2. Tamil Literature Output in National Bibliography of
Indian Languages: A bibliometric analysis
P. Clara Jeyaseeli
Ph.D. Research Scholar
Dept. of Library and Information Science,
Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai.
e-mail: loyolaclara@gmail.com
Abstract
Tamil literature is one of the most classical and ancient South Indian Languages. The present study
analyses the growth of Tamil literature based on the NBIL (National Bibliography of Indian Languages)
database. Bibliometric studies such as literature growth study, authorship pattern, language
distribution and document type and subject dispersion are reported. Literature growth study
emphasis tremendous growth during 1946 to 1953. The authorship pattern analysis results that
Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu had contributed the most and is 4.36% among the 1147 publications. Tamil is
the most predominating language reported from language dispersion study and moreover, it is found
that 77.50% Tamil documents are microfilmed. Documents on philosophy and religion are given first
preference followed by history, biography and travel.
Keywords: Tamil literature; Ancient Tamil Literature – growth analysis; Bibliometric analysis, NBIL-
bibliometric analysis, Digital South Asia Library – bibliometric analysis
Introduction
Tamil is one of the most classical and ancient South Indian Languages. In ancient times, the assembly
or academy of most leaned men of Tamil land was called “Sangam” and the literature produced from
these assemblies is known as the “Sangam literature”1. The National Bibliography of Indian Literature
(NBIL) is a selective bibliography with a compilation of works "of literary merit, and important and
significant books on Philosophy, Religion, History and the other aspects of the Humanities". The
Bibliography covers the period from 1901-19532.
Objectives
Egghe defined bibliometrics as the quantitative study of any literature as they are reflected in
bibliographies. Thus bibliometrics may be generalized as a study of the quantitative analysis of the
characteristics, behavior and productivity of all aspects of written communications. The objective of
this study is to apply bibliometric techniques on the Tamil literature available from Digital South Asia
Library’s NBIL, since DSA’s NBIL is a freely available bibliography in the internet. This bibliography
is widely used by many Tamil scholars and researchers and therefore a study on this database is a
valuable one which can exploit the characteristics of ancient digital Tamil literature provided by NBIL.
1
http://www.culturopedia.com/Literature/tamil_literature.html
2
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/nbil.py
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3. Significance of the study
The literature from Digital South Asia Library’s NBIL is used as the bibliographic source database for
this study since it is freely available and covers nearly 56,000 titles with imprints prior to 1954 in 22
Indian languages. This is the apt bibliographic database for analysis of ancient Tamil literature from
1901 to 1953.
Research Methodology
The NBIL is searched for “tamil” (not case sensitive) in the subject search strategy and retrieved 1218
hits. The retrieved data is processed using MS-Word and MS-Excel.
Literature Growth Study
One of the important aspects in bibliometric study is the prediction of the pattern of growth of
literature3. Figure 1 depicts actual growth of Tamil literature.
Figure 1. Actual Growth of Tamil Literature (1886 to 1958)
3
Jeyaseeli, P. Clara. Growth Pattern Analysis no Ascidians Literature: A Scientometric Study (1998 to 2008).
Journal of Library, Information and communication Technology, 2(1-4):51-59 (2010).
25

4. From Table 1, it is clear that 698 publications were authored during the top 8 years and the remaining
520 publications were authored from 1886 to 1958. The top 8 years productivity was 57.31 percentages
when compared with the remaining 42.69 percentage. The years 1946 to 1953 were the most
productive years and among them 1953 stands first with 127 publications. The linear trend calculates
to 0.852x - 8.684.
Authorship Pattern
The kind of authors, nature and degree of collaboration among the authors are dealt in authorship
pattern studies4. Table 2 depicts the list of authors who had produced more than 10 publications.
From Table 2, it is inferred that 13 authors had contributed 10 to 50 publications. Out of 1218 records,
71 records don’t have statement of responsibility. Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu had contributed the most
4
Mahapatra, Gayatri, Bibliometric Studies: in the internet era, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Indiana Publishing House,
2009), 78.
