This document presents a scientometric analysis of literature related to digital libraries from 2003 to 2012, highlighting trends, publication patterns, and the significance of literature in this field. It examines various factors such as geographical and institutional distribution, authorship patterns, and citation metrics, revealing key insights about the development and accessibility of digital library resources. The findings indicate a growing global interest in digital libraries, with significant contributions from several countries and institutions.

1. Digital Library Literature:
A Scientometric Analysis
Nabi Hasan (IIT Delhi)
hasan@library.iitd.ac.in
&
Mukhtiar Singh (CSIR-IHBT, Palampur)
msingh@ihbt.res.in

2. AGENDA
 Digital Library?
 Why Digital Library?
 Development of Digital Libraries & Need of the Study?
 Significance of Literature
 Objectives of the Study
 Materials and Methods
 Results and Discussion
 Findings and Conclusion

3. DIGITAL LIBRARY
Digital Library is where the past meets the present and creates the future – Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
ICDL-2004
 A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital
formats and accessible electronically. The digital contents may be
stored locally or hosted on clouds or accessed remotely via computer
networks
 Different terms like virtual library, electronic library, and library
without walls are in use to represent digital library
 Users of library have also changed, they prefer to visit the library
online and not physically
 Librarians may discover that “Libraries without walls” are actually only
libraries with new walls – technologically bounded, legally restricted
and administratively hamstrung
 The real goal of the digital library remains the same as that of
traditional library that is to collect, preserve information resources,
organize and make them accessible to the users

4. WHY DIGITAL LIBRARY?
Digital library technology is becoming an essential enabler of library
services. The digital library network within the users’ community saves a
lot of access time and energy of both the users and the library or
information personnel.














No physical boundary
Round the clock availability
Multiple access
Preservation and conservation
Solves space problem
Networking
Optimal use of ICT environment
Structured approach
Ability to deal with large data sets
On-line learning environment
Wider range of materials
Access to latest information
Faster information retrieval
Lower maintenance and cost effective, etc.

5. DEVELOPMENTS OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES vis-à-vis NEED
OF THE STUDY
 The new environment is really challenging one for the librarians
and any one who has access to the network of digital libraries
can be a publisher by merely posting messages to an online
discussion group or by other means. A virtual environment is
really open for all
 With continued improvements in book handling and
presentation technologies such as optical character
recognition and eBooks, and development of alternative
depositories and business models, digital libraries are rapidly
growing in popularity as demonstrated by Google, Yahoo!, and
MSN's efforts
 Just as libraries have ventured into audio and video
collections, so have digital libraries such as the Internet
Archive
 This is leading to lot of published literature on Digital Libraries
and Need to have bibliographic control of the Literature

6. SIGNIFICANCE OF LITERATURE
 Literature provides knowledge
 Literature builds experience
 Literature provides base for further developments and Research
 Literature secure historical developments of a subject
 Literature develops thinking skills

7. OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this study is to quantify the trend of world
literature on “digital library” and to make the scientometric
assessment of the status of research by way of analyzing the
following features of publications of the study period (2003-2012):










Annual output of publications on digital library
Geographical distribution of publications
Authorship pattern and Prolific authors
Institutional distribution
Form-wise distribution
Language-wise distribution
International collaboration
Subject dispersion
Citation pattern
Cited references pattern, etc.

8. MATERIALS AND METHODS
 WOS-Science Citation Index database was used for the study
 WOS subject category - ‘Information & Library Science’
 Data restricted by search within ‘digital librar*’
 Period restricted to - 2003-2012
 A total of 33,227 records retrieved
 Callout 1,733 publications “digital library”
 Text data downloaded as notepad files
 Microsoft’s Excel used for final analyses

9. Search Interface of WOS

10. PUBLICATIONS ON INFORMATION AND LIBRARY SCIENCE
DURING 2003-12
Yr. 2012
2624
Yr. 2011
2647
2866
Yr. 2010
3324
Yr. 2009
5754
Yr. 2008
5371
Yr. 2007
Yr. 2006
2668
Yr. 2005
2701
2601
Yr. 2004
2671
Yr. 2003
0
1000
2000
3000
Total – 33,227
4000
5000
6000

