Journal of Information Science

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A Content Analysis of Librarianship Research

Denise Koufogiannakis, Linda Slater and Ellen Crumley
Journal of Information Science 2004; 30; 227
DOI: 10.1177/0165551504044668
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A content analysis of librarianship

research

Denise Koufogiannakis and Linda Slater

John W. Scott Health Sciences Library, University of Alberta
Libraries, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Ellen Crumley
Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada
Received 10 December 2003
Revised 1 March 2004

Abstract.
Objective: To conduct a content analysis of library and
information studies (LIS) literature published in 2001 and
test the domains developed by Crumley and Koufogiannakis.
Methods: A comprehensive list of refereed library and
information studies journals was compiled and reviewed
independently by two researchers to derive a list of included
journals. Articles published in 2001 from included journals
were independently assessed for relevancy by two
researchers. Researchers separately extracted and checked
data from included articles.
Results: 217 LIS journals were reviewed and 107 were
included; 91 journals provided data. 2664 journal articles
were examined, with 807 (30.3%) classified as research. The
Top 10 journals for research published in 2001 were: 1)
JASIST, 2) Scientometrics, 3) Info Proc & Man; 4) Coll & Res
Lib, 5) Tie: J Lib Adm/Bull Med Lib Assn, 7) Libs & Culture,
8) J Doc, 9) Tie: J Info Sci/J Acad Libr. For the period studied,
descriptive research (329 out of 807 articles) was published
far more frequently than any other type. The domain
Information Access & Retrieval had the highest number of

Correspondence to: Denise Koufogiannakis, John W. Scott

Health Sciences Library, 2K3.17 Walter C. Mackenzie Health
Sciences Centre, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R7 Canada.
E-mail: denise.koufogiannakis@ualberta.ca

research articles (314/807), followed by Collections (193/

807), Management (135/807), Education (95/807) and
Reference (77/807). Two new possible domains were
identified: Library History and Professional Issues.
Conclusions: Because 36 articles fell into the domain of
Professional Issues, a case can be made to add this domain
to Crumley and Koufogiannakis taxonomy. Library History
was not added as a domain because historical research is
not used for evidence-based decision-making. There was no
evidence to support keeping the Marketing & Promotion
domain. LISA provides the best coverage of the top 10 LIS
research journals identified in this study.

Keywords: content
analysis;
evidence-based
librarianship; library and information studies
research; library and information studies periodicals;
research domains

1. Introduction
The recent emergence of the evidence-based librarianship (EBL) movement the term evidence-based
librarianship was first used in the literature by
Eldredge [1] in 1997 and defined by Booth [2] has
created an awareness among library professionals of the
value of their research literature and the role it can play
in informing their practice. One of the main goals of EBL
is to produce and identify evidence that librarians can
use to inform their professional practice and support
their library services and positions, thereby furthering
the profession. With this in mind, the present study
aims to contribute to the knowledge base by identifying
certain attributes of librarianship research literature
and starting points for accessing that literature.
To determine the characteristics of research published in library and information studies (LIS) journals, we conducted a content analysis of LIS literature
published in 2001 to determine: the percentage of
research versus non-research articles; the topics being

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A content analysis of librarianship research

researched; the journals that publish research; and the

indexing and abstracting services that cover journals
identified as highly productive for LIS research. In
addition, we attempted to identify what if any
correlation exists between the research method used
and the subject (domain) of research.
In 2002, two of the authors proposed a classification
scheme of six subject domains [3] to encompass
published research; thereby making it easier to map
sources, study types and search strategies pertaining to
each domain. The six domains were: Reference/
Enquiries; Education; Collections; Management; Information Access & Retrieval; and Marketing/Promotion.
This taxonomy generated considerable interest within
the evidence-based librarianship community, having
been frequently showcased in the Health Information
and Libraries Journal research column, incorporated
into an online EBL course [4], and used as an
organizational structure for a forthcoming text on
evidence-based information practice [5]. However,
there remained a pressing need to validate this
taxonomy empirically against the published body of
research in LIS.

