A longitudinal investigation into the changing citing behavior of geomatics postgraduate students at Wuhan University, China, 1988–2004: Implications for collection development
✍ Scribed by Shi-Jian Gao; Wang-Zhi Yu; Berenika M. Webster
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2007
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 243 KB
- Volume
- 31
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1464-9055
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Aim:
The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the citing behavior of geomatics postgraduate students at the Wuhan University in China. These students constitute one of the main user groups of Wuhan University Library and the analysis of their use of literature (through the means of citation analysis) can yield valuable insights against which to benchmark and inform collection development policy and other services at the Information Technology Library (ITL) at Wuhan University. Design/methodology/approach: In this project, 9317 citations in 21 PhD and 180 MSc theses submitted at the Wuhan University in the years of 1988, 1996, and 2004 were analyzed. All cited materials were divided by output format (monographs, proceedings, journal articles) and the more indepth analysis was conducted for all cited journals. The following characteristics of the cited journal literature were analyzed: subject, age, language, and dispersion of journal titles. Findings: An increased use of journal literature in bibliographies of geomatics theses was observed over time. A trend to increase citations to international conference proceedings was also noted as well as a trend to cite more journals in disciplines other than surveying and mapping. It was also noted that, over time, citations to documents in languages other than Chinese and English have significantly decreased (in some cases, disappeared). Large dispersion among the most frequently cited journals in different time periods (only 25% of titles were repeated in 1988, 1996, and 2004 top ranking journal