11. ANNUAL OUTPUT OF PUBLICATIONS ON DIGITAL
LIBRARY DURING 2003-12
Total – 1,733

12. TREND OF PUBLICATION OUTPUT DURING 2003-2012
Year
No. of
publications
% age
Change in no. of
publications
% change over year
2003
152
8.77
0
0.00
2004
220
12.70
68
3.92
2005
228
13.16
8
0.46
2006
259
14.95
31
1.79
2007
267
15.41
8
0.46
2008
169
9.75
-98
-5.65
2009
100
5.77
-69
-3.98
2010
137
7.91
37
2.14
2011
129
7.44
-8
-0.46
2012
72
4.16
-57
-3.29

13. MAJOR COUNTRIES OF PUBLICATIONS ON INFORMATION AND
LIBRARY SCIENCE DURING 2003-12
USA
9729
29.28%
China
3320
9.99%
UK
2295
6.91%
Germany
1064
3.20%
Canada
1062
3.20%
Spain
910
2.74%
Australia
839
2.53%
Netherlands
822
2.47%
Taiwan
742
2.23%
Italy
737
2.22%
France
556
1.67%
South Korea
486
1.46%
Belgium
461
1.39%
Japan
461
1.39%
India
408
1.23%
South Africa
402
1.21%
Finland
393
1.18%
Singapore
385
1.16%
Total contributing countries-70

14. HIGHEST CONTRIBUTING COUNTRIES ON DIGITAL LIBRARY
Country
USA
UK
Italy
Germany
New Zealand
Canada
China
India
Singapore
Taiwan
Greece
Spain
South Africa
Scotland
Brazil
Australia
Japan
France
Netherlands
Wales
No. of publications
% age
669
146
80
70
58
51
50
39
37
36
34
33
30
29
28
26
25
24
21
19
38.60
8.43
4.62
4.04
3.35
2.94
2.89
2.25
2.14
2.08
1.96
1.90
1.73
1.67
1.62
1.50
1.44
1.39
1.21
1.10
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

15. AUTHORSHIP PATTERN IN PUBLICATIONS ON DIGITAL LIBRARY
No. of authors
No. of
publications
% age
Total authors
% age
1
521
30.06
521
11.04
2
444
25.62
888
18.82
3
328
18.93
984
20.86
4
193
11.14
772
16.36
5
115
6.64
575
12.19
6
53
3.06
318
6.74
7
38
2.19
266
5.64
8
15
0.87
120
2.54
9
10
0.58
90
1.91
10
5
0.29
50
1.06
11
4
0.23
44
0.93
12
3
0.17
36
0.76
13
2
0.12
26
0.55
14
2
0.12
28
0.59

16. MOST PROLIFIC AUTHORS
No. of
publications
% age
Rank
Virginia Tech, USA
38
2.19
1
Goncalves, MA
Universidade Federal de Minas
Gerais, Brazil
27
1.56
2
Bainbridge, D
University Waikato, New Zealand
21
1.21
3
Witten, IH
University Waikato, New Zealand
17
0.98
4
Laender, AHF
Universidade Federal de Minas
Gerais, Brazil
15
0.87
5
Blandford, A
University College, London, UK
14
0.81
6
Buchanan, G
City University London, UK
14
0.81
6
Giles, CL
Pennsylvania State University, USA
14
0.81
6
Sumner, T
University of Colorado, USA
14
0.81
6
Castelli, D
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
(CNR), Italy
13
0.75
7
Fan, WG
Virginia Tech, USA
13
0.75
7
Furuta, R
Texas A&M University, USA
13
0.75
7
Author
Institution
Fox, EA
1,212 publications have two+ authors

17. Shiri, A
University of Alberta, Canada
13
0.75
7
Theng, YL
Nanyang Technol Univ, Singapore
13
0.75
7
Borbinha, J
Universidade Técnica de Lisboa,
Portugal
12
0.69
8
Lim, EP
Nanyang Technology University,
Singapore
12
0.69
8
Bollen, J
Los Alamos National Lab, USA
11
0.64
9
11
0.64
9
Cunningham, SJ University of Waikato, New Zealand
Goh, DHL
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore
11
0.64
9
Nicholas, D
University College, London, UK
11
0.64
9
Shen, R
Virginia Tech, USA
11
0.64
9
Van De Sompel,
H
Los Alamos National Lab, USA
11
0.64
9
Ferro, N
University Padua, Italy
10
0.58
10
Huntington, P
University College, London, England
10
0.58
10

