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Exploring the topic hierarchy of digital library research in China using keyword networks: a K-core decomposition approach

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Abstract

Exploring the topic hierarchy of a research field can help us better recognize its intellectual structure. This paper proposes a new method to automatically discover the topic hierarchy, in which the keyword network is constructed to represent topics and their relations, and then decomposed hierarchically into shells using the K-core decomposition method. Adjacent shells with similar morphology are merged into layers according to their density and clustering coefficient. In the keyword network of the digital library field in China, we discover four different layers. The basic layer contains 17 tightly-interconnected core concepts which form the knowledge base of the field. The middle layer contains 13 mediator concepts which are directly connected to technology concepts in the basic layer, showing the knowledge evolution of the field. The detail layer contains 65 concrete concepts which can be grouped into 13 clusters, indicating the research specializations of the field. The marginal layer contains peripheral or isolated concepts.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Major Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China (12&ZD221), the Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (71273125), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 30916013101). The authors are grateful to anonymous referees and editors for their invaluable and insightful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210046, China

    Lu Xiao & Jianjun Sun

  2. Department of Information Management, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China

    Guo Chen & Chengzhi Zhang

  3. School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Shuguang Han

Authors
  1. Lu Xiao
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  2. Guo Chen
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  3. Jianjun Sun
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  4. Shuguang Han
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  5. Chengzhi Zhang
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Correspondence to Guo Chen.

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Xiao, L., Chen, G., Sun, J. et al. Exploring the topic hierarchy of digital library research in China using keyword networks: a K-core decomposition approach. Scientometrics 108, 1085–1101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2051-x

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