This papers is about the impact of research contributions of South Indian LIS teachers. This study used citation analysis to measure the impact of the faculty research publications of LIS.

1. Research Productivity of LIS Teachers in South India: A Study
N.S. Harinarayana1
Vasantha Raju N.2
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the research contributions of South Indian LIS teachers and their impact.
The research output of South Indian LIS teachers published in various national and international
journals, conference proceedings, books since 1950s have been collected as available in Google
Scholar. It is a known fact that Google Scholar is yet to become a comprehensive database of
scholarly literature. So the data sample collected for the study would have some limitations with
respect to the comprehensiveness of the data. However, authors believe that the sample available
from Google Scholar is sufficient for conducting research productivity studies. Research
contributions of South Indian LIS teachers have been analysed and results are reported with
appropriate inferences. 1909 research papers published by the South Indian LIS teachers form
the basic data for the study. The number of research papers being publishes is increasing sharply
in recent years. About half of the data collected (48.40%) for the study is in the form of articles
published in journals. While DRTC and Karnatak University occupy top two positions in number of
articles published, University of Mysore is a close competitor for the second position. Articles
from SRLES (28.45%) and Information Studies (9.63%) are visible in Google Scholar more than
other journals. „Organization of Information‟ and „Bibliometrics‟ are the most favoured area of
research for South Indian LIS teachers. The study also reports the most cited articles of South
Indian LIS teachers. Neelameghan, Ravichandra Rao and Karisiddappa occupy the first three
positions in the h-index ranking of teachers.
Keywords: Academic Impact, LIS research, h-index, Scholormeter, Bibliometric Studies, Research
Contributions, South India
1
Associate Professor, Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore,
Mysore 570 006. ns.harinarayana@gmail.com
2
Librarian, Government First Grade College, Periyapatana, Mysore District. vasanthrz@gmail.com

2. 1. Introduction
Library and information science (LIS) education in India is slowly but steadily progressing.
Today more than 85 universities across India offer PhD degree in LIS (Singh, 2010). The
first LIS School (short term training in library science) was started in 1911 by W.A.
Borden in Baroda under the patronage of Maharaja Sayajirao III, Gaekwad of Baroda
(1862-1939). In 1931 under the leadership of S.R. Ranganathan, Madras University
started a diploma course in library science. By 1947 there were five universities (Andhra,
Banaras, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras) which were offering diploma courses in library
science (Singh, 2010). Madras and Andhra Universities were early among the universities
to offer diploma course in library science in South India.
The first full-fledged MLIS course was started in 1951 at the Delhi University which
subsequently in 1957 awarded a first Ph D. degree in library science to D. B. Krishna Rao
for his thesis “Faceted classification in agriculture” under the guidance of S.R.
Ranganathan. Thereafter many universities in India started offering LIS education in
universities. Since 1929 when S.R. Ranganthan made initial contribution to start
certificate course in LIS in Madras Universities, the South Indian Universities have
contributed immensely towards the growth of LIS education in India. The establishment
of Documentation and Research Training Centre (DRTC) as a division of Indian Statistical
Institute in Bangalore by S. R. Ranganathan has also encouraged many South Indian
Universities to start LIS education programs at the master level. Currently more than 25
universities in South India offering LIS program at the master level on regular and
through distance mode basis (Varalakashmi, 2010). The South Indian LIS schools have
also been able to contribute immensely for the growth of LIS education in India through
research and innovative curriculum developments. In a recent study on LIS research in
India, Chandrashekara & Ramasesh (2009) have found that, of the 802 Ph. D. theses

3. published from 1957 to 2005 in India, more than 36.00% (296) of the Ph. D. degrees have
been awarded from South India Universities (Karnataka accounts for 21.07%, Andhra
Pradesh accounts for 11.97% and Tamil Nadu accounts for 3.87%). This result indicates
the vibrancy of LIS research in South India.
The review of literature on Indian library and information science research contributions
has revealed that many studies have been reported on LIS research and its growth in
India (Satija, 1999; Talawar, 1997; Chattarjee, Rath & Podder, 1995; Patra & Chand, 2006;
Kumbar & Vasantha Raju, 2008; Chandrashekra & Ramasesh, 2009; Wagh, 2011;
Shivalingaiah, Sheshadri & Manjuntha, 2009; Rana, 2011). The studies cited above have
examined the growth patterns of LIS research in terms of number of Ph. D. theses
awarded and subject area in which Ph. Ds have been conducted and the top university
which has awarded highest number of theses in a given period of time. These studies have
not made any effort to examine the impact of LIS research or how Ph. Ds have
contributed in increasing the visibility of the Indian LIS research in a global scenario.
However, there were few studies which have been made an attempt to examine the
research contributions of Indian LIS researchers in international journals (Harinarayana,
Mahadevaswamy & Vasantha Raju, 2008) and more recently INFLIBET has done a study on
Indian national research productivity in library and information science (Chandrakar &
Arora, 2010). The study was limited for examining the LIS research contributions in
scholarly peer reviewed LIS journals indexed by Web of Science (WoS) rather examining
impact of Indian LIS research. LIS schools in South India, mainly Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
and Andhra Pradesh have contributed immensely for the growth of LIS education in India.
No attempt has been made so far to measure the academic impact of South Indian LIS
teachers in terms their research publications.
The bibliometrics have become major area of research in library and information science.
The first study that examined the scholarly productivity of LIS was done by Hayes in

