Scatter and obsolescence of journals cited in theses and dissertations of librarianship

Abstract

This article analyzes the bibliometric features (the number of pages, completion years, the fields of subject, the number of citations, and their distribution by types of sources and years) of 100 theses and dissertations completed at the Department of Librarianship of Hacettepe University between 1974 and 2002. Almost a quarter (24%) of all dissertations were on university libraries, followed by public libraries (9%). Doctoral dissertations were, on average, twice as long as master's theses and contained 2.5 times more citations. Monographs received more citations (50%) than journal articles did (42%). Recently completed theses and dissertations contained more citations to electronic publications. Fourteen (or 3.2% of all) journal titles (including Türk Kütüphaneciligi, College & Research Libraries, and Journal of the American Society for Information Science) received almost half (48.9%) of all citations. Eighty percent of journal titles were cited infrequently. No correlation was found between the frequency of citations of the most frequently cited journals and their impact factors. Cited journal titles in master's and doctoral theses and dissertations overlapped significantly. Similarly, journal titles cited in dissertations also overlapped significantly with those that were cited in the journal articles published in the professional literature. The distribution of citations to foreign journal titles fit Bradford's Law of Scattering. The mean half-life of all cited sources was 9years. Sources cited in master's dissertations were relatively more current. Single authorship was the norm in cited resources. Coupled with in-library use data, findings of the present study can be used to identify the core journal titles in librarianship as well as to evaluate the existing library collections to decide which journal titles to keep, discard, or relegate to off-site storage areas.

İstanbul Üniversitesi Bilgi ve Belge Yönetimi Bölümü Lisansüstü Tezlerinin Atıf Analizi (Citation Analysis of Dissertations Completed at Istanbul University Information and Records Management Department)

“…Buttlar (1999, s. 228), atıf analizini, lisansüstü öğrencilerinin hangi kaynakları kullandığını belirleyen mükemmel bir yöntem olarak tanımlamaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, 1967 ve 2015 yılları arasında İstanbul Üniversitesi Bilgi ve Belge Yönetimi Bölümünde (İÜBBYB) tamamlanan lisansüstü tezlerin atıf analizini yapmak ve ulaşılan sonuçları daha önce bu konuda yapılmış olan çalışmalarla (Al ve Doğan, 2012;Al ve Tonta, 2004;Tonta ve Al, 2006) karşılaştırmaktır. Çalışma, tezlerde atıf yapılan kaynak türlerinin sıklıklarını, en sık atıf yapılan dergileri ve yazarları, literatür eskimesinin yanı sıra, tez danışmanlarını ve jüri üyelerini ayrıntılı bir biçimde analiz etmeyi hedeflemektedir.…”

“…Kütüphane ve bilgi bilimi alanında tamamlanmış tezler üzerine yapılmış geniş kapsamlı dört çalışma bulunmaktadır (Al ve Doğan, 2012;Al ve Tonta, 2004;Bayram ve Zan, 2014;Tonta ve Al, 2006). Al ve Tonta (2004), 1974-2002 yılları arasında Hacettepe Üniversitesinde tamamlanan 100 tezin kaynakçalarında yer alan atıfların Bradford yasasına uygunluğunu sınamıştır.…”

“…Ayrıca, elde edilen sonuçlar önceden HÜBBYB tezleri üzerine yapılan araştırmalarla (Tonta ve Al, 2006;Al ve Doğan, 2012) da karşılaştırılmıştır. Bu çerçevede araştırma sonuçlarını aşağıdaki biçimde sıralamak mümkündür:…”

Scholarly communication and authorship patterns in language research: evidences from citation analysis of language theses in Nigeria

“…These are serious flaws, particularly to the researchers in humanities and the social sciences. As a result of this, citation studies have been conducted with journals not included in the databases (Singh, 2013;Ezema & Asogwa, 2014) while others resorted to the use of theses and dissertations (Gooden, 2001;Tonta & Al, 2006;Riahinia, 2010;Fasae, 2011;Banateppanvar & Biraddar, 2013;Ezema & Ugwuanyi, 2014;Gasparotto, 2014;Abeyrathne, 2015) while conducting citation analysis.…”

Contribution of Turkish Scholars to Earthquake Literature: The Impact of the Marmara Earthquake

“…They generally examined dissertations (Tonta & Al, 2006;Uçak & Al, 2009a;Uçak & Al, 2009b;Bayram, 1998).…”