2. Literature review
A search of Library and Information Science Abstracts
(LISA) 1969-Aug 2003 and Library Literature and
Information Science Full-Text 1984-Sep 2003 was
conducted to identify previous content, citation and
bibliometric analyses of the LIS research literature.
Search strategies are available from the authors upon
request. The literature search retrieved several content
analysis studies of LIS research, many of which
focused on a particular specialty or subject area within
LIS, such as: public libraries [6], special libraries [79],
and academic libraries [10]. Other studies focused
upon geographic areas, including: Africa [1113],
Spain [14, 15], Brazil [16], Eastern Europe and
developing countries [17], Scandinavia [18], China
[19, 20], Turkey [21], Quebec [22], Canada [23], India
[24] and Australia [25]. Three other studies analyzed
the content of specific LIS journals [2628].
General content analyses of research articles published in LIS periodicals, where analysis was not
restricted to a particular geographic area, specialty or
subject area, have also been conducted. Peritz [29]
examined a core list of 39 LIS journals over eight
different years to determine the subject of research
articles as well as the research methods used. Kumpulainen [30] surveyed 30 LIS journals and analyzed the
228

research according to eight variables: 1) organizational

context; 2) library and information science topic; 3)
phase of information dissemination process; 4) aspect
of activity; 5) social level; 6) method; 7) method of
selecting the data; and 8) type of analysis. Feehan et al.
[31], analyzed a sample of research articles from 91 LIS
journals and categorized them by research method,
subject, library type and analytical method. Jarvelin
and Vakkari [32] looked at 37 LIS journals and
determined the topic, research methods and approach
taken for articles published in 1985. In a later study,
they replicated their work by analyzing earlier years of
a similar set of journals [33]. Nour [34] analyzed
research articles in 41 LIS journals, identified their
research methodologies and classified them by subject.
Williams and Winston [35] examined the research
published in five LIS journals to determine the
research methodologies used as well as authorship
characteristics. Other studies of this nature have also
been conducted [3638].
The methods used to identify journals for inclusion
vary across studies. Some authors [29, 31, 34, 37]
identified a core list of journals by examining titles
indexed by Library Literature, LISA and Social
Sciences Citation Index and selecting journals that
were covered by at least two out of three of these
indexing services. These authors excluded journals
published outside North America or Europe. Buttlar
[36] selected journals she felt were general in scope
and not only represent the profession as a whole but
also include at least some research articles. She used
the core lists identified by authors such as Peritz [29],
Nour [34] and others to identify suitable titles. Atkins
[38] chose journals from the list identified by the Kohl
and Davis [39] study of library directors and library
school deans rankings of the most influential and
prestigious journals in LIS. Jarvelin and Vakkari [32]
and Kumpulainen [30] describe making a purposive
selection of LIS journals having a wide distribution,
an international editorial board and publication policy,
and that have been characterized as central by others,
while excluding professional journals. Williams &
Winston [35] selected the top five library science
journals appearing on the 2002 Journal Citation
Reports Information Science and Library Science list
for inclusion in their study.
While differences in the number and titles of
journals surveyed, and variation in the interpretation
of what constitutes a research article, occur between
studies, the percentage of research articles versus nonresearch articles reported by the authors is comparable.
From 19602003, the rate of research articles ranges

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D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.

Table 1
Percentage of research articles identified in previous studies, 19602003
Buttlar [36]
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1984
1985
198789
2003

Feehan
et al. [31]

Jarvelin and
Vakkari [32]

Kumpulainen [30]

Nour [34]

Williams & Winston [35]

15%
16%
24%
31%

30%
57%

Peritz [29]

56.8%
24.4%

23.6%
54%
38.35%

from a low of 15% [29] to a high of 57% [33]. Table 1

outlines the reported rates of research articles for the
content analysis studies by the year of publication of
those journals examined.
Nour [34] attributes the lower percentage of research
published in 1980 to changes in editorial policies,
increased emphasis on publishing by professionals
(which is less likely to be research), the different
journals included, a stricter interpretation of research,
etc. Feehan et al. [31] initially included weekly
publications as well as state and regional journals
among the journals surveyed and identified 23.6% of
articles as research articles; after eliminating these
titles, they report a research rate of 27.7% for 1984.
They also suggest that their rates may be due to the fact
that library science may be concentrated in a smaller
core of journals than the 91 used in the study. This
hypothesis is echoed by Jarvelin and Vakkari [32] who
attribute the higher rates of research they report to the
fact that they used a purposive selection of journals
(i.e. they included scientific journals and excluded
professional journals). Feehan et al. also suggest that
the definition of research might not have been interpreted in a uniform manner across studies thus
accounting for the variation in rates of research
reported. This is a strong possibility, as there appears
to be no attempt in other studies to account for possible
variations in interpretation between researchers. Feehan et al. assessed inter-observer agreement at 85%.
However, in the other multi-author studies, neither
inter-observer agreement is reported, nor is there any
description of whether items were assessed by a single
researcher or double-checked by another reviewer. In
single-author studies, it is assumed that all assessments were made by the sole author.