4. 1983. There after similar studies were done by many authors in library and Information
science with introduction of databases such as SCI, SSCI and A & HCI, recently Google
Scholar by Google and Scopus by Elsevier (Meho & Spurgin, 2005). Here an attempt has
been made to study the research productivity and the impact of the South Indian LIS
teachers‟ research publications through Scholarometer a browser extension for measuring
the academic impact which uses Google Scholar for extracting the research articles and
citations with the following research objectives.
2. Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are as follows:
1. To measure the research productivity of South Indian LIS teachers
2. To examine the impact of the research contributions of South Indian LIS teachers.
3. Methodology
The list of LIS teachers associated with universities and colleges offering LIS course was
obtained through various sources mainly through authors‟ contacts with senior faculty
members of LIS schools of different universities in South India and also through faculty
profile of LIS schools as found in university websites. Teachers associated with 26 South
Indian universities and two colleges offering master program (See Appendix 1) in LIS were
considered for the study. S.R. Ranganathan was never a permanent faculty at DRTC but a
Visiting Professor. Hence, his name also does not get included in the list. Hence, his name
has not been considered for the study. The study examined research contribution and
academic impact analysis of both the retired and current faculty‟s associated with these
universities. In total 155 LIS teachers research contributions and academic impact of
their research publications were examined in this study.

5. In order to obtain the academic impact of research publications of South Indian LIS
teachers, the researchers used a browser extension called Scholarometer3
which runs
both on Mozilla Firefox4
and Google Chrome web browsers. Scholarometer as mentioned
elsewhere is the browser extension, which facilitate citation analysis and helps to evaluate
the impact of an author‟s research publications (Scholarometer, 2011). Scholarometer
enables researchers to extract data from Google Scholar. Scholarometer computes widely
adopted metrics for analyzing author impact, such as the h-index (Scholarometer, 2011).
The data for all the LIS teachers listed in Appendix 1 has been obtained through the
Firefox add-on tool Scholarometer from September 20 to October 15, 2011. The data
related to number of articles written, citations for articles, h-index, year-wise
distribution of research papers, and journals in which South Indian LIS teachers have
published their research reports were obtained through the Scholarometer. All the
records were exported to Microsoft® Excel sheet for eliminating the overlapping
articles5
. After eliminating duplicate entries and unwanted materials from the data set,
1909 research publications pertaining to LIS teachers were considered as a final data set
for the study. The result obtained through Scholarometer is presented in the subsequent
section of this paper.
4. Academic Impact Analysis of South Indian LIS Teachers
This section presents the results obtained from Scholarometer. The data were tabulated
and analyzed as follows: Year-wise distributions of South Indian LIS teachers‟ research
productivity; distributions of the articles by document type; most productive universities
in LIS in South India; top journals in which South Indian LIS teachers have published
their research papers; highly cited articles of South Indian LIS teachers; and h-index of
the south Indian LIS teachers.
3
See http://scholarometer.indiana.edu/
4
Scholarometer runs on Mozilla Firefox version 4 and also on Google Chrome.
5
There were instances of retrieving publications of different subject domain and records of different authors with similar name in Scholarometer. The
authors have taken at most care to eliminate duplicate and also homonymous authors from other subject domains.

6. 4.1 Year-Wise Distribution of Research Publications
Table 4.1 presents the year-wise distributions of South Indian LIS teachers‟ research
publications. It can be seen from Table 4.1 that, from 1950 to 1980 (4 decades) the
publication rate of LIS research was very slow. Only 223 research papers were published
during this period, which accounts for 11.68%. After 1980s there was a staggering
increase in research publications by the South Indian LIS Teachers (see Figure 1). This
was the period when many new universities were established across India where full-
fledged Post graduate library science program was started and DRTC was also made its
presence in big a way through its research and publications in this period. The support for
academia in 3rd five-year plan by Government of India and the University Grant
Commission (UGC) Support for LIS education also helped LIS community to produce good
number of research publications (Krishna Kumar & Sharma, 2010).
Year-wise Distribution of
Articles
Number of Articles
(n-1909)
Percentage
(n-1909)
1950-70 85 04.45%
1971-75 75 03.93%
1976-80 63 03.30%
1981-85 111 05.81%
1986-90 138 07.23%
1991-1995 229 12.00%
1996-2000 247 12.94%
2001-2005 391 20.48%
2006-2011 (till 25th
October
2011)
549
28.76%
No Date 21 01.10%
Total 1909 100.00%
Table 4.1: Year-Wise Distribution of Publications

