend solely on their strengths, accessibility and ambivalence. The paper examines the emerging behavior of the 21st century scholars in the digital age in using tools like Facebook, Tweeter, blog, social networking sites, etc. for accessing and using information. The paper is largely informed by consulting different literature and focusing on contemporary issues to support its claims. Technology advancement, globalization and its penetration into scholarly community clearly indicate how scholars should adopt the technology for increased content globally. Alternatively, the paper argued that, despite the potentialities of these online platforms the same cannot be said about Nigeria as many factors hinder the possibilities for harnessing these benefits. The study concluded that, unless the national bibliography is metamorphosed, the Nigeria’s scholarly contents will be less visible and competition with scholarly global environment would be a challenge

Output of scientific research in Kerala : A bibliometric analysis

113-125<span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman";="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial;mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;="" mso-bidi-language:ar-sa;mso-bidi-font-style:italic"="" lang="EN-US">A quantitative treatment of the characteristics and behaviour of scientific research output in Kerala during <span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-bidi-font-family:="" "times="" roman";mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;="" mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-US">1979-94 <span style="font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family: " times="" new="" roman";mso-bidi-font-family:arial;mso-ansi-language:en-us;="" mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa;mso-bidi-font-style:italic"="" lang="EN-US">has been carried out <span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman";="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial;mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;="" mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-US">to find out the growth rate of literature, subject wise distribution of publications, authorship pattern, relative contribution of institutions, comparison of research works of universities and scientific productivity of different districts in the state.</span

Use and awareness of school library blogs: a case study

The study investigated the use of blogs and social networking sites especially the school library blogs by the students of Kendriya Vidyalaya(KV), Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The study reviewed the characteristics and evaluated the effectiveness of various blogs maintained by the library- the primary library blog, LibZine, Homework and Assignment online, My dear Book and Library junction. Questionnaire method was employed to collect data from a representative sample of 110 respondents to study the use of library blogs. Most of the students were aware of their school library blog and it was found that 37% of the students learned to use it by trial and error method. It was found that about 32% of the high school and higher secondary students have their own personal blog. More than 74 % of the students used it for interacting with each other. In general, the findings indicated that the school library blogs have an impact on the academic and other activities of the student community

Library and Information Science and Dr. S. R Ranganathan

The paper gives a brief outline of the contributions of Dr. S R Ranganathan to the LIS domain and the factors that influenced him in his life and work. The influence of Indian knowledge classification systems, philosophy and classics in Ranganathan's writings and thinking is also pointed out. Author opines that major influence on Dr. Ranganathan Indian systems of Knowledge Classification and philosophies

Scientometrics of Indian Bioinformatics Research output: A Study on Web of Science

The paper investigates Indian Bioinformatics research during 2011-2019 using Web of Science database. It attempts to quantify the national contribution to growth efforts and identify areas of citation, h-index and highly cited articles. Also highlighted the growth of Indian bioinformatics output using different scientometrics indicators. The results show the output for collaborative study, top ranked journals and authors, citation of the journals, h-index, p-index score and mapping of co-authorship and cited reference. PLOS One and Gene are the top ranked journals in bioinformatics. The study also covers for funding agencies in bioinformatics research. UGC, CSIR, DST and DBT are the major funding agencies that are responsible for more contributions in bioinformatics research in India