A Bibliometric Exploration of LIS Scholarship

Librarians who pracce bibliometrics are oen asked to compare the research output of an academic department or research group to a larger body of scholarship. Here I explore techniques to address these requests with a case study examining the field of Library and Informaon Science (LIS). Scholarship around academic libraries is evaluated in two ways: broadly, and as produced by librarians within the University System of Maryland (USM). This analysis relies on bibliographic data from EBSCO's Library and Informaon Science Source (LISS) database for the me period of 2008-2019. 16,248 records related to the exploded “academic libraries” subject heading were retrieved via bulk export. The analysis below explores the controlled vocabulary associated with these arcles and endeavors to answer three quesons: 1. Can the co-occurrence of thesaurus terms be used to map the research landscape around academic librarianship? 2. Are there trends in keyword usage over me? 3. How is the research focus of 140 published librarians in the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Instuons (USMAI) consorum different from the focus of the broader collecon? INTRODUCTION