7. Since the early part of the 21st century the research publications of South Indian LIS
teachers has seen astronomical growth (see Figure 1). Almost 50.00% of the research
papers have published since 2001. This staggering growth of LIS research publications
can be attributed for the Government‟s financial support for increasing the visibility of
Indian research globally. LIS community has also got the government support for
increasing their research visibility. The advantage of the technological developments
mainly to access information through Internet has helped South Indian LIS community to
publish more research papers. The INFLIBNET effort for providing access to major
publishers through UGC-INFONET university library consortium also helped South Indian
LIS teachers to publish more in national and international journals.
Figure 1:Year-Wise Distributions of South Indian LIS Teachers Research Productivity

8. 4.2 Distribution of Research Publications by Document Type
Table 4.2 demonstrates the distributions of research publications of South Indian LIS
teachers by document type. It is evident from Table 4.2 that, more than 48.00% of the
documents were journal articles followed by conference papers with 25.09%. Other forms
of publications of South Indian LIS teachers were book chapters (articles in books) with
12. 15% followed Books with 03.24%, edited books with 2.09% and Ph. D. theses and other
publications such as editorials, letter to editors, reprints etc., accounts for 00.78% and
8.22% respectively. Citable items such as journal articles and conference papers have been
published more (73.49%) compared to other forms of publications by South Indian LIS
teachers. It is obvious that journal articles and conference papers have high visibility and
high impact, so researchers prefer publishing research papers than any other forms of
publications.
Document type
Number of articles
(n-1909)
Percentage
(n-1909)
Journal articles 924 48.40%
Papers in
conferences/Workshops/Seminars
479 25.09%
Book chapters 232 12.15%
Books 62 03.24%
Books (edited) 40 02.09%
Ph D thesis/ Dissertations 15 00.78%
Others (editorials, reports, letter to
the editor, reprints, newspapers,
etc.,)
157 08.22%
Total 1909 99.97%
Table 4.2: Research Publications by Document Type
4.3 Most Productive University/Institute in LIS Research in South India

9. Table 4.3 illustrates the most productive university/Institute in LIS research in South
India. The DRTC, Bangalore with 693 (36.30%) research publications topped the table
with rank 1, followed by Karnatak University, Dharwad with 198 (10.37%) research
publications occupied the second position. The mobility of teachers has some influence on
the outcome of this particular table. For want of sufficient data about the date of
mobility of all teachers, the authors have advertently adopted method to take the
University/Institute where the teachers are working/retired from as the place of work.
For example, it may be noted that K.S. Raghavan worked for Madras University for quite a
long period. Only recently he has moved to DRTC and was in DRTC at the time the data
was collected for this study. All his papers have been counted in DRTC‟s account. This is
true for other authors also.
The University of Mysore, Mysore with 192 (10.05%) research publications and Gulbarga
University with 116 (6.07%) publications have stood at 3rd
and 4th
position respectively. It
is a surprising that, the first 4 universities ranked in Table 4.3 situated in Karnataka. This
shows that Karnataka state has curved a niche for itself in library and information science
education and research in South India.
SL.
No.
Ranking Name of the University
Number of
Articles
(n=1909)
Percentage
(n=1909)
1. 1 Documentation Research and
Training Centre (DRTC)
693 36.30%
2. 2 Karnatak University 198 10.37%
3. 3 University of Mysore 192 10.05%
4. 4 Gulbarga University 116 06.07%
5. 5 Madras University 104 05.44%
6. 6 Osmania University 74 03.87%
7. 7 Mangalore University 73 03.82%

10. SL.
No.
Ranking Name of the University
Number of
Articles
(n=1909)
Percentage
(n=1909)
8. 8 Kerala University 72 03.77%
9. 9 Calicut University 69 03.61%
10. 10 Bangalore University 48 02.51%
11. 11 Andhra University 42 02.20%
12. 12 Pondicherry University 40 02.09%
13. 13 Sri Venkateswara University 39 02.04%
14. 14 Kuvempu University 36 01.88%
15. 15 Annamalai University 34 01.78%
16. 16 Bijapur Women’s University 22 01.15%
17. 17 Bharathidasan University 21 01.10%
18. 18 Sri Krishnadevaraya University 13 00.68%
19. 19 Bishop Heber 10 00.52%
20. 20 Tumkur University 07 00.36%
21. 21 BRAOU 04 00.20%
22. 22 Madurai Kamaraj University 02 00.10%
Total 1909 99.91%
Table 4.3: Most Productive University in LIS Research in South India
State wise distribution of research publications indicated (see Figure 2) that Karnataka
has highest number of research publications with 72.55% papers to its credit (1385
papers), followed by Andhra Pradesh with 9.00% of the research publications (172 papers).
Tamil Nadu and Kerala with 8.95% (171 papers) and 7.38% (7.38% papers) research
publications respectively. Karanataka also has the credit of producing highest number of
Ph.D theses in India in library and information science (Kumbar & Vasantha Raju, 2008).

