JOURNAL LITERATURE OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY Analyses the references appended to three primary journals, one each from U.S.A., U.K., and India in the field of Food Science and Technology. Gives the main bibliographic forms used, a list of 62 core journals, their country of origin and the obsolescence. Brad- ford s law is applied to the literature of Food 2 Science. 1 lNTRODUCTION Food Technology is a subject of inter-discipli- nary nature. As a result the information is scattered over a large number of documents. In addition to this, there is a proliferation of literature due to accelerated research and development activities. Approximately 325 institu tions/organizations are engaged in re- search in the field of Food Science and Tech- nology all over the world[ 1]. Therefore, the availability of relevant information is an im- portant requirement in carrying out research, effectively and efficiently. A World Food Literature Survey conducted by Mann[2] showed that there were about 2,006 journals relevant to Food Science and Technology. The proliferation and also the volume of literature is also evident from the number of periodicals covered and the num- ber of abstracts included in Food Science and Technology Abstracts. The number of periodi- cals increased from 1,000 in 1969 to 1,700 in 1981 and correspondingly the number of abstracts increased from 11,980 to 17,581. From the above paragraphs, it can be in- ferred that, the scattering of information; the proliferation of journals and their rising 126 B.S. MAHESWARAPPA K. SURYA RAO Department of Library & Information Science Mysore University Manasa Gangotri, Mysore-570006 costs are some problems that the libtrarians must be facing in the process of acquisition of scientific publications as well as the purchase of back volumes of periodicals. Hence, there is a need for studies which help in the judi- cious collection development in libraries. OBJECTIVES The objectives of the study are to determine: (a) the main bibliographic forms; (b) the core journals; (c) the country of origin of the cited JOur- nals; (d) the obsolescence rate of literature; and (e) the applicability of Bradford's Law of Scattering to the Food Science Literature. 3 SOURCE JOURNALS The three primary journals VIZ., JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE (U.S.A.); JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (INDIA); and JOURNAL OF FOOD TECHNO- LOGY (U.K.) covering the period of six months from January-June 1980 have been scanned. 4 ANALYSIS Table 1 gives the analysis of the source journals including volume numbers, issue numbers, and the year. 'These three journals contain 270 citing articles which have cited 4,570 docu- ments with an overall average of 16.92 items per citing article. Ann Lib Sci Doc
Transcript
JOURNAL LITERATURE OF FOOD SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY: A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY
Analyses the references appended to threeprimary journals, one each from U.S.A., U.K.,and India in the field of Food Science andTechnology. Gives the main bibliographicforms used, a list of 62 core journals, theircountry of origin and the obsolescence. Brad-ford s law is applied to the literature of Food 2Science.
1 lNTRODUCTION
Food Technology is a subject of inter-discipli-nary nature. As a result the information isscattered over a large number of documents.In addition to this, there is a proliferation ofliterature due to accelerated research anddevelopment activities. Approximately 325institu tions/organizations are engaged in re-search in the field of Food Science and Tech-nology all over the world[ 1]. Therefore, theavailability of relevant information is an im-portant requirement in carrying out research,effectively and efficiently.
A World Food Literature Survey conductedby Mann[2] showed that there were about2,006 journals relevant to Food Science andTechnology. The proliferation and also thevolume of literature is also evident from thenumber of periodicals covered and the num-ber of abstracts included in Food Science andTechnology Abstracts. The number of periodi-cals increased from 1,000 in 1969 to 1,700in 1981 and correspondingly the number ofabstracts increased from 11,980 to 17,581.
From the above paragraphs, it can be in-ferred that, the scattering of information;the proliferation of journals and their rising
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B.S. MAHESWARAPPAK. SURYA RAODepartment of Library & Information ScienceMysore UniversityManasa Gangotri, Mysore-570006
costs are some problems that the libtrariansmust be facing in the process of acquisition ofscientific publications as well as the purchaseof back volumes of periodicals. Hence, thereis a need for studies which help in the judi-cious collection development in libraries.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the study are to determine:
(a) the main bibliographic forms;
(b) the core journals;
(c) the country of origin of the cited JOur-nals;
(d) the obsolescence rate of literature; and
(e) the applicability of Bradford's Law ofScattering to the Food Science Literature.