50.42%

Due to the variation in systems used by different

researchers to categorize research methodology, it is
not possible to compare findings regarding the frequency of use of specific research methods. However,
one finding that is consistent among studies is that
non-experimental research is carried out much more
frequently than experimental research (descriptive
research, including surveys and questionnaires, is
consistently one of the more frequently reported
methodologies). Variations in the subject classifications used by different authors makes it impossible to
compare findings regarding the frequency of research
published by subject. Different authors use different
subject classification systems ranging from fairly
simple with a few broad categories to more elaborate
ones that define very fine distinctions between subjects.
The present study builds upon results of previous
content analyses in that we seek to identify the amount
of research published and analyze the subject matter of
that research. This study diverges from previously
conducted research in that it tries to identify patterns
that exist between research methods used and the
subject categories (domains) of research. With the
exception of the studies carried out by Kumpalainen
[30] and Jarvelin and Vakkari [32, 33], both of which
drew correlations between the subjects of research and
the research methods used most frequently, none of the
previous content analyses of the general body of LIS
research have attempted to draw correlations between
variables. We also seek to identify the journals within a
particular domain (subject category) that publish
research most frequently. Of the reviewed research,
only Kumpalainen has conducted a similar analysis,
although it was published almost 30 years ago.

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A content analysis of librarianship research

3. Project overview
The objectives of this study were to:
(1) Examine published research in library and information studies to determine where research of
relevance to librarians is being published;
(2) Test a taxonomy developed by Crumley and
Koufogiannakis [3] for classifying LIS research;
(3) Determine what type of research is being conducted within LIS, and the relationship of
research type to publication and classification
by subject; and
(4) Identify resources that facilitate access to LIS
research literature.
To expand upon point #2, Crumley and Koufogiannakis [3] proposed that most librarianship questions
fall into one of the following six general categories or
domains: Reference/Enquiries; Education; Collections; Management; Information Access & Retrieval;
and Marketing/Promotion. Originally formulated by
practitioners of evidence-based medicine (EBM),
domains provide a framework into which clinical
research can be classified and analyzed [40]. Research
from a particular clinical domain (e.g. therapy,
diagnosis, prognosis, etiology) has its own characteristics and methods, and requires different approaches
in terms of information retrieval and critical appraisal
[41].
Crumley and Koufogiannakis taxonomy provides a
structure for LIS research which parallels that being
used in EBM. They hypothesized that placing a
question into one of the six domains would aid
librarians in determining where the answers to their
questions may be found and ultimately assist them in
conducting a better search for information. It was also
hypothesized that this research would identify any
correlation between where research is published and
the domain into which it falls. If such a correlation
were established, it would enable identification of
indexing/abstracting services that provide access to the
literature of specific domains.
Classification schemes for content analyses of library
research have been created as part of the methodology
for previous research [29, 31, 32, 34]; however, these
schemes were primarily designed to describe results.
The current study attempts to use the domain structure
as a tool to assist in framing questions related to library
practice, with the primary goal being the retrieval of
research evidence.
This content analysis seeks to provide information
regarding the volume of research being published in

230

2001 and the types of research methods being used. It

also seeks to identify publication patterns for articles
by domain, showing the relationship between domains
and journals. In addition, the utility of the domain
classification developed by Crumley and Koufogiannakis is assessed and revisions are suggested.

4. Methodology
Library and information studies literature published in
2001 was examined using content analysis methodology. The year 2001 was chosen because it was the most
recent full year of journal content that was available.
The process included several steps: determining which
journals met the inclusion criteria; selecting the
research articles from the included journals; and
extracting data from the relevant articles. See Figure
1 for a flow diagram of the inclusion/exclusion process.
4.1. Journal inclusion
Investigators compiled a comprehensive list of potential journals for inclusion in the study. This list
included titles from the 2001 Journal Citation Reports
subject list for Information Science and Library
Science (information science titles containing articles
that were clearly not relevant to librarians and library
researchers, such as Telecommunications Policy, were

Fig. 1. Flow diagram of journals and articles considered for

inclusion.

