Influential Authors in Library and Information Science
2000-2002

By Olle Persson, Inforsk, Dep of Sociology Umeå, SE-901 87 Umeå

Using the Social Sciences Citation Index via Web of Science (update period 2000-2003, March) it was possible to identify 1178 papers from 10 LIS-journals: Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Electronic Library, Information Processing & Management, Information Technology and Libraries, Journal of Documentation, Journal of Information Science, Journal of the American Society for Information Science (also with its new name: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology), Library & Information Science Research, Library Resources & Technical Services, Scientometrics.

I. Identifying Research Fronts -An All Author Co-citation Map

All citations among the papers of these 10 journals were identified. About 95 percent of the 588 citation links found were to papers published in 2000-2002. This means that we capture the most recent research - the research fronts. Then the 42 most cited authors were selected, cited by at least 6 papers. The map below shows how they are co-cited. Circles are proportional to number of citations, and the closer they get the more co-cited they are. Lines and their thickness indicate co-citations. Since a cited paper often have several authors, co-citation frequencies are inflated by co-authorships. On the other hand, all cited authors are included which makes the map more fair in terms of active researchers. See also: Persson O, All author citations versus first author citations, Scientometrics, 50(2001) 339-344.

At the bottom there is a cluster of researchers in information retrieval. Two strong bibliometric research fronts are visible. To the upper left we find people studying the scientific journal literature - the science indicators community. In the upper right part of the map, there is a relatively strong and emerging cluster including experts on the "bibliometrics" of the World Wide Web, let's call them www-metricians.

See also a map below this one, that is based on all citations made by the 1178 articles to first authors of cited documents.

II. Identifying the Knowledge Base - A First Author Co-citation Map

Using all citations made by the 1178 papers, the 40 most cited first authors were selected, cited by at least 30 papers. The map below shows how they are co-cited. Again circles are proportional to number of citations, and the closer they get the more co-cited they are. Lines and their thickness indicate co-citations. A much larger set of literature is covered by including all citations made, but there is also evident that a first author based study ignores several names that does not appear as first authors of the cited papers.

At the bottom of this map there are bibliometricians specializing in science indicators and mapping of scientific research fields. To the upper left we find people in information retrieval research - hard IR. The upper middle part has people studying user-system interactions - soft IR. To the right we find names specializing in information seeking in different contexts. The upcoming www-metricians are hardly visible in this map, which is based on all, and fairly old, cited documents.