11. Figure 2: State-Wise Distributions of Research Publications
4.4 Top Journals in Which South Indian LIS faculty’s have Published Their Research
Papers
Table 4.4 illustrates the top journals in which South Indian LIS teachers have published
their research papers. Of the 924 journal articles 263 (28.45%) of the papers have been
published in SRELS Journal of Information Management, followed by Information Studies
with 89 (9.63%) articles. Other major journals in which many of South Indian LIS
teachers have published their research findings are Annals of Library and Information
Studies with 84 (9.09%) research papers, Herald of Library Science with 60 (6.49%)
research papers, Pearl: A Journal of Library and Information Science with 40 (4.32%)
papers and others (see Table 4.4).
The publications of research articles in international journals were very few, 20 of the
research articles authored by South Indian LIS teachers have been published in
Scientometrics, an international journal for measuring the quantitative aspects of the
science of science, communication in science and science policy, published by Springer
(Springer, 2011). Fourteen articles which accounts for 1.51%, have been published in
Library Review, an international journal published by the Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

12. Library Philosophy & Practice (12 paper with 1.29%) and Malaysian Journal of Library &
Information Science (12 paper with 1.29%) are other two international journals in which
South Indian LIS teachers have published their research papers.
It can be observed from Table 4.4 that many of the research articles have been published
in non-peer reviewed journals (529, 57.25%) compared to the articles published in peer
reviewed journals (193, 20.88%). The data showed that there is a need to publish more in
international and highly peer-reviewed journals for increasing the visibility of South
Indian LIS research.
SL
No
Ranking Journal name*
Publication
Year
Peer
Review
Number of
Articles***
Percentage
1. 1 SRELS Journal of Information
Management (Library Science
with a Slant to
Documentation)
1964 Yes 263 28.45%
2. 3 Information Studies 1995 Yes 89 09.63%
3. 4 Annals of Library and
Information Studies (Annals
of Library Science (1951),
Annals of Library Science and
Documentation(1964))
1951 Yes 84 09.09%
4. 5 Herald of Library Science 1962 No 60 06.49%
5. 6 Pearl: A Journal of Library
and Information Science
2007 No 40 04.32%
6. 7 DESIDOC Journal of Library
& Information Technology
(DESIDOC Bulletin of
Information Technology)
1981
Yes 32 03.46%
7. 8 Library Herald 1958 No 24 02.59%
8. 9 Journal of Indian Library
Association (ILA Bulletin)
1965 Yes 20 02.16%
9. =9 Indian Journal of Information
Science & Services 2007
Yes 20 02.16%
10. =9 Scientometrics 1978 Yes 20 02.16%
11. 12 IASLIC Bulletin 1956 Yes 19 2.05%

13. 12. 13 Library Review 1927 Yes 14 1.51%
13. 14 Journal of Library and
Information Science
(University of Delhi)
1976 No 13 1.40%
14. 15 Library Philosophy and
Practice
1998 Yes 12 1.29%
15. =15 Malaysian Journal of Library
and Information Science 1996
Yes 12 1.29%
16. Others 202 21.86%
Total 924 99.91%
*Only articles published in journals were considered. Articles presented in conference papers and other forms of
publications were excluded from the table.
*** Only those journals where more than 10 articles have published were listed in the above table
Previous name of the respective journals have been provided in brackets.
Table 4.4: South Indian LIS teachers research publications in LIS Journals
4.5 Research Areas of South Indian LIS Teachers
Table 4.5 indicates the research areas in which South Indian LIS teachers have
published their research publications. The research area that were highly interested
by the teachers of South Indian LIS schools included organization of information
(19.69%), bibliometrics (10.94%), social informatics (6.39%), LIS education and
research (5.65%), information resources and services (5.08%), digital libraries/ digital
preservations and digitization (4.50%), library consortia/networking (4.08%) and
Information literacy/e-learning/reading habits/wiring skills/User studies (3.50%) etc,
(for complete details, see Table 4.5).
SL
No.
Research Area
Number of
articles
(n-1909)
Percentage
(n-1909)
1. Organization of Informationa
376 19.69%
2. Bibliometricsb
209 10.94%
3. Social Informaticsc
122 6.39%
4. LIS Education/Research 108 5.65%
5. Information Resources and Servicesd
97 5.08%
6. Digital Libraries/Digital Preservations/Digitization 86 4.50%
7. Library Consortia/Networking 78 4.08%
8. Information literacy/e-learning/reading habits/wiring
skills/User studies
67 3.50%