18. TOP TEN PROLIFIC INSTITUTIONS
Name of organization
No. of
publications
University of California
% age
Rank
49
2.83
1
University of London
36
2.08
2
University of Waikato
32
1.85
3
Virginia Tech
31
1.79
4
University of Illinois System
30
1.73
5
Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher
Education
29
1.67
6
University College London
29
1.67
6
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
26
1.50
7
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
25
1.44
8
Nanyang Technological University
24
1.39
9
Pennsylvania State University
24
1.39
9
Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche (CNR)
21
1.21
10
University of Colorado
21
1.21
10
University of Padua
21
1.21
10

19. FORM-WISE DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLICATIONS ON
INFORMATION AND LIBRARY SCIENCE DURING 2003-12
Proceedings paper
15049
45.29%
Articles
12656
38.09%
Editorial material
2899
8.73%
Book reviews
1305
3.93%
News items
1066
3.21%
Letters
893
2.69%
Reviews
430
1.29%
Biographical items
179
0.54%
Corrections
138
0.42%
Meeting abstracts
133
0.40%
Software reviews
12
0.04%
Reprints
8
0.02%
Bibliography
2
0.01%

20. FORM-WISE DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLICATIONS ON DIGITAL
LIBRARY DURING 2003-12
Sr. No.
Form of publications
No. of publications
% age
1
Proceeding papers
1036
59.78
2
Articles
555
32.03
3
Book reviews
110
6.35
4
Reviews
15
0.87
5
Editorial material
8
0.46
6
Meeting abstracts
5
0.29
7
News items
3
0.17
8
Corrections
1
0.06

21. TOP SOURCES PREFERRED FOR PUBLICATIONS DURING 2003-12
No. of
publications
Sr. No. Name of the Source
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Research and Advanced Technology for Digital
Libraries
Program - Electronic Library and Information
Systems
Online Information Review
Journal of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology
Research and Advanced Technology for Digital
Libraries Proceedings
JCDL 2004: Proceedings of the Fourth ACM IEEE
Joint Conference on Digital Libraries
Proceedings of the 5th ACM IEEE Joint Conference
on Digital Libraries Proceedings
Opening Information Horizons
Proceedings of the 7th ACM IEE Joint Conference
on Digital Libraries
Total sources used-143
% age
362
20.89
155
8.94
131
7.56
108
6.23
93
5.37
84
4.85
79
4.56
77
4.44
72
4.16
71
4.10

22. LANGUAGE-WISE PUBLICATIONS ON INFORMATION AND LIBRARY
SCIENCE DURING 2003-12
English
32998
Chinese
77
French
70
Russian
33
Japanese
28
Dutch
9
Spanish
7
Czech
1
Estonian
1
German
1
Portuguese
1
Romanian
1
Welsh
1

23. LANGUAGE-WISE DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLICATIONS ON
DIGITAL LIBRARY
Language
No. of papers
% age
English
1707
98.50
Chinese
9
0.52
Russian
9
0.52
Japanese
7
0.40
Spanish
1
0.06

24. COLLABORATION STATUS OF TOP 10 CONTRIBUTING
COUNTRIES ON DIGITAL LIBRARY
Total publications
Publications in
collaboration
% age of
collaboration
USA
669
51
7.62
UK
146
36
24.66
Italy
80
6
7.50
Germany
70
14
20.00
New Zealand
58
2
3.45
Canada
51
11
21.57
China
50
3
6.00
India
39
4
10.26
Singapore
37
3
8.11
Taiwan
36
0
0.00
Name of country

25. TOP SUBJECT AREAS FOR PUBLICATIONS ON
DIGITAL LIBRARY
Sr. No.
Subject Category
No. of publications
% age
1417
81.77
86
4.96
1
Computer Science
2
Engineering
3
Imaging Science Photographic
Technology
79
4.56
4
Business Economics
23
1.33
Education Educational Research
19
1.10
6
Social Sciences other Topics
14
0.81
7
Art
12
0.69
8
Astronomy Astrophysics
11
0.64
9
Social Issues
11
0.64
10
Material Science
9
0.52
5

