Citation Analysis of Library and Information Science research output for collection development

The purpose of this paper was to provide useful indicators for library LIS collection development in order to better serve its user community. Core journals utilized by LIS academic researchers in Sri Lanka were identified via the application of Bradford’s law of scattering to the Journal of the University Librarians Association (JULA) of Sri Lanka. This study analyzes 46 articles containing 803 citations, published in the open access Journal of the University Librarians Association (JULA) during 2010-2015. The most cited format was determined, and a ranked list of core journals was prepared employing the Bradford’s law. Journals were revealed to be the most frequently cited format, which accounted for 51.31% of all citations. Data sets were fit with the Leimkuhler model of the Bradford’s law. Thirteen journals were identified as belonging to the most productive nucleus of journals cited by articles in the Journal of the University Librarians Association (JULA) . In the ranked list of core journals, “ The Journal of Academic Librarianship ” was ranked as first. The chronological distribution of cited material revealed that LIS researchers had mostly used materials published within 2001-2010 time period. Further, the categorization of articles into subject domains within LIS showed that most studies were conducted within the field of “information seeking”. This paper provides useful insights for librarians in LIS collection development of libraries in Sri Lanka.