14. SL
No.
Research Area
Number of
articles
(n-1909)
Percentage
(n-1909)
9. Impact/Application of IT/ ICTs infrastructure/CD-ROM 65 3.40%
10. Managemente
64 3.35%
11. Public Libraries/Community Information Systems and
Services
63 3.30%
12. Information Seeking Behavior/Needs 59 3.09%
13. Information Retrieval/Information Systems 58 3.03%
14. Academic Libraries 47 2.46%
15. Library Automation/OPACs 47 2.46%
16. Copyright Issues/IPR/Information policy and legislation 43 2.25%
17. E-Resources and Services 42 2.20%
18. Information Society/Knowledge Society/Audit/Economy 41 2.14%
19. Others 237 12.41%
Total 1909 99.92%
a
includes studies classification, cataloguing, database management, data mining, knowledge management, ontology
semantic web, indexing, abstracting and thesaurus construction
b
includes citation analysis, scientometrics, webometrics,collaborative research and social network analysis
c
includes studies on Internet use, world wide web, digital divide and web 2.0, hypertext, online museums, social media
d
includes studies on library resources and services, documentation, references sources and services, current
awareness services and SDI
e
includes studies on marketing, TQM, Job analysis, HRM, library budgeting and finance, performance appraisal, and
stock verification
Table 4.5: Research Area of South Indian LIS Teachers
4.6 Highly Cited Articles of South Indian LIS Teachers
Table 4.6 presents the highly cited articles of South Indian LIS Teachers. The data is
obtained through the impact analysis results of Scholarometer. Results shows that the
article authored by Egghe & Ravichandra Rao of DRTC titled “Classification growth models
based on growth rates and its applications” published in 1992 has received highest number
of citations (49 citations), followed by article titled “Web OPAC interface: An overview”
authored by Ramesh Babu of Madras University with Ann O‟Brien published in 2000 has
received 37 citations. For cursory look in Web of Science (WoS) for citations received by
Egghe and Ravichandra Rao article, it was found that 39 citations have received in WoS.
Compared to WoS the citation rate in Google Scholar is higher. Same article of Egghe and
Ravichandra Rao has received 49 citations in Google Scholar. The difference in number of

15. citations in WoS and Google Scholar can be attributed to the kind of materials that Google
Scholar indexes6
, whereas WoS indexes only journal articles (Kousha & Thelwell, 2008).
The articles “Some issues in information transfer: A third world perspective” published in
IFLA Journal in 1981 authored by Neelameghan, Retired Professor of DRTC have received
27. These are two articles authored by single author. Other highly cited papers have
collaboration with two or more authors (see Table 4.6). Another interesting finding of the
study is that, the papers which have received 20 or more citations have published in peer
reviewed international journals. The research articles published in Indian journals have not
been cited highly. This shows that there is a need for developing Indian citation Index
which could help for increasing citations by others. In this context, efforts of the
Knowledge Foundation for developing Indian Citation Index database are laudable which
could certainly help in increasing the visibility of Indian research at the global level. The
result also emphasized that there is a need to publish quality research papers in
international peer reviewed journals.
SL
No.
Title of the Article Author (s) Journal Title
Times
Cited*
Publication
Year
1. Classification of growth models
based on growth rates and its
applications
L. Egghe & I. K.
Ravichandra Rao
Scientometrics 49 1992
2. Web OPAC interfaces: An
overview
B. Ramesh Babu &
Ann O’Brien
The Electronic Library 37 2000
3. Carbon nanotubes: bibliometric
analysis of patents
V.K. Gupta & N.B.
Pangannaya
World Patent
Information
32 2000
4. Some issues in infonnation
transfer: A third world
perspective
A. Neelameghan IFLA Journal 27 1981
5. Bibliometric indicators of Indian
research collaboration patterns:
A correspondence analysis
K.T. Anuradha &
Shalini R. Urs
Scientometrics 22 2007
*Only those article which have been cited 20 or more times have been listed in the table. The numbers have been
drawn from the Scholarometer
Table 4.6: Highly Cited Articles
6
Google Scholar indexes conference papers, research or technical reports, thesis, books and
book chapter, e-print/reprints and other non-scholarly materials along with scholarly journal
articles,

16. The referee of earlier version of the article opined that the data shown in Tables 4.6 and
Table 4.7 are outdated and hence it has to be updated appropriately. Hence additional
tables, viz., Table 4.6a and Table 4.7a have been included. The data for these tables was
collected on May 6, 2012 to reflect the present scenario. In comparison to Table 4.6, it
can be seen from Table 4.6a that there is a drastic difference in terms of highly cited
papers. For example, I.K. Ravichandra Rao has more number of cited papers in Table
4.6a. The authors presume that the reason for the change is the increase in the scope of
retrospective coverage by the Google Scholar over the past few months. It is also
possible that the newer version of the tool used for fetching the data (Scholarometer, in
this study) has shown better results.
The citations received by the South Indian LIS teachers have also increased considerably.
As an instance, the article authored by L. Egghe & I. K. Ravichandra Rao entitled
“Classification of growth models based on growth rates and its applications” had received
49 citations in September/October 2011. In May 2012 it was 58, eleven new citations were
found for the article. To cite one more example, the paper entitled “Web OPAC
interfaces: An overview” authored by B. Ramesh Babu & Ann O‟Brien had received 49
citations recently (ie., on 6th
May 2012) compared to 37 citations in September/October
2011. This shows that Google Scholar updates its database quite often. Further, in the
studies of similar kind there is a need to ensure that the data pertaining to an author is
substantially collected by checking all the spelling variations of the authors. For example,
apart from checking IK Ravichandra Rao as it is, his name variants like IKR Rao; Rao,
Ravichandra IK and so on have to be checked.
SL
No.
Title of the Article/Book Author (s)
Journal
Title/Publisher
Times
Cited*
Publication
Year
1.
Classification of growth models
based on growth rates and its
applications
L. Egghe & I. K.
Ravichandra Rao
Scientometrics 58 1992

