The literature of academic libraries: An analysis

Abstract

Like all literature, the literature of academic libraries exhibits certain characteristics with regard to source journals and related subjects. Citations within this literature are distributed according to format of material, age, journals and individuals cited. The present study uses the ERIC database on compact disc to investigate these characteristics. Among the findings is the realization that the citations are primarily to journals and that both authorship of articles and citations to individuals are quite dispersed. Also, while there is some evidence of interdisciplinarity, this aspect of the literature is not very well developed.