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D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.

excluded); journals identified as peer-reviewed on the

journal list of the index Library Literature and
Information Science; and titles retrieved from a search
of Ulrichs International Periodical Directory for active
English-language journals with LIBRARY-ANDINFORMATION-SCIENCES in the descriptor field. A
research assistant was hired to organize the data from
the researchers and photocopy journal articles.
Once the list was compiled, each researcher independently reviewed 2/3 of the titles from the initial list
using standardized inclusion/exclusion criteria; all
journals were reviewed by two researchers. A journal
was included if: it was published in 2001 and both
researchers separately identified it as a peer-reviewed
journal containing research articles on LIS topics.
Discrepancies between researchers were resolved
through discussion. Where a decision could not be
reached, the third researcher reviewed the journal
independently and decided whether or not it would be
included. Journals were excluded if: they were not
published in English; did not contain articles of
relevance to LIS (archival science journals were not
considered LIS journals and were therefore excluded);
ceased publishing before or during 2001; or if they had
an interrupted publishing run where no issues were
published in 2001. Where it was unclear whether a
journal was peer-reviewed or not, or if the subject area
of its contents could not be determined, the publisher
or editor was contacted by the research assistant for
clarification.

4.2. Article inclusion

For each of the included journals, all articles published
in 2001 were examined. The criteria for article
inclusion was that the article be research-based and
the content pertain to library and information studies.
Articles were excluded if they were not in English or
were a grouping of conference proceedings within a
journal. To differentiate between research and nonresearch articles, we used Peritzs definition of
research: an inquiry, which is carried out, at least to
some degree, by a systematic method with the purpose
of eliciting some new facts, concepts or ideas [29].
Article inclusion/exclusion was done independently
by two researchers using a standard inclusion/exclusion form. Each researcher reviewed 2/3 of the total
number of articles and all articles were reviewed by
two researchers. Articles were not assessed on the
basis of quality, relevance or generality. Again,
discrepancies were resolved through discussion.

4.3. Data extraction

Each researcher extracted data from approximately 1/3
of the included articles and a second researcher
checked the data. A standardized form was used to
capture data about: the domain; research method(s);
study objective; author affiliation and country; abstract
inclusion and whether the abstract was structured;
literature review inclusion; and research funding.

5. Results
In total, 217 library and information studies journals
were assessed for inclusion. Of those, 107 (49%) were
included in the study. Ninety-one of those journals
provide data for this article (see Appendix A). We were
unable to obtain full-text copies of the other 16 journals
(see Appendix B).
A total of 2664 journal articles from the Ninety-one
journals were examined during the inclusion/exclusion process. Of these, 807 (30.3%) were included as
library and information studies research articles. The
overall agreement between all three reviewers was
rated as excellent [42] (92% agreement; kappa 0.81)
with a confidence interval of [0.780.83].
The 10 journals which contained the highest number
of research articles (see Figure 2) were:
(1) Journal of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology (JASIST)
(2) Scientometrics
(3) Information Processing and Management
(4) College and Research Libraries
(5) Journal of Library Administration
(6) Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (now
the Journal of the Medical Library Association)

Fig. 2. Top 10 journals: number of research articles published in 2001. Top 10 journals contribute 37.5% of the total
included research articles.

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A content analysis of librarianship research

(7) Libraries and Culture

(8) Journal of Documentation
(9) Journal of Information Science
(10) Journal of Academic Librarianship
Major databases (Library Lit, LISA, ISTA, Web of
Science, ERIC and Inspec) were checked to determine
where the top 10 journals were indexed. LISA is the
only index with full coverage of the top 10 research
journals. ISTA indexes all the journals, but only
selectively, and Library Lit indexes eight of the ten.
The authors of the majority of research articles were
from the United States. Authors of research articles
represented 61 countries from all areas of the world,
and 57 articles involved collaboration between two or
more countries. Authors of 18.6% (150/807) of articles
indicated their research was funded. Funding was
primarily from organizations, research councils or
government agencies that provide grants. Other funding bodies included universities and private business.
Abstracts were included in 91.4% (738/807) of
research articles, but only 2.8% (21/738) were structured abstracts. The importance and role of structured
abstracts has recently been discussed in the library
literature [4346]. The number of research articles
including structured abstracts should increase over
time as more publishers require abstracts to be
submitted in this format, thereby improving the quality
and accuracy of article content summaries. While
58.5% (472/807) of research articles included literature
reviews, only 2.3% of those listed the resources they
searched. Given that librarians should be acknowledging where we search for information, the lack of
indication of where background information was
obtained is of great interest for future study.
5.1. Study types and domains
In determining the classification of study types, the
authors consulted research methods texts and selected
study types that were the most relevant to librarianship. These were further classified into three categories: Evidence Synthesis (systematic review, metaanalysis), Experimental Study (randomized controlled
trial, cross-over study), and Observational Study
(bibliometrics, case series, cohort study, comparative
study, content analysis, cross-sectional study, descriptive study, historical study, needs assessment, program
evaluation, usability testing). An other category was
included for researchers to record other study types
that were not initially noted.
As shown in Figure 3, the highest proportion of
research articles were classified as Descriptive Studies,
232

