Trends in the literature on library instruction and information literacy, 2001‐2010

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze the literature on information literacy and library instruction from 2001-2010 published in the annual, comprehensive topical bibliography published in Reference Services Review. Design/methodology/approach -The authors examined 3,527 articles contained in the annual bibliography from 2001-2010 and identified 2,052 which appeared in peer-reviewed journals. Using the 2,052 articles identified as peer reviewed, the authors then determined the location of the primary author, the journal that published the article, whether the journal was from the discipline of library science, what type of research the article contained, and the key themes present. Findings -The number of articles in peer-reviewed journals has grown substantially over the ten-year period. Most articles (70 percent) were published by authors residing in the USA, but articles from Asia and Africa are now being seen on a more consistent basis. Reference Services Review has published the most articles on this topic during the period, but information literacy has also branched out into other non-library-specific disciplines. Empirical or theoretical research articles make up less than 50 percent of the total articles published, while case-study type descriptions of programmatic or teaching initiatives continue to be the most published article type. Key themes continue to be collaboration, assessment, and the application of technology to instruction efforts.Research limitations/implications -The findings are limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English-language journals. Originality/value -While other articles have examined aspects of the body of information literacy literature, this study encompasses a more comprehensive and thorough data set.

Scientific production on mobile information literacy in higher education: a bibliometric analysis (2006–2017)

“…The trend regarding general production includes the majority of the bibliometric studies that identify the countries that publish the most, the most productive and most cited authors, the most published journals, languages, etc. (Aharony, 2010;Bhardwaj, 2017;Kolle, 2017;Majid et al, 2015;Sproles, Detmering and Johnson, 2013;Taşkın, Doğan and Şencan, 2013;Park and Kim, 2011). In the field of Social Sciences and Humanities, Bhardwaj (2017), based on Scopus, found a total of 1990 documents published in 160 journals over the period 2001-2012 by authors from 79 countries.…”

Current status of information literacy instruction practices in medical libraries of Pakistan

“…Sproles et al examined 3,527 articles on library instruction and IL published from 2001-2010 and found that most of those were from the United States, but articles from Asia and Africa also appeared frequently [10]. User education is not a new subject in Pakistan; however, it lacks systematic approaches [11], Ameen and Gorman considered IL an obstacle in the economic development of developing coun tries such as Pakistan.…”

Information literacy:

“…Their study demonstrates exponential growth in the volume of articles published on the topic. Similarly, in their analysis of the annual listing of IL literature in Reference Services Review, Sproles, Detmering & Johnson (2013) note (between 2001 and 2010) both an increase in the number of articles deemed eligible for inclusion, and the percentage of them which are peer-reviewed. Taken together, and even allowing for the differences in methodology, these studies indicate that IL is increasing the literature base, becoming more scholarly and taking a more prominent position within the overall LIS field.…”

“…Seeing IL as undertheorised is a valid criticism of IL at this point. For example, whilst Sproles, Detmering & Johnson (2013) identify the increasing percentage of IL articles which are peer reviewed, they categorise only 28.2% of articles 2001-2010 as reporting on empirical research, and a further 12.6% as being theoretical contributions. However, this is not abnormal, since IL is young as a field of study, and there is still room to hope that theory will be developed further from the growing base of empirical and conceptual work (and indeed Lloyd tackles this in this same issue of JIL).…”