Digital Library Software

Information sources in library and information science doctoral research

A citation analysis of 61 library science and information science dissertations revealed some interesting publication patterns. About 80% of the citations are to single authors, and as in analyses of periodical literature, males are cited more than females overall (about 61% to 39%). In dissertations related to school or public libraries, the male/female distribution is less disparate; for studies in academic or special libraries two thirds of the authors are male, and male authorship is 75% when only information science dissertations are analyzed. Journal articles are cited more than books, book chapters, proceedings, theses, and other formats with College & Research Libraries and Journal of the American Society for Information Science used most. Library and information science is impacted by several other disciplines, primarily education, computer science, health/medicine, psychology, communications, and business. Authors cited in dissertations represent a somewhat less parochial list in terms of citing U.S. publications than authors cited in studies analyzing journal citations; over half of all works cited were published within the last 10 years.

Buttlar, Lois

Centre for Applied Research in Education

1999

English

An abstract is a summary of the essential
content of another, longer, document. An abstracts
service is a form of current bibliography
in which contributions to periodicals, other
collections and sometimes books are summarized.
They are accompanied by bibliographical
citations to enable the publications to be traced,
and are frequently arranged in classified order.
They may be in the language of the original or
translated. Abstracts may be indicative, mainly
directing the reader to an original item with
relevant content; informative, giving much information
about the original, summarizing the
principal arguments and giving the principal
data; or evaluative, when they comment on the
quality of the original. A general abstract is one
that covers all essential points in an article, and
is provided where the interests of readers are
varied and known to the abstractor only in
general terms. A selective abstract contains a
condensation of parts of an article known to be
directly related to the needs of the clientele and
is prepared by a librarian or information officer
(1) for the executives, research workers and
specialists within an organization or those normally
making use of library services, (2) in
response to a request for a literature search or
(3) to keep the staff of an organization informed
of developments revealed in the daily periodical
press, documents or reports. An author abstract
is one