Fig. 3. Number of articles by study type.

mainly using questionnaires/surveys to gather information. The next most popular study type was the
comparative study, followed by bibliometric studies,
content analysis, and program evaluation. Very few
studies (12 in total) reporting the purported higher
levels of evidence, as classified by Eldredge [47] and
others [48], such as systematic reviews, meta-analysis,
randomized controlled trials, and controlled trials,
were identified. However, further research needs to be
conducted to determine the methods appropriate for
gathering data that answers library and information
studies research questions as well as to identify
meaningful levels of evidence for LIS. Some research
articles incorporated more than one study type. In such
cases, each type was accounted for seperately.
As part of the content analysis, research articles were
classified according to the six domains being tested. If
warranted, an article could be classified in more than
one domain. The domain with the most research was
Information Access & Retrieval with 314 research
articles (see Figure 4). The Marketing and Promotion
category had very little information (seven articles),
which led us to question whether this category should
remain as a domain, or should go elsewhere, perhaps
as a subset of Management. Further research analyzing
the quantity of research literature in marketing/promotion over additional years of the library and information studies literature is required to determine whether
research in this area exists in the volume necessary to
support retention of this domain. Since the research in
this study does not warrant the inclusion of the
Marketing and Promotion category, we have removed
it from our results. The small amount of research in the
Reference category was also somewhat surprising
given that reference service is a common component
of librarianship work.

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D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.

Fig. 4. Number of articles by domain.

Two subject areas emerged as possible new domains

from this research. Firstly, 45 articles were classified as
Library History. While this is an important area of
research, the historical nature of the research on topics
in this area does not fit within the structure of EBL.
Because Library History is not based on current day-today practice, it would not be suitable for use in
decision-making. Hence, it was decided that Library
History would not fit as a new domain for EBL practice.
Secondly, 36 articles focusing on topics such as the
librarians image, professional competencies, and
accreditation were identified and these were assigned
to the new domain Professional Issues. Library and
Information Science Education was included in the
Education domain, but stood out as a unique subset; 26
of the 95 articles pertained to LIS education.
While testing the domains, we realized that the
definitions needed to be revised (see Table 2). Based on
this studys results, the domains were restructured and
the definitions revised slightly. This kept the number

of domains manageable while still reflecting the types

of subjects found in the research literature.
Table 3 shows the most common types of research
method reported for each of the domains. Descriptive
research studies are prevalent for most domains,
reflecting the research methods identified as most
common when the articles reviewed are analyzed as
a whole. Domains where descriptive studies were not
the top ranked method were Information Access &
Retrieval and Collections. In the domain Information
Access & Retrieval, many of the articles compared two
or more different information retrieval or classification
systems, hence the dominance of the comparative
study type within that domain. In Collections, the
literature of particular fields or analysis of usage was
often studied, lending itself to the bibliometric study
design, including citation analysis.
As expected, descriptive studies still dominate the
LIS research literature. Such studies are used to gather
opinions from a particular group of users, reveal user
needs and preferences, and provide feedback for
librarians on existing or newly implemented services.
The most likely explanations for the ubiquity of
descriptive studies in LIS research are that they are
inexpensive and relatively easy to conduct, can be
carried out in a short period of time, and the results are
generally easy to analyze. The authors appreciate that
all types of research have a value and that LIS is not
unique in its tendency towards conducting descriptive
research.
Table 4 shows the top five journals contributing the
highest number of research articles in each domain.
The table also indicates where these journals are
indexed. The coverage of total articles that fall within
the top five journals is quite high for most domains.