3 SOURCE JOURNALS
The three primary journals VIZ., JOURNALOF FOOD SCIENCE (U.S.A.); JOURNAL OFFOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY(INDIA); and JOURNAL OF FOOD TECHNO-LOGY (U.K.) covering the period of six monthsfrom January-June 1980 have been scanned.
4 ANALYSIS
Table 1 gives the analysis of the source journalsincluding volume numbers, issue numbers, andthe year. 'These three journals contain 270citing articles which have cited 4,570 docu-ments with an overall average of 16.92 itemsper citing article.
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JOURNAL LITERATURE OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Table 1: Distribution of Sourae Data
51. Jou rna I Ti tie Volume and Year Number of Number of AverageNo. issue Citing Cited
One of the objectives of the study was toidentify the different bibliographic forms ofthe literature used by the Food Scientists.Table 2 gives the different bibliographic formsof the cited literature. It reveals that 74.46%of the total citations account for periodicals
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only. Books are the second largest source ofinformation (14.55%). In other words, periodi-cals and books together meet 89.01% of thetotal information needs. Tile remaining 10.98%of the documents are in the form of confer-ence proceedings, reports, theses/dissertations,patents, preprints, standards and personalcommunications. From this, it is clear that the
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most frequently used of all the sources ofinformation are periodicals, strengthening thealready established universal belief concern-ing the literature use habits of scientists.
42 Rank list of Journals
After confirming that primary journals formthe major source (74.5%) of information, itIS desirable to carry out further analysis andstudies of journals. The frequency with whicha journal is cited is considered to be a measureof its productivity. Hence, journals cited not
less than ten times, whose number comesto 62, are listed in Table 3.
In the rank list the 'JOURNAL OF FOOl)SCIENCE' scores the highest (14.546%). 'FOODTECHNOLOGY" is the second in the rank listbeing cited 193 times (5.671%). The third andfourth ranks go to the journals 'J FOOD SCITECHNOL, and J AGRIC FOOD CHEM'.From the table it is clear that the credit ofpublishing more number of top journals goesto U.S.A.
SI.No.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.8.9.
10.
11.
12.13.
14.15.16.17.
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RankNo.
Table J: Ranking List of Journals
Journal Title Country Number of Cumulative Percentagecitations Number of
46. 35 Z Lebensm Germany 15 2,452 0.440 72.037Unters Forsch47.• 36 Baker's Digest U.S.A. 14 2,466 0.411 72.44848. 36 Flavoured Ind I U.K. 1" 2,480 0.411 72,85949. 36 J Chromatogr Sci U.S.A. 14 2,494 0.411 73.27050. 37 Curr Sci India 13 2,507 0.382 73.65251. 37 Experi ent ia U.S.A. 13 2,520 0.382 74.03452. 37 J Cell Bioi U.S.A. 13 2,533 0.382 74.41653. 37 J Phys Chern U.S.A. 13 2,556 0.382 74.79854. 37 Nature (Paris) France 13 2,559 0.382 75.18055. 38 Anal Chern U.S.A. 12 2,571 0.352 75.53256. 38 NZJ Ag ric Res New Zealand 12 2,583 0.352 75.88457. 38 Proc Indian India 12 2,595 0.352 76.236
Acad Sci58. 39 J Pathol U.K. 11 2,606 0.323 76.55959. 39 Nutr Rep Int U.S.A. 11 2,617 0.323 76.88260. 40 Fish Technol India 10 2,627 0.295 77.17761. 40 Indian Coffee India 10 2,637 0.295 77.47262. 40 J Oi I Technol India 10 2,647 0~295 77.767
Agric India
62 Total 2,647 2,647 77.767 77.767304 Other Titles (each 756 756 22.233 22.233
havi ng citat ionsless than Ten
366 Grand Total 3,403 3,403 100.000 100.000
43 Productivity of Cited Journals
In order to measure the productivity of jour-nals, the total of 3,403 citations referring to366 journals are divided into four equal groupsof 850.5 citations each. The number of citedjournals, their productivity in each group isgiven in Table 4. It can be seen from the tablethat 25% of the citations are to .the first fourjournals of the rank list, thus signifying their
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high rate of productivity. The average producti-vity of each journal in the first group was 235articles, whereas it has come down to 2.74articles in the fourth group. This marked differ-ence confirms the decreasing productivity ofindividual journals in the rank list.
