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Identifying the research focus of Library and Information Science institutions in China with institution-specific keywords

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Abstract

In order to distinguish the research focus between different Library and Information Science (LIS) research institutions in China, we use the Keyword Activity Index (KAI) to identify their institution-specific keywords. The KAI, whose idea is borrowed from the Activity Index, measures whether an institution has alternatively comparative advantage in a particular topic according to its share in publications. In this study, a total of 65,653 papers from 19 core LIS journals in China during the period of 2000–2013 are collected. The top 8 most prolific LIS research institutions in China are selected for further investigation of the utility of KAI. Their institution-specific keywords are extracted based on the KAI values to represent their research focus and then clustered using co-word analysis; the research advantages of each institution are analyzed and compared according to these clusters. The reasons of their research advantages are analyzed based on their research function and research background.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to anonymous referees and editors for their invaluable and insightful comments. This study is supported by the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71273197), the project of the National Social Science Fund for Youth of China (No. 14CTQ042), and the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (13YJC870008). The authors would like to give special thanks to Dr. Shuguang Han (University of Pittsburgh) for his valuable comments and editorial help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Studies of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of China

    Guo Chen, Lu Xiao & Chang-ping Hu

  2. Humanities and Communications College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234, People’s Republic of China

    Xue-qin Zhao

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  1. Guo Chen
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  2. Lu Xiao
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  3. Chang-ping Hu
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  4. Xue-qin Zhao
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Correspondence to Lu Xiao.

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Chen, G., Xiao, L., Hu, Cp. et al. Identifying the research focus of Library and Information Science institutions in China with institution-specific keywords. Scientometrics 103, 707–724 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1545-2

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