Authors self-citation behaviour in the field of Library and Information Science

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the author self-citation behavior in the field of Library and Information Science. Various factors governing the author self-citation behavior have also been studied. Design/methodology/approach – The 2012 edition of Social Science Citation Index was consulted for the selection of LIS journals. Under the subject heading “Information Science and Library Science” there were 84 journals and out of these 12 journals were selected for the study based on systematic sampling. The study was confined to original research and review articles that were published in select journals in the year 2009. The main reason to choose 2009 was to get at least five years (2009-2013) citation data from Web of Science Core Collection (excluding Book Citation Index) and SciELO Citation Index. A citation was treated as self-citation whenever one of the authors of citing and cited paper was common, i.e., the set of co-authors of the citing paper and that of the cited one are not disjoint. To minimize the risk of homonyms, spelling variances and misspelling in authors’ names, the authors compared full author names in citing and cited articles. Findings – A positive correlation between number of authors and total number of citations exists with no correlation between number of authors and number/share of self-citations, i.e., self-citations are not affected by the number of co-authors in a paper. Articles which are produced in collaboration attract more self-citations than articles produced by only one author. There is no statistically significant variation in citations counts (total and self-citations) in works that are result of different types of collaboration. A strong and statistically significant positive correlation exists between total citation count and frequency of self-citations. No relation could be ascertained between total citation count and proportion of self-citations. Authors tend to cite more of their recent works than the work of other authors. Total citation count and number of self-citations are positively correlated with the impact factor of source publication and correlation coefficient for total citations is much higher than that for self-citations. A negative correlation exhibits between impact factor and the share of self-citations. Of particular note is that the correlation in all the cases is of weak nature. Research limitations/implications – The research provides an understanding of the author self-citations in the field of LIS. readers are encouraged to further the study by taking into account large sample, tracing citations also from Book Citation Index (WoS) and comparing results with other allied subjects so as to validate the robustness of the findings of this study. Originality/value – Readers are encouraged to further the study by taking into account large sample, tracing citations also from Book Citation Index (WoS) and comparing results with other allied subjects so as to validate the robustness of the findings of this study.

The prevalence of synchronous self-citation practices at the institutional level

“…For macro level studies, Glanzel and Thijs (2004) reported that multi-authorship does not exaggerate the extent of self-citations. In the field of Library and Information Science, although Dimitroff and Arlistsch (1995) observed a positive relation between the number of self-citations and number of co-authors, Shah, Gul and Gaur (2015) could not ascertain such relationship. However, irrespective of the number of co-authors, Shah, Gul and Gaur (2015) found that collaborative works attract more citations than works produced at individual level.…”

“…It may be noted that where excessive self-citations are regarded as an abuse (Lawani 1982;Martyn 1975), their prevalence in fair number is perceived as normal (Aksnes 2003) and even commendable, if only to avoid the repetition of already published information (Macdonald and Kam 2011). Authors have mostly studied self-citations in specific subject fields, such as Plant Physiology and Neurobiology (Tagliacozzo 1977); Library and Information Science (Dimitroff and Arlitsch 1995;Shah, Gul and Gaur 2015); Ecology (Pichappan and Sarasvady 2002); Diabetes Mellitus (Gami et al 2004); General Medicine (Kulkarni et al 2011); Otolaryngology (Tolisano, Song and Cable 2015), and have mostly examined self-citations with regard to their frequency in an article (the number of times they occur in an article).…”

“…Studies found that authors tend to cite more of their recently published articles than the work of others (Aksnes 2003;Davarpanah and Amel 2009;Glanzel, Thijs and Schlemmer 2004;Peters and Van Raan 1991;Snyder and Bonzi 1998;Shah, Gul and Gaur 2015;Tagliacozzo 1977). Aksnes (2003) observed that the percentage of self-citations decreases when citations are traced for longer periods.…”

“…Tolisano, Song and Cable (2015) observed that the last researcher in the author list of collaborative works are more frequent self-citers and are more likely than lead authors to cite themselves. There are also a few studies which could not either find any relation, or observe negative correlation, between these two variables (Glanzel and Thijs 2004;Huston 2006;Shah, Gul and Gaur 2015;Snyder and Bonzi 1998;Tagliacozzo 1977). In Plant Physiology and Neurobiology, Tagliacozzo (1977) argued that the extent of self-citation did not appear to be related to the number of co-authors, and interpreted that when there is disparity in seniority among co-authors, the senior author provides most of the references, like a single author would provide in his/her publication.…”

Assessment of Researchers Through Bibliometric Indicators: The Area of Information and Library Science in Spain as a Case Study (2001–2015)

“…Self-citation is a common phenomenon in the process of disseminating scientific knowledge (Glänzel et al, 2006;Shah et al, 2015). In Library and Information Science, several papers offer evidence that about half the papers published in specialized journals contain at least one instance of self-citation (Dimitroff and Arlitsch, 1995;Davarpanah and Aslekia, 2008).…”