IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v95y2013i3d10.1007_s11192-012-0899-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Information literacy in social sciences and health sciences: a bibliometric study (1974–2011)

Author

Listed:
  • María Pinto

    (University of Granada)

  • María Isabel Escalona-Fernández

    (Library, University of Extremadura)

  • Antonio Pulgarín

    (University of Extremadura)

Abstract

We examine the international scientific productivity on information literacy since its inception in 1974 until late 2011, based on a bibliometric analysis of scientific articles included in the web of science and Scopus databases. The sample comprised two macro-domains—the most productive and the least productive. The former was the area of social sciences (SoS), covering such disciplines as information and documentation, communication, education, management, etc. The latter was the area of health sciences (HeS), covering such disciplines as medicine, nursing, etc. The objective of the study was to analyse the evolution of research activity during this period, taking into account the authors’ production, the distribution and co-authorship of the works, the affiliation, and the most frequently used journals. A quantitative and qualitative methodological approach was taken, based on statistical, mathematical, and content analyses. The results showed exponential growth of the scientific publications in both domains (R 2 = 0.9544 for SoS, and R 2 = 0.9393 for HeS), with a predominance of Anglo-Saxon authors. Author productivity was low (1.29 and 1.12 papers/author), while the dispersion of articles by journal averaged 4.96 in SoS and 1.86 in HeS. Scientific collaboration exceeded 53 % in the SoS domain and 69 % in HeS. There was a major dispersion of the places of the authors’ affiliation. In both domains, the author distributions fitted Lotka’s law, and the journal distributions Bradford’s Law.

Suggested Citation

  • María Pinto & María Isabel Escalona-Fernández & Antonio Pulgarín, 2013. "Information literacy in social sciences and health sciences: a bibliometric study (1974–2011)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(3), pages 1071-1094, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:95:y:2013:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-012-0899-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-012-0899-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-012-0899-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-012-0899-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yating Li & Ye Chen & Qiyu Wang, 2021. "Evolution and diffusion of information literacy topics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4195-4224, May.
    2. María Pinto & Rosaura Fernández-Pascual & David Caballero-Mariscal & Dora Sales & David Guerrero & Alejandro Uribe, 2019. "Scientific production on mobile information literacy in higher education: a bibliometric analysis (2006–2017)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 57-85, July.
    3. María Pinto & M. Isabel Escalona & Antonio Pulgarín & Alejandro Uribe-Tirado, 2015. "The scientific production of Ibero-American authors on information literacy (1985–2013)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1555-1576, February.
    4. María Pinto, 2015. "Viewing and exploring the subject area of information literacy assessment in higher education (2000–2011)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 227-245, January.
    5. María Pinto & Antonio Pulgarín & M. Isabel Escalona, 2014. "Viewing information literacy concepts: a comparison of two branches of knowledge," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2311-2329, March.
    6. Maria Lúcia Pato & Aurora A.C. Teixeira, 2013. "Twenty years of rural entrepreneurship: a bibliometric survey," FEP Working Papers 516, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    7. Hicks, Alison, 2022. "The missing link: Towards an integrated health and information literacy research agenda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:95:y:2013:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-012-0899-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.