Are Special Issues that Special? Distinctiveness and Impact of Special Issues in LIS Journals

Whether as periodical conference spinoffs or extraordinary journal digressions, Special Issues, are a common yet unexplored area of scholarly communication. In this research, content and citation analysis of Special Issues in Library & Information Science Journals indexed in the Web of Science shows that special issues are distinct from regular issues “contentwise”, yet indiscernible “citationwise”, thus leaving their existence and persistence unexplained from a publisher’s economic perspective.

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