Table 2
Librarianship domains
Domain

Definition

Collections

Building a high-quality collection of print and electronic materials that is useful, cost-effective
and meets the users needs.
Incorporating teaching methods and strategies to educate users about library resources and
how to improve research skills.
Specifically pertaining to the professional education of librarians.
Creating better systems and methods for information retrieval and access.
Managing people and resources within an organization. This includes marketing and
promotion as well as human resources.
Exploring issues that affect librarianship as a profession.
Providing service and information access that meets the needs of library users.

Education
LIS Education (subset)
Information Access & Retrieval
Management
Professional Issues
Reference/Enquiries

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Table 3
Top three study types by domain
Domain

Number of
Articles

Study Type

109
104
50
114

Comparative
Descriptive
Content analysis
Other

Information
Access & Retrieval

Collections
86
52
19
51

Bibliometrics
Descriptive
Comparative
Other

90
13
11
35

Descriptive
Comparative
Cross-sectional
Other

50
18
16
37

Descriptive
Program evaluation
Cross-sectional
Other

54
9
5
16

Descriptive
Content analysis
Comparative
Other

15
7
5
12

Descriptive
Bibliometrics
Cross-sectional
Other

Management

Education

Reference

Professional Issues

The top five journals from each of the Collections,

Information Access & Retrieval and Education
domains published 47%, 45% and 43% of the total
amount of research from these domains respectively.
The amount of research published in the top five
journals from the other areas, Reference (36%) and
Management (28%), is lower, but it is apparent that a
sizable amount of research is concentrated in relatively
few journals. This being the case, our research
identifies the journals that will be most valuable for
finding evidence to support decision-making. We also
identify those journals that form the core of a collection
234

that can be used to support the research of Master of

Library and Information Studies (MLIS) programs.
After examining the indexing and abstracting
services that cover the top journals in each domain,
we found that LISA is the database of choice when
searching for information on topics from the majority of domains. For Reference, Collections, and
Management, LISA is the only database with full
coverage of the top five journals. ISTA provides only
selective coverage of the top journals across most of
the domains. The journals from the Information
Access & Retrieval domain are well covered, with
LISA and Library Lit both providing full coverage,
and ISTA selective coverage. The Education domain
is not covered completely by any index, however
ISTA and ERIC both cover all the top journals
selectively.
The Professional Issues domain is not included in
Table 4, since the articles in this domain are too
scattered to group or show any journal trends. However, LISA does cover 22 of the 25 journals represented
in this category, again providing the best coverage of
the major indexing databases.
Not surprisingly, many of the journals that appear in
the Top five lists by domain are specific to that domain
(e.g. Reference & User Services Quarterly is #3 on the
Reference domain list and Journal of Education for
Library and Information Science appears at the top of
the Education list). However, there are non-domainrelated journals that appear in these lists (often at the
top of the list), indicating that the most productive
journals in a particular domain may not necessarily be
journals specific to that domain. Conversely, Journal of
Information Science and Bulletin of the Medical
Library Association, though appearing in the overall
top 10, do not figure in any of the domain-specific top
five, indicating their more comprehensive crossdomain coverage.
Several journals appear in more than one of our Top
five lists for research journals by domain (see Table 4):
College and Research Libraries, which was fourth on
the Top 10 list (see Table 1) is the top journal for both
the Reference and Management domains and appears
fifth in the Education list; JASIST, the top journal on
our Top 10 list, is also the top journal in the
Information Access & Retrieval domain and third in
the Collections domain; Journal of Library Administration (fifth on the Top 10 list) appears fourth in both the
Information Access & Retrieval and Management
domains; and New Library World appears fourth in
both the Management and Education domains. These
findings emphasize the importance of College and

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D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.

Table 4
Top five research journals by domain
Domain

Number of
Articles

Journal Name

Information Access & Retrieval total 314 articles

58
JASIST
31
Information Processing and Management
15
Journal of Documentation
13
Journal of Library Administration
12
ASLIB Proceedings
12
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly
Collections total 193 articles
47
Scientometrics
12
Collection Management
12
JASIST
10
Serials Librarian
9
Library Collections, Acquisitions and
Technical Services
Management total 135 articles
9
College & Research Libraries
9
Library Management
7
Library Review
7
Journal of Library Administration
6
New Library World