17. 2.
Citation age data and the
obsolescence function: Fits and
explanations
L. Egghe & I. K.
Ravichandra Rao
Information
Processing &
Management
54 1992
3.
The distribution of scientific
productivity and social change
I. K. Ravichandra
Rao
Journal of the
American Society for
Information Science
49 1980
4.
Web OPAC interfaces: An
overview
B. Ramesh Babu &
Ann O’Brien
The Electronic Library 48 2000
5.
Carbon nanotubes: Bibliometric
analysis of patents
V.K. Gupta & N.B.
Pangannaya
World Patent
Information
35 2000
6.
Quantitative Methods for Library
and Information Science
I. K. Ravichandra
Rao
Wiley-Eastern, New
Delhi
33 1983
7.
Some issues in information transfer:
A third world perspective
A. Neelameghan IFLA Journal 31 1981
8.
Bibliometric indicators of Indian
research collaboration patterns: A
correspondence analysis
K.T. Anuradha &
Shalini R. Urs
Scientometrics 30 2007
9.
Web 2.0 features in university
library web sites
N.S. Harinarayana &
Vasantha Raju N.
The Electronic Library 24 2010
10.
Vidyanidhi: Indian digital library of
electronic theses
Shalini R. Urs & K.
S. Raghavan
Communications of
the ACM
20 2001
11.
The Colon Classification
(Classification in the 1970s: A
second look)
M.A. Gopinath
Clive-Bingley,
London
20 1976
12.
The impact of continuing education
programmes on library and
information science professionals
Chennupati K.
Ramaiah, & A.
Lakshman Moorthy
Library Review 20 2002
*Only those article which have been cited 20 or more times have been listed in the table.
Table 4.6a: Highly Cited Articles (as on 6th
May 2012)
4.7 h-index of South Indian LIS Teachers
The h-index has been proposed by Jorge E. Hirsch, a Physicist at the University of
California San Diego to quantify the impact of individual scientists‟ research output (Cronin
& Meho, 2006). The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity
and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set
of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received
in other people's publications. For example, if Scientist A has h-index of 40, it means that
Scientist A has written 40 papers with at least 40 citations each (Hirsch, 2005). H-index
has received considerable attention among researchers and academics (Zhang, Thijs &
Glänzel, 2011).

18. Table 4.7 depicts the h-index obtained through Scholarometer for South Indian LIS
teachers. Neelameghan A., retired professor of DRTC, Bangalore has the h-index of 10,
which is the highest h-value by the South Indian LIS teacher. Karisiddappa, C. R. of
Karnataka University, Dharwad has got the h-index of 7. Ravichandra Rao I.K. of DRTC,
Bangalore and Ramaiah C.K. of Pondicherry University has got h-index of 6 each. Gopinath
M.A., retired professor of DRTC has got an h-index of 5. It is surprising that, of the first
5 South Indian LIS teachers with highest h-index, three of them associated with DRTC,
Bangalore, Karnataka. LIS teachers only those who have obtained the h-index of 3 have
been listed in Table 4.7. Many authors have argued that using h-index for assessing the
impact of research publications of newcomers to the field may not yield positive results
since both publication output and observed citation rates of newcomers will be relatively
low and another major argument of h-index is that, h-index cannot exceed the number of
publications. Thus it puts small but highly-cited paper sets at a disadvantage (Glanzel,
2006; Thijs & Glanzel, 2011). However h-index has been using all over the world for
measuring the impact of research publications of individual scientists along with other
impact measures (van Rann, 2006; Zhang, Thijs & Glanzel, 2011).
Sl.
No.
Name h-index Ranking
Total Record
Count
Total Citation
Count*
1. Neelameghan A. 10 1 275 511
2. Karisiddappa C.R. 7 2 83 183
3. Ravichandra Rao I. K. 6 3 54 168
4. Ramaiah C. K. 6 =3 30 104
5. Gopinath M. A. 5 5 199 160
6. Ramesh Babu B. 4 6 47 79
7. Shalini R. Urs 4 =6 34 78
8. Raghavan K.S. 4 =6 57 77
9. Prasad A.R.D. 4 =6 37 74
10. Maheswarappa B.S. 4 =6 42 60
11. Devika Madalli 4 =6 40 38
12. Devarajan G. 4 =6 19 37
13. Suriya M. 4 =6 21 30
14. Chandrashekara M. 4 =6 25 24
15. Sangam S.L. 3 15 46 44

