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PurposeThis study aimed to present a model for the use of augmented reality (AR) in the libraries of universities of medical sciences. The goal was to introduce the applications, advantages, opportunities and challenges of AR.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a qualitative approach, had an applied goal and was based on data theory. The statistical population comprised 20 experts in the field of AR, and the data were collected based on in-depth semi-structured interviews until achieving theoretical saturation. A model was proposed after open coding and the formation of the main categories, and the use of AR in the development of libraries of medical universities was discussed.FindingsThe category of application consisted of strengthening education, promoting users' information literacy, finding resources, user guidance, gamification, educational justice, helping management, enriching resources, providing new services and economic savings. The advantages were library services, sociocultural excellence, educational level, software potential and helping the librarian. The challenges were technical, economic and cultural barriers. Libraries can attract many users by enacting effective policies, using technology and enriching the content of resources. AR can greatly assist library management and improve the librarians' and users' professional activities.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this study was that some experts could not participate in the interviews.Originality/valueThe results of this study are beneficial for managers, librarians, students and researchers. The use of AR in libraries is essential for achieving fourth-generation libraries. AR will be a necessity for the libraries of medical universities.

Purpose This research aims to examine the intellectual structure of iMetrics through author co-citation analysis. Design/methodology/approach This research uses common techniques in bibliometrics and social network analysis. It analyses 5,944 records from the Web of Science in the field of iMetrics that are published between 1978 and 2014. Findings Findings indicated that researchers including “Garfield”, “Egghe”, “Glanzel”, “Leydesdorff” and “Price” have received many co-citations. The author co-citation analysis in iMetrics resulted in eight thematic clusters, including “theoretical foundations and citation analysis”, “sociology of science”, “science mapping and visualization”, “network analysis”, “classic laws of bibliometrics”, “webometrics”, “technometrics” and “miscellaneous”. “Theoretical foundations and citation analysis” is the biggest cluster which comprises 59 authors. The results suggest the crucial role of price medallists in shaping the intellectual structure of knowledge in iMetrics. Originality/value Extracting the patterns embedded in the knowledge structure of iMetrics studies provides beneficial information for both researchers and policymakers. This research study is valuable that used an appropriate set of records regarding both recall and precision. Furthermore, this study helps us better understand the characteristics of iMetrics, its subject areas, and the prominent authors in those areas.

PurposeThe social network analysis (SNA) is a paradigm for analyzing structural patterns in social relations, testing knowledge sharing process and identifying bottlenecks of information flow. The purpose of this study was to determine the status of research in the field of violence in Iran using SNA.MethodsResearch population included all the papers with at least one Iranian affiliation published in violence field indexed in SCIE, PubMed and Scopus databases. The co-word maps, co-authorship network and structural holes were drawn using related software. In the next step, the active authors and some measures of our network including degree centrality (DC), closeness, eigenvector, betweeness, density, diameter, compactness and size of the main component were assessed. Likewise, the trend of the published articles was evaluated based on the number of documents and their citations from 1972 to 2014.ResultsFive hundred and seventy one records were obtained. The five main clusters and hot spots were mental health, violence, war, psychiatric disorders and suicide. The co-authorship network was complex, tangled and scale free. The top nine authors with cut point role and top ten active authors were identified. The mean (standard deviation) of normalized DC, closeness, eigenvector and betweeness were 0.449 (0.805), 0.609 (0.214), 2.373 (7.353) and 0.338 (1.122), respectively. The density, diameter and mean compactness of our co-authorship network were 0.0494, 3.955 and 0.125, respectively. The main component consisted of 216 nodes that formed 17% of total size of the network. Both the number of the documents and their citations has increased in the field of violence in the recent years.ConclusionAlthough the number of the documents has recently increased in the field of violence, the information flow is slow and there are not many relations among the authors in the network. However, the active authors have ability to influence the flow of knowledge within the network.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the top researchers in information behaviour (IB) based on ideational and social influence indicators. Design/methodology/approach The population included papers on IB indexed in the Web of Science from 1980 to 2015. UCINET and Bibexcel were the tools used for measuring the ideational and social influence indicators. The correlations among the study variables were measured by applying SPSS and LISREL. Findings There was a significant relationship between IB researchers’ productivity and performance, and between ideational influence and social influence. The structural equation modelling showed that a researcher with top placement in his/her co-authorship network can gain higher ideational influence. In total, it seems that the single and traditional criteria are increasingly replacing new and integrative ones in measuring researchers’ scientific influence in fields including IB studies. Results have shown that based on total scores of the studied indicators, Spink, A., Nicholas, D., Ford, N., Huntington, P., Wilson, T.D., and Jamali, H.R. gained the high scores. Originality/value The current study used an integrative method based on influence indicators to identify the influential researchers in IB studies. None of the few studies done using bibliometric methods in the realm of IB has investigated the ideational and social influence indicators altogether.