Indexed

LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,

Lib
Lib
Lib
Lib
Lib
Lib

Lit,
Lit,
Lit,
Lit,
Lit,
Lit,

ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, Inspec (sel)

ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, ERIC, Inspec
ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, ERIC, Inspec (sel)
ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec
ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, Inspec (sel)
ISTA, ERIC (sel)

LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,

ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci

Lib Lit, ISTA
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, WOS:Sci, Inspec (sel)
ISTA, WOS:SS, ERIC (sel)
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, Inspec

LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,

Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC

Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec (sel)
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), Inspec (began 2003)
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec
ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel)

Education total 95 articles

13
Journal of Education for Library and
Information Science
10
Education for Information
7
Research Strategies
6
New Library World
5
College & Research Libraries

LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,

Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec

Lib Lit, ISTA, ERIC (sel)
ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel), Inspec (began in 2003)
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC

Reference total 77
6
6
6
5
5

LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,
LISA,

Lib Lit, ISTA (selective), ERIC

ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, ERIC (sel)
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, ERIC (sel), Inspec (sel)
Lib Lit, ISTA, WOS:SS, ERIC (sel)
Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), WOS:SS, Inspec (sel)

articles
College & Research Libraries
Journal of Academic Librarianship
Reference and User Services Quarterly
Library and Information Science Research
Journal of Library and Information Science

Research Libraries and JASIST as major sources of

library research while at the same time identifying
journals that are valuable for their cross-disciplinary
content.
As Table 4 illustrates, there is no clear difference
between domains with regard to the indexing service
that provides best coverage. LISA provides the best
coverage overall, followed by Library Literature, and
ISTA which covers a wide range of the journals that
publish research, but which indexes selectively for the
most part.

Lib Lit, ISTA (sel), ERIC (sel)

6. Discussion
Of the 2664 articles we reviewed, 807 (30.3%) were
identified as research articles. This rate is similar to the
rate of 30% for articles published in 1965 as reported
by Jarvelin and Vakkari [33], and the rate of 31%
reported by Peritz [29] for articles published in 1975.
Buttlars study [36] of the research content of library
journals published between 1987 and 1989 reported a
rate of 38.35%, a rate somewhat higher than ours. Our
rates were significantly lower than those reported by

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A content analysis of librarianship research

Jarvelin and Vakkari [33] for 1975 (57%) and 1985

(54%) as well as those reported by Williams and
Winston [35] for 2000/2001 (50.42%). The usefulness
of these comparisons, however, is questionable due to
the lack of agreement between authors as to what
constitutes research as well as the variation in the
journal titles reviewed.
While previous researchers [2934, 36] estimated the
percentage of research published in the body of
journals they surveyed as a whole, only Buttlar [36]
ranked the journals she reviewed by the amount of
research published by title. Kumpalainen [30] did not
rank the journals by title per se, but information
correlating the frequency of subjects by journals
permitted us to rank and compare the titles he
reviewed. Since the lists of journals reviewed by
Buttlar and Kumpalainen and those reviewed for the
present study vary in the titles examined, no conclusions can be drawn by comparing results. However, it
is interesting to note that two titles rank high in all
three studies: JASIST/JASIS (top ranked journal by
Buttlar, Kumpalainen and the present study) and
College & Research Libraries (ranked second by Buttlar
and Kumpalainen; ranked fourth in the present study).
Journal of Academic Librarianship was ranked third by
Buttlar and tied for ninth in the present study. Buttlar
ranked Libraries & Culture fifth while it ranked seventh
in the present study. Journal of Documentation was
ranked tenth by Kumpalainen and eighth by the
present study. Because these journals consistently
appear within the top rankings in studies across
different time periods, this indicates their ongoing
value as vehicles for communicating LIS research.
As discussed in the Literature Review, the variation
in subject categories used in previous content analyses
makes it difficult to compare our findings with those of
other authors. These differences also make it impossible to make a comparison between our correlations of
subject/domain and research methods, and similar
correlations reported by Kumpalainen and Jarvelin and
Vakkari. Likewise, our results regarding the frequency
of use of specific research methods cannot be compared to previous studies. However, as with other
studies, we found that descriptive, survey-type
research was published much more frequently than
experimental research. Potential confounders of this
studys results include the frequency of journal
publication schedules, and size of the journal (number
of pages).
Findings from this project will assist librarians in:
(1) Identifying the most useful sources of evidence
for LIS decision-making;
236

(2)
(3)

Targeting the most appropriate journals in which

to publish research; and,
Selecting the most useful journals for inclusion in
a research-based LIS journal collection.