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5. and is 4.36% among the 1147 publications. The difference between the second ranking author and up
to thirteenth ranking author is not quite high. The 277 publications were authored by 13 authors
calculating to 24.15%. The others had contributed one to seven publications and reached 75.85 %
which is high.
Language dispersion
The language of the document is one of the most important factors in bibliometric studies, since the
references cited by the authors depend upon the language of the documents. If the authors don’t
know a language, then the citations for these documents are not made. Of course there are some
percentage of publications published in regional languages may contain ideas on the subject and
referred by the authors. Table 3 explores the usage of languages in the ancient Tamil literature.
Tamil ranks first to a maximum of 90.23% and the rest of the languages occupy 9.77%. The Pie
diagram shows rest 119 publications’ language distribution. Sanskrit follows the second rank
followed by bilingual language Sanskrit and Tamil as third. English language ranks fourth position.
Document Type
Microforms may be of any form namely films or paper containing micro reproductions (reduced to
about 25 times of size) of documents for storage, retrieval, transmission, and printing. In Digital South
Asia Library, the NBIL microfilms the Indian publications under the Microfilming of Indian
Publications Project (MIPP)5. The Government of India has approved a project, originally proposed
by the National Library in Calcutta for the Preservation of Early Twentieth-Century South Asian
5
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/nbil/aboutmipp.html
27

6. Books. Microfilming of Indian Publications Project (MIPP) is preserving and making accessible all
55,992 books listed in The National Bibliography of Indian Literature: 1901-1953 (NBIL) together with
the pre-1954 titles in the NBIL supplement. In this analysis, out of 1218 documents, 944 documents
are microfilmed which accounts to 77.50%. This is an appreciable mode of digital preservation for
reference.
Subject Dispersion Study
Subject dispersion study is one of the useful bibliometric study to know about the concentration of
subject areas of documents. It is also useful for the funding agencies to disburse the grant based on
the strong subject areas and also to enhance research in the needy and weaker areas. Table 4 tabulates
the subject dispersion of Tamil literature from NBIL. The retrieved 1218 documents are categorized
under 615 subject headings.
Since it is too lengthy to display all the 615 subject areas, the top 15 ranking subject areas are displayed
in Table 4. Here the number of subject areas is greater than the number of documents analyzed. This
is because; one document may belong to more than one subject area. Therefore, while consolidating
the subject areas, it is found that 5.61% of documents fall under philosophy and religion subject
keyword followed by History, biography and travel (4.07%).
Conclusion
The growth of the Tamil literature analyzed highlights that productivity reached its peak during 1946
to 1953. There exist ups and down during the growth. The authorship pattern study shows that
Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu had contributed the most and is 4.36% among the 1147 publications.
Collaborative authorship pattern did not exist and confirms only single author contribution. But there
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7. exist translators and editors, but authorship pattern determines solo authorship dominance during
this period of study.
The language dispersion analysis resulted that Tamil is the most predominant language and nearly
77.50% of documents are microfilmed. Philosophy and religion subject areas were given first
preference followed by History, biography and travel.
Since Tamil is one of the most ancient and classical literature, NBIL concentrates from 1901 to 1954, the
national policy may be framed to digitize almost all the Tamil literature documents which in turn
results in reducing unemployment and provides a wealthy literature output for the future generation.
Uniformity in transliteration and subject term specification may be given due priority to increase
precision in NBIL.
Reference
http://www.culturopedia.com/Literature/tamil_literature.html
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/nbil.py
Jeyaseeli, P. Clara. Growth Pattern Analysis no Ascidians Literature: A Scientometric Study
(1998 to 2008). Journal of Library, Information and communicationTechnology, 2(1-4):51-59 (2010).
Mahapatra, Gayatri, Bibliometric Studies: in the internet era, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Indiana
Publishing House, 2009), 78.
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/nbil/aboutmipp.html
29