A Scientometric Analysis and Visualization of the Scientific Output of the Library and Information Science Quarterly during 2009-2018

One of the main aspects of scientific journals is their scientific output, i.e. their published papers. The scientific output of a journal should be evaluated from a scientometric perspective regularly for its development in the field, determining highly-productive and more influential authors, co-authorship patterns, co-word occurrences, keyword clusters and so on. This study aimed at evaluating the research performance and visualizing the scientific maps of the Library and Information Science Quarterly in the 10-year time span of 2009-2018. This study is an applied scientometric analysis. All 370 published papers of the journal published in its 40 issues and indexed in the Islamic Science Citation Index (ISC) in the time span of 2009-2018 were extracted and needed data were modified by a predetermined protocol and the output was mapped and analyzed in different appropriate software packages (NetDraw for mapping co-authorship patterns, VOSviewr for visualizing keyword co-occurrences and Ucinet for determining the authors' centrality rankings). The geographical distribution of authoring institutes showed that authoring institutions were from different universities in Iran with Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in the first rank. The highly-productive and most influential authors' status regarding their published papers, received citations and h-indices were appropriate in the journal, as they were affiliated to some main research institutes and universities active in the field of library and information science in Iran. The co-authorship pattern was mainly two-authored collaboration. Collaborating authors' degree, betweenness and closeness centrality rankings showed their effective relationship and interaction with each other in the field. The keyword co-occurrence map showed the journal's attention to the topics in library and information studies, including among others university libraries and their users. The mapped subject clusters showed 8 subject clusters and demonstrated that the journal prioritized scientometrics and science policy-making and knowledge organization as well as the library management. This journal has found its way in the field of Library and Information Science. The subjects that were considered in the journal accord with those of the World. As receiving more citations is a main indicator for conceiving a journal as an influential journal in its field, in spite of ever-increasing influence of this journal on the library and information field, the total ratio of citations per paper should be increased by making the journal more available and the share of newly-emerged topics need to be increased in authoring for it. These can be helpful in making the journal more prolific and influential in Iran's Library and Information field more than ever.