7. Future research
For the second part of this research project, a citation
analysis is currently being conducted to analyze the
references from the 807 articles included in this study.
The citation analysis will identify titles and formats
frequently cited in LIS research articles as well as
determine where these titles are indexed. This next
study will also determine how frequently LIS researchers cite literature outside of their discipline.
Another area of future research stemming from the
present study is to analyze key terms used in titles and
abstracts of the research articles identified, as well as
database controlled vocabulary applied to these articles by the major library and information studies
indexing services, in order to formulate search strategies (i.e. search hedges, that can be used to filter out
non-research literature when necessary). This will be
useful for filtering literature searches in areas where
much has been published but little of it is original
research.
Replication of the research reported here for additional years (both retrospectively and prospectively)
would be valuable. First, it could determine whether
the subject domains identified will hold up when
applied to additional years of data, and suggest ways in
which they can be further refined. Second, replication
would provide comparative data enabling the identification of trends in the characteristics and publication
patterns of LIS research.

Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the financial support of
the Small Faculties Research Grant at the University of
Alberta. We would also like to thank Virginia Wilson,
our research assistant, who was hired as a result of the
research grant we received. Thanks also to the staff at
the Alberta Research Centre for Child Health Evidence,
particularly Natasha Wiebe and Ben Vandermeer who
provided statistical advice and assistance. We would
also like to thank our anonymous peer reviewers for
their constructive feedback, which strengthened our
paper.

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D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.

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Appendix A: 91 journal titles included in the study

AARL: Australian Academic & Research Libraries
Access
Acquisitions Librarian
African Journal of Library, Archives and Information
Science
ARSC Journal
ASLIB Proceedings
Australian Library Journal
Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian
Bodleian Library Record
Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances
Bulletin of the Medical Library Association
Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science
Cataloging and Classification Quarterly
Collection Building
Collection Management
College & Research Libraries

238

Community and Junior College Libraries

Education for Information
Education Libraries
Electronic Green Journal
Ethics and Information Technology
Government Information Quarterly
Health Information and Libraries Journal
IFLA Journal
Information Processing & Management
Information Research
Information Society
Information Technology and Libraries
Informing Science
INSPEL
Interlending & Document Supply
International Information and Library Review
International Journal of Information Management

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D. KOUFOGIANNAKIS ET AL.

Internet Reference Services Quarterly

Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications
and Policy
JAMIA: Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association
Journal of Academic Librarianship
Journal of Chemical Information and Computing
Science
Journal of Digital Information
Journal of Documentation
Journal of Education for Library and Information
Science
Journal of Government Information
Journal of Information Science
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
Journal of Library Administration
Journal of Southern Academic and Special Librarianship
Journal of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology
Knowledge Organization
Knowledge Quest
Libraries & Culture
Library & Archival Security
Library & Information Science Research
Library Collections Acquisitions & Technical Services
Library Hi Tech
Library History
Library Management
Library Philosophy and Practice
Library Quarterly
Library Resources & Technical Services
Library Review
LIBRES: Library and Information Science Research
Libri
Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science
Medical Reference Services Quarterly
New Library World
New Review of Childrens Literature and Librarianship
New Review of Information and Library Research
New Review of Libraries and Lifelong Learning
North Carolina Libraries
OCLC Systems & Services
Online Information Review
Performance Measurement and Metrics

portal: Libraries and the Academy

Program
Public Libraries
Reference and User Services Quarterly
Reference Librarian
Reference Services Review
Research Strategies
School Library Media Research
Science & Technology Libraries
Scientometrics
Serials Librarian
Serials Review
Social Science Computer Review
South African Journal of Library and Information
Science
Southeastern Librarian
Teacher Librarian
Technical Services Quarterly
Transforming Traditional Libraries
Urban Library Journal

Appendix B: included journals for which

articles could not be obtained
Art Reference Services Quarterly
College and Undergraduate Libraries
DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology
Herald of Library Science
Journal of Agricultural and Food Information
Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship
Journal of Hospital Librarianship
Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery and
Information Supply
Journal of Library and Information Science
Journal of Religious and Theological Information
Music Reference Services Quarterly
Quarterly Bulletin of the International Association of
Agricultural Information Specialists
Resource Sharing and Information Networks
Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community
The Electronic Library
World Libraries

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