The evolution and shift of research topics and methods in library and information science

Employing approaches adopted from studies of library and information science (LIS) research trends performed by Järvelin et al., this content analysis systematically examines the evolution and distribution of LIS research topics and data collection methods at 6‐year increments from 2006 to 2018. Bibliographic data were collected for 3,422 articles published in LIS journals in the years 2006, 2012, and 2018. While the classification schemes provided in the Järvelin studies do not indicate much change, an analysis of subtopics, data sources, and keywords indicates a substantial impact of social media and data science on the discipline, which emerged at some point between the years of 2012 and 2018. These findings suggest a type of shift in the focus of LIS research, with social media and data science topics playing a role in well over one‐third of articles published in 2018, compared with approximately 5% in 2012 and virtually none in 2006. The shift in LIS research foci based on these two technologies/approaches appears similar in extent to those produced by the introduction of information systems in library science in the 1960s, or the Internet in the 1990s, suggesting that these recent advancements are fundamental to the identity of LIS as a discipline.