This scientometrics study aims to contribute to the library field through the analysis of references used in the papers published in the Páginas a&b: arquivos e bibliotecas journal between 2016 and 2020. To this end, all papers on this topic were collected, as well as their bibliographic references. Scientometric procedures were adopted in the data analysis, which focused mainly on identifying the most cited authors, the currentness of the references, the language, and their typologies. It was found that the researchers cited mostly Brazilian authors, prioritizing the paper and book typologies published from the 21st century onwards, and as for the language, the preference was for the Portuguese language. With this study, it is expected to draw a profile of renowned authors in the area, to guide future researchers and readers on the dynamics of knowledge construction, as well as knowing the informational behavior of researchers.
firstly of postgraduate courses and later of masters and doctorates degrees, made the area grow in
hereinafter called Páginas a&b. Founded within the University of Porto, it is currently edited by
2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
addressed being the thematic trend of doctoral theses. The authors concluded that the themes of the
theses include three main themes: “Use and sociology of information”; “Libraries as physical
collections”, and "Information sources, supports, and channels" [
knowledge is constructed by the scientific community [
topic and intend to answer the following questions: Who are the key authors? Are the citations current?
the language of the references?
In order to answer these questions, a first bibliometric study was carried out and presented at the 12th Luso-Brazilian Conference on Open Science (ConfOA 2021) and, subsequently, the article was published in the journal Páginas a&b (in press article). From this analysis, it was concluded that the most discussed research topic in the Páginas a&b journal, between the years 2016-2020, was “Library”, which appeared in 29 articles. Bibliographic references were extracted from these articles, which were organized and treated in an Excel sheet with the following fields: the complete reference, name of the author(s), year of publication, typology, theme(s), language, and co-authorship.
With regard to the analysis, the following options were adopted: ● author(s): for scientometric analysis, it was selected only the authors cited five or more times; ● year of publication: references were grouped by decades (e.g., an article published in 1989 entered in 1981-1990 group); ● typology: classified and grouped into categories (e.g., the article typology includes journal papers, pre-print, working paper, opening note, etc., iconographic includes photography, slides, folder, leaflet, booklet, script, etc.); ● theme(s): the keywords of the titles were used to classify the references within a theme (e.g., the library topic includes typology, such as university library, public library, school library, and others.); ● co-authorship: presents the total number of authors of the bibliographic reference.
● references from countries and cities as authors (e.g., Brazil, Portugal, and Lisbon), due to the documents referred to national/state legislation and official documents; ● references from the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève as it is a case study of the library itself, whose references are based on its documents.
The year in which there were more publications on the topic was 2017 with 8 articles (5 empirical
studies and 3 theoretical studies), followed by 2020 with 7 articles (5 empirical studies and 2 theoretical
studies) and, consequently, were the years with the most bibliographical references (242 and 166
references, respectively). In the total of 5 years of collection, 23 empirical studies were counted, which
means, case studies that took place in certain environments and contexts [
bibliographical references, which were grouped by typology. Thus, the widely used typologies, with more than 200 references each, were scientific articles (32%) and books (29%), and with less than 100 references each, followed by proceedings (10%) and book chapters (8%). Also noteworthy is the use of typologies such as censuses, legislation, research instruments, etc., as primary sources of information.
and French (3%). It is worthy to mention that many references are translations into Portuguese, despite the original language being mostly English. This reveals that researchers choose to read literature produced in Portuguese and translate it into this same language, instead of opting for the original material. In the single article written in Spanish, it is noted that there was a 50-50 in the bibliographic references for Spanish and English.
and 2020. The remaining 169 were mostly published in the 1990s. It appears that the authors chose to cite current bibliographic references, following the most recent writings on the subject they studied.
However, 11 references published before the 20th century were cited. The oldest reference refers to the charter of the province of Santa Maria da Arrábida of the Order of Friars Minor, from the year 1698, used in the paper about the bookshop of the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Serra da Arrábida, a historical study. Also, it is remarkable the use of an 1898 article on the citation patterns of doctoral students from the Department of Geology of the University of Helsinki, Finland, as a reference for an article on the citation pattern of master's degree students. It was not possible to understand the use of this reference due to the very specific context and age of its publication.
articles under analysis, their research themes, the way they publish, either single or in co-authorship, and the frequency with which they were referenced. Table 2 shows the top 14 of the most cited authors.