19. 16. Bavakutty M. 3 =15 40 38
17. Seetharama S. 3 =15 30 31
18. Khaiser Nikam 3 =15 40 30
19. Biradar B.S. 3 =15 25 30
20. Varalakshmi R.S.R. 3 =15 17 25
21. Shivalingaiah D. 3 =15 25 24
22. Isaac K.A. 3 22 20 23
23. Gunjal S.R. 3 =22 23 22
24. Parvathamma N. 3 =22 17 22
25. Mallinath Kumbar 3 =22 19 20
26. Pulla Reddy V. 3 =22 18 17
27. Amudhavalli A. 3 =22 29 16
28. Sampath Kumar B.T. 3 =22 06 13
*Only those teachers who have got the h-Index of 3 have been listed here
Table 4.7: h-index of South Indian LIS Teachers
Again this Table, is included owing to the comments of the revered referee. The data was
collected again on 6th
May 2012. Surprisingly, it was found that there is no drastic change
compared to the data first obtained in September/October 2011 (see Table 4.7) except,
increase in h-index of first three authors and slight change in ranking authors as seen in
Table 4.7. I. K. Ravichandra Rao of DRTC, Bangalore has moved to the second position with
h-index of 10. A Neelameghan, Retired Professor of DRTC, Bangalore has now got the h-
index of 11, earlier his h-index was 10. C. R. Karisiddappa has got the h-index of 9, when
the data was first obtained in September/October 2011, his h-index was 7. Similarly,
Ramesh Babu of Madras University, Maheswarappa B.S. of Gulbarga University, have got
the higher h-index of 5. Another addition to Table 4.7a is one of the authors of this
paper, N.S. Harinarayana of University of Mysore. He got a place in the Table as he has
got the h-index of 3 as of now. Earlier his h-index was 2 and hence was not figured in
Table 4.7.
Sl.
No.
Name h-index Ranking Total
Record Count
Total Citation
Count
1. Neelameghan A. 11 1 339 523
2. Ravichandra Rao I.K. 10 2 71 406
3. Karisiddappa C.R. 09 3 105 237

20. Sl.
No.
Name h-index Ranking Total
Record Count
Total Citation
Count
4. Ramaiah C. K. 06 4 32 122
5. Gopinath M. A. 05 5 214 172
6. Ramesh Babu B. 05 =5 63 129
7. Shalini R. Urs 05 =5 34 93
8. Maheswarappa B.S. 05 =5 43 81
9. Prasad A.R.D. 04 9 89 93
10. Raghavan K.S. 04 =9 56 83
11. Devika Madalli 04 =9 40 44
12. Devarajan G. 04 =9 21 33
13. Sangam S.L. 04 =9 51 61
14. Seetharama S. 04 =9 42 46
15. Suriya M. 04 =9 27 39
16. Mallinath Kumbar 04 =9 18 32
17. Chandrashekara M. 04 =9 28 25
18. Bavakutty M. 03 18 43 53
19. Biradar B.S. 03 =18 28 42
20. Khaiser Nikam 03 =18 44 42
21. Harinarayana N.S. 03 =18 27 40
22. Varalakshmi R.S.R. 03 =18 20 34
23. Amudhavalli A. 03 =18 18 29
24. Isaac K.A. 03 =18 26 29
25. Sampath Kumar B.T. 03 =18 14 28
26. Shivalingaiah D. 03 =18 26 28
27. Parvathamma N. 03 =18 16 22
28. Gujnal S.R. 03 =18 23 21
29. Pulla Reddy V. 03 =18 20 17
*Only those teachers who have got the h-Index of 3 have been listed here
Table 4.7a: h-index of South Indian LIS Teachers (As on 6th
May 2012)
4.8 Discussion and Conclusion
The study assesses the research productivity and the impact analysis of South Indian LIS
faculty. The study found that there is a rapid increase in research publications in LIS.
Almost 50.00% of the research publications were happened to be published in the last one
decade (2001-2011). This shows that LIS research has been steadily progressing in South
India in recent times. This growth can be attributed to the increasing access to
information through WWW in general and in particular INFLIBNET effort to provide
access to scholarly e-journals through UGC-INFONET library consortium. After the year
2000, some LIS associations have started few new LIS journals in South India. Mainly
SALIS Journal of Library and Information Science from Society for the Advancement of

21. Library and Information Science, Chennai in 2009, Pearl: A Journal of Library and
Information Science from University Library Teacher's Association of Andhra Pradesh,
Hyderabad and Indian Journal of Information Science and Services (IJISS) from
Learning Resource Centre, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam, Tamil
Nadu were also contributed for the substantial increase in research publications. This
result corroborates with recent study done by Chandrakara & Arora (2011) on Indian
national research productivity in library and information science.
Almost 50.00% of the South Indian LIS teachers‟ publications were research papers.
Highly preferred journals for publication of South Indian LIS teachers‟ research works
are: SRELS Journal of Information Management (28.45%), Information Studies (9.63%),
Annals of Library and Information Studies (9.09%) and others (see Table 4.4 further
information). Most preferred international journals for publishing South Indian LIS
teachers are: Scientometrics (2.16%), Library Review (1.51%), Library Philosophy and
Practice (1.29%) and Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science (1.29%) and
few articles were also published in other international journals such as, The Journal for
the American Society for Information Science & Technology and the International
Information and Library Review and others. But the percentage of research articles
published in international journals is very less compared to the publications output in
national journals. There is need to publish more in international peer-reviewed journals.
Publishing in peer-reviewed international journals not only increases the quality of the
research papers but also the visibility of Indian LIS research across the globe.
In terms of the highly preferred area of research domain of South Indian LIS teachers,
“organization of information” was the most preferred subject on which South Indian LIS
teachers have published more research papers than any other subjects. “Organization of
Information” includes subjects such as classification & cataloguing, database management,
data mining, knowledge management, ontology, semantic web indexing, abstracting and