It can be inferred. that a library subscribingto 53 journals belonging to the first threecategories can meet 75% of the informationneeds as far as periodical literature is concerned.
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Table 4: Productivity of Cited Journals
Sl. Categories No. of Percentage Average Productivity ofNo. Journals each Journa 1covered
1. 4 1.0928 235.0002. " 11 3.0054 68.9093. III 38 10.3825 22.31574. IV 313 85.5191 2.7380
Total 366 99.9998
Table 5: Citations and Self Citations to Source Journals
Source Journal Total No. of Total No. PercentageJournal citations of self of selfrece ived citations citations
Table 5 provides an analysis of the total num-ber of journal citations collected from sourcejournals and their number of self-citations .. Itis clear from the table that the self-citing rateof the three journals is in the decreasing orderaccording.o their ranking. The self-citingrates of the three journals are 20.10%, 14.36%and 8.78% respectively.
45 Geographical distribution of cited Journals
Table 6 represents the country of origin of
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the journals used by Food Scientists. Citationsthemselves could not provide the names ofthe countries from which the journals origi-nated. The required information has beencollected from Ulrich's International Periodi-cals Directory (Ed.18; 1979-80), World Listof Scientific Periodicals (Ed. 4; 1964), SerialSources for BIOSIS data base (1981) and the'Bibliography' of Periodical Holdings of theC.F.T.R.I. Library (1976).
It is clear from the table that nearly 38.52%of the journals cited emerge from U.S.A.,whereas India and U.K. are the next two coun-
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Table 6: Geoqraphical: Distribution of Cited Journals
5l. Country of Number of Percentage CumulativeNo. Publ ica t lon Ti t le s Percentage1. USJ\ 141 38.52 38.522. l nrl i i: 73 19.95 58.473. UK 55 15.03 73~504. J<lpan 21 5.74 79.245. Germany 13 3.55 82.796. Cani.'tdcl 9 2.46 85.257. France 6 1.64 86.898. Netherlands 6 1.64 88.539. Australia 5 1.37 89.90
10. Czechoslovakia 5 1.37 91.2711. Denmark 5 1.37 92.6412. Switzerland 4 1.09 93.7313. Ita 1y 3 0.82 94.5514. NC\'J Zealand 3 0.82 95.3715. Taiwan 3 0.82 96.1916. Aus t r l a 1 0.27 96.4617. 8r.J/.il 0.27 96.7318. Il<.neva 1 0.27 97.0019. I:! .11,; 1 0.27 97.2720. 1r;){~cl, 1 0.27 97.5421. 0<'~toy 1 0.27 97.8122. ! r ::land 1 0.27 98.0823. !';,,>, is tan 0.27 98.3524, Phi 1 l or.Lnes 0.27 98.622' ':r)t Ia: rI 0.27 ~8.89
tries each contributing, 19.95% and 15.03%of journals respectively, thus 73.5% journalscited are from these three countries only. Theremaining 26.5% of the journals originatefrom as many as 26 countries.
46 Obsolescence of Food Science Literature
To find out, the obsolescence rate of FoodScience literature, 3,403 journal citations weretabulated into 17 quinquennia in Table 7.
Graph 1 was plotted taking years on theX-axis and the cumulative total of citationsfrom periodicals on the Y-axis. To find out thehalf life period a line parallel to the X-axis was
drawn from the point-D to meet the CUIVeatB. 'D' represents half of the total citationsi.e., 1,701.5. When a perpendicular line isdrawn from the point B to meet the X-axis atC, wherein OC represents half life of the FoodScience literature, which is 7 years.
47 Bradford', Laiu of Scattering and FoodScience Literature
The data obtained in the study have beentested applying the Law of Scattering. Accord-ingly, Graph 2 'was plotted taking cummulatedsum of articles R(n) on the ordinate X-axisversus the logarithm of the cumulated sum ofjournals on the Y-axis. An initially rising and
TabZe 7: lrietx-ibut-ion of JOU17la.Zcitatigns and Quirzquennia Periods
Periods Citations Percentage Cumulative Percentageof Citations