(International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), Oswaldo Francisco de Almeida
network society librarianship; archival science; education; management; organizational behavior scientific research methodology school library; public library;
referral service school library; informational behavior
library collection management and development; university library; legal collection; quality
management mediation of information; information science; librarian
document; information; communication; mediation of information; information science collection development; public library; electronic information;
material selection university library; collection development; knowledge organization; electronic document; information selection
Single author 5
Coauthorship
3 3 5 1 2 1 5 6 4 2 5 1 1 3 1 3 16 2 3 1
IFLA’s most cited documents are co-authorship with UNESCO and are publications about library
and library services. IFLA is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization, founded
in 1927 in Scotland [
information competence and information mediation were cited in 3 articles and were cited 8 times.
experience in the field of Information Science, with an emphasis on Information and Society, working mainly on the following topics: Information and Society, Information Mediation, Reference and
references, the author publishes primarily in Portuguese and as a single author. But some references are
co-authored, and those were mostly published with authors such Camila Araújo dos Santos [
in Brazil and develop studies in the field of Information Science as well.
research methods mainly in the Social Science field [17]. Accordingly, with a simple search in Google
conceptualization or understanding of the context and services they provide, IFLAs documents would be the main reference to be consulted. However, when the topic in discussion is about information mediation, the authors of the articles under analysis preferred to use Professor Almeida Júnior, either because he writes mostly in Portuguese, and in co-authorship with renowned authors, but also because he is a researcher with high know-how in his field of study.
self-citation was not a forbidden practice, it is not recommended, as mentioned by Almeida and Cardoso [19], since citation metrics become an instrument to measure the impact factor of the scientific paper and also of the scientist itself. If you, as a scientist, have more citations, your paper is probably more relevant, so self-citation would mislead the researchers to consult your article.
published articles, that the authors prefer empirical studies, and even though the journal is Portuguese, most are case studies in Brazil. It is also noted the predilection of the authors to publish and references in Portuguese and translated into it. Still, regarding the citations, it is observed that 77% of the references were published after the year 2000, denoting the preference for the most recent citations.
justification for their use. As for the most used typology, it is interesting to note that 39% of the references are papers, with 29% used books and 10% of the references are proceedings.
Regarding the analysis of bibliographic references, it was concluded that the most cited authors are of Brazilian nationality and that the most cited author is, in fact, the international institution on libraries (IFLA), which publishes in co-authorship with UNESCO. This institution is considered a worldwide reference, whose manifestos influence the consolidation and conceptualization of the library and its practices. Furthermore, it is worthy of mention that one of the most cited authors is about scientific methodology, denoting that the authors of Social Science appreciate the application of the scientific method in their research. Finally, the use of self-citation is highlighted, which is an academic practice that should be avoided.
magazine between 2016 and 2020. However, it is part of a more comprehensive work in progress that aims to study research practices in the field of Information Science in Brazil and Portugal. Some of these results have already been presented at the CONFOA congress and published in the Páginas a&b journal.
theme of the library in Portugal, extending this study to more Portuguese scientific journals and research results in the area such as master's dissertations and doctoral theses. Another suggestion would be a comparative study between research practices with other European Union countries and with other contexts.
In a nutshell, it is expected that this study will help to understand the informational behavior and the information sources used by researchers who publish about the library in Portugal, as well as to draw a profile of renowned authors in the field of libraries, in order to guide future authors and readers as to the dynamics of knowledge construction. Furthermore, we believe that this study can help the library community to understand behaviors, map the practices and develop more assertive and directed services to its users.
[16] Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, João Arlindo dos Santos Neto, 2021. URL: http://lattes.cnpq.br/9296179246118904. [17] Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Antônio Carlos Gil, 2021.
URL: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7344947550918228. [18] Google Scholar, Antônio Carlos Gil, 2021. URL: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=pt
PT&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Ant%C3%B4nio+Carlos+Gil&btnG=. [19] P. de Almeida; S. Cardoso, A Ciência Aberta o contributo da Ciência da Informação: proceedings of the 8th Iberian Congress EDICIC, M. M. Borges, E. S. Casado (Ed.), Portugal, 2017, pp. 389400.