Forecasting the future of library and information science and its sub-fields

Area of Science:

• Library and Information Science (LIS)
• Bibliometrics
• Scientometrics

Background:

• Forecasting is a common method in LIS for predicting trends.
• Understanding historical publication and citation patterns is crucial for future LIS development.
• LIS encompasses diverse sub-fields with unique research trajectories.

Purpose of the Study:

• To forecast the future of the Library and Information Science (LIS) field and its sub-fields.
• To analyze 97 years of publication and citation patterns within LIS.
• To identify emerging research themes and understand the impact of research culture.

Main Methods:

• Time series analysis of 123,742 articles from Web of Science core indexes.
• Social network analysis for sub-field classification.
• Identification of four distinct LIS sub-fields: librarianship/law, health information, scientometrics/information retrieval, and management/information systems.

Main Results:

• LIS sub-fields exhibit distinct publication and citation patterns and dynamics.
• Significant future increases in LIS publications, references, and citations are expected.
• Emerging research topics include fake news, predatory journals, open government, e-learning, and electronic health records.

Conclusions:

• The LIS field is characterized by diverse sub-fields with unique dynamics.
• Future LIS research will see increased collaboration and a wider range of topics.
• The 'publish or perish' culture heavily influences the field, necessitating a focus beyond mere quantitative metrics in research policy development.