Serials use in post graduates’ dissertations of pharmaceutical sciences: collection building by citation analysis

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims to analyze the resources used in the citations of 156 postgraduate dissertations submitted to the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) through the Acharya & BM Reddy College of Pharmacy (ABMRCP), and prepares the core journal list according to the Bradford’s law of scattering. For any research and academic institutional libraries, books and journals are considered as key resources. As the resources are more and diverse, collection building is a tough task for librarians. Citation analysis is one of the best methods to list the most used resources by the users. The paper highlights the extent use of in-house resources and open access journals in the citations. Design/methodology/approach – Citations of PG dissertations during 2010-2013 (four years) were compiled, the data about the resources cited in each were taken and the list of resources used in PG dissertations was prepared. The list of core journals obtained by citation analysis was matched with the list of online journals provided by Health Science Library & Information Network (HELINET) of RGUHS as well as print list of journals subscribed by ABMRCP Library, and evaluated the print and online consortia journals used by ABMRCP community. The list of core journals’ ranking in the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) list-pharmaceutical sciences was identified to know the impact of the journals. Findings – The study gives the list of different information resources cited in the pharmacy dissertations. The core list obtained by applying the Bradford’s law of scattering in this study has 19 journals pertaining to pharmacy. After matching the core list with the Keogh’s list, it is found that 31 journals can be considered very useful in the field of pharmacy. Twelve journals listed in the core list have different positions in the SJR ranking 2013. The results indicate that open-access journals with online journals subscribed through HELINET and print holdings have been cited more in the PG dissertations. Originality/value – The topic of journal use in this case may be of greatest interest to those who purchase journals in the sciences and, very specifically, the pharmaceutical sciences.

Bibliometric Analysis and Comparison of Two STEM LIS Journals:Science & Technology LibrariesandIssues in Science & Technology Librarianship(2005–2014)

“…Their findings suggested that journals are the primary source of information used by LIS researchers, followed by web resources. In the same vein, Nagaraja (2015) analyzed the bibliographies of postgraduate dissertations for collection development purposes. Keogh (2012) examined the theses and dissertations of graduate students in the College of Pharmacy for collection development purposes.…”

Formulating a Pharmacy Collection without a Prescription

“…13 Keogh suggests analyzing local pharmacy theses and dissertations to create core lists of frequently used journals and monographs, which can be added to strengthen an existing collection. 14 Nagaraja and Prashanth (2015) also applied citation analysis and Bradford's law of scattering to their local pharmaceutical science dissertations to develop core journal lists, which they then refined through analysis of their SCImago Journal & Country Ranks and comparison with Keogh's list. 15,16 Flannery offers a guide for collecting retrospective pharmacy materials to build a collection that showcases the history of the discipline, and mentions the use of recommended title lists from professional and academic organizations in the discipline.…”

Citations and Citation Metrics in a Serial Assessment Using Master's Theses

“…Accordingly, a set of citations sorted in diminishing citation count order by serial title and divided into three zones representing approximately equal numbers of citations, will be represented by exponentially increasing numbers of serials. Two recent studies investigated adherence to Bradford's Law (Keogh 2012;Nagaraja and Prashanth 2015).…”