26. RANGE AND CITATIONS RECEIVED BY PUBLICATIONS ON
DIGITAL LIBRARY
Citation
No. of
Citations
Nos. publications received
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
1041
243
125
81
44
28
30
18
15
18
11
5
11
5
2
7
3
3
6
0
243
250
243
176
140
180
126
120
162
110
55
132
65
28
105
48
51
108
% age
0
6.89
7.08
6.89
4.99
3.97
5.1
3.57
3.4
4.59
3.12
1.56
3.74
1.84
0.79
2.98
1.36
1.45
3.06
Citation
No. of
Citations
% age
nos.
publications received
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
27
28
30
32
35
38
52
53
60
61
81
113
4
4
5
3
1
2
2
2
1
1
2
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
76
80
105
66
23
48
50
54
28
30
64
105
38
52
53
60
61
81
113
2.15
2.27
2.98
1.87
0.65
1.36
1.42
1.53
0.79
0.85
1.81
2.98
1.08
1.47
1.5
1.7
1.73
2.3
3.2

27. CITATION STATUS OF PAPERS AS PER ITS TYPES
Publication type
No. of
publications
Citations
received
Publications with Zero citations
(% age)
Journal Articles
155
2295
196 (35.02)
Book Reviews
110
123
73(66.36)
15
29
7(46.67)
1036
1025
745(71.91)
Corrections
1
9
0(0.00)
Editorial Material
8
37
4(50.00)
Meeting Abstracts
5
3
4(80.00)
News Items
3
8
2(66.67)
Reviews
Proceeding Papers

28. STATUS OF REFERENCES CITED IN PUBLICATIONS
ON DIGITAL LIBRARY
No. of cited
references
No. of
publications
Total cited
references/
% age
No. of cited
references
No. of
publications
Total cited
references/
% age
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
190
214
62
156
72
100
66
89
70
190 (1.32)
428 (2.98)
186 (1.29)
624 (4.34)
360 (2.50)
600 (4.17)
462 (3.21)
712 (4.95)
630 (4.38)
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
24
24
27
14
15
12
8
9
8
384 (2.67)
408 (2.84)
486 (3.38)
266 (1.85)
300 (2.09)
252 (1.75)
176 (1.22)
207 (1.44)
192 (1.33)
10
11
170
82
1700 (11.82)
902 (6.27)
25
26
3
1
75 (0.52)
26 (0.18)
12
13
14
15
153
67
33
35
1836 (12.77)
871 (6.06)
462 (3.21)
525 (3.65)
27
28
29
30
5
3
3
18
135 (0.94)
84 (0.58)
87 (0.60)
817 (5.68)

29. CONCLUSION…
USA is the major contributor with 669 papers to its credit on the subject.
Growth of the literature on digital library showed discouraging trend during
2003-2012. Only 20 countries have contributed 86.84% of publications.
Top ten ranked authors contributed 20.14% publications on digital library.
Most productive institution was University of California by contributing 49
(2.83%) publications followed by the University of London with 36 (2.08%).
Proceeding papers amounted to 59.78% of the literature followed by journal
articles with 32.03% publications.
The most preferred source was the journal – Lecture Notes in Computer
Science with 362 (20.89%) papers followed by Research and Advanced
Technology for Digital Libraries with 155 (8.94%) publications.
English language dominated with 98.50% publications and other languages
like, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Spanish did also find place in
publications on digital library.

30. CONCLUSION
In UK, foreign collaborations were reported in 24.66% publications followed by New
Zealand with 21.57% collaborations in its publications and India collaborated in its
10.26% publications.
In categorization of publications, computer science was at first position with 81.77%
publications.
Publications in the form of journal articles received more citations than other types
of publications and publications in the form of proceeding papers received fewer
citations.
The study provides a base for researchers, institutions and policy makers to
initiate new research projects or studies in the area. It also makes researchers
aware regarding the growth of quality research literature of their interest in the
subject.
It helps in identifying highly productive countries and researchers in the area.
The study provides details of institutions and researchers working in specific
subject areas in the field of digital library.
The study may help policy makers to make effective policies related to digital
libraries.

31. Thanks for your kind cooperation & patience hearing
Nabi Hasan
Ph.D., Borlaug Fellow (Cornell University, USA)
hasan@library.iitd.ac.in
www.nabihasan.webs.com