22. thesaurus development etc. DRTC, Bangalore since its inception has been working on
classification and cataloguing practice and has published some of the path breaking work
on library classification.
Bibliometrics, social informatics and LIS education/research are some of the other areas
in which South Indian LIS teachers‟ community has published high number research
papers. In recent time, LIS research in India has been largely confined to bibliometrics
and user studies. There is a need to venture into new frontiers of LIS research. As this
study found, there is a lot of interest among LIS researchers on social informatics which
is a new area of research, but the research largely looking at the Internet use behavior.
Other areas of social informatics (social media, WWW, and digital divide, etc.,) have not
been studied much.
DRTC has published almost 40.00% (693 publications) of the research papers in South
India, followed by Karnatak University, Dharwad with 10.37% (198 publications). Karnatak
University has also produced the highest number of Ph D thesis in India (Shivalingaiah,
Sheshadri, & Manjunatha, 2009). University of Mysore stood at 3rd
position with 192
(10.05%) research publications to its credit. The publication output of DRTC should be
credited for the publications of two retired professors: A. Neelameghan (275
publications) and M.A. Gopinath (199 publications). The research publications of A.
Neelameghan and M. A. Gopinath accounts for almost 25.00% (474 papers) of the overall
publications of South Indian LIS teachers.
One of the important objectives of this study was to measure the impact of South Indian
LIS teachers‟ research publications. The study examined the highly cited research papers
and h-index of South Indian LIS teachers. The data for highly cited papers and h-index of
South Indian LIS teachers has obtained through Scholarometer. The study found that,
the paper entitled “Classification of growth models based on growth rates and its

23. applications” co-authored by I. K. Ravichandra Rao of DRTC has been cited 58 times
published in Scientometrics in 1992. Another paper which has highest citations is “Web
OPAC interfaces: An overview” co-authored by B. Ramesh Babu of Madras University
published in the journal The Electronic Library. It has been cited by 49 times. It is found
from the study that the most of the highly cited papers are collaborative works. Another
significant finding is that all the papers listed in Table 4.6a (Table 4.6 as well) were
published in International journals. Surprisingly no research papers published in Indian
journals have been cited 20 or more times. This is possibly because of the fact that the
international journals have more online visibility than the national journals.
Neelameghan of DRTC, a retired professor has got the highest h-index of 11 in this study
followed by Ravichandra Rao (h-index 9) from the same institute. Karisiddappa of
Karnatak University, Dharwad has got the h-index of 9. Ramaiah of Pondicherry University
has got the h-index of 6. It may be noted that the h-index for individual scientists varies
from one citation index to other (Google Scholar, Science Citation Index and Scopus)
because the way these citation indexing databases index research publications (Bar-Ilan,
2008). It may also be said at this juncture that there is an immediate need to strengthen
the Indian Citation Index.
The present study is not without any limitations. Readers may feel that the number of
publications and h-index of certain teachers have not been properly reported in the
article. However, the authors of the study have found out by experience during this study
that the time period when the data is collected plays a role in arriving at h-index and
number of publications. The variation is vivid by looking at Tables 4.6, 4.6a, 4.7 and 4.7a.
Moreover, the tool one would use for collecting the data also contributes to the variation
in data. The present study used Scholarometer for collection of data and calculation of h-
index. Needless to say that the database from which data is drawn for the study is the
most significant factor in these kinds of studies. Authors found from their preliminary

24. study that in comparison Google Scholar has larger coverage of LIS literature. In spite of
our efforts to collect the names of teachers who have worked in different universities,
there could be some inadvertent omissions.
Finally, as a conclusion it can be said that this study has showed how South Indian LIS
teachers have contributed for LIS literature in India. It would be interesting to carry
out similar study to quantify the LIS teachers‟ contribution from different regions.

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27. Appendix-1
Consolidated List of South Indian LIS Teachers (As on 15 October 2011)
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra University:
David Livingstone N.; Dhanaraj V.; Narasimha Raju G.V.S.L. (Retired); Sarada K.; Sasikala C.; Siva Reddy K.
(Retired); Soma Raju P.; Somasekhara Rao K.; Valasayya G.; Varalakshmi R.S.R. (Retired); Vijaya Kumari J.;
Vijaya Lakshmi B.
B.R. Ambedkar Open University (BROU)
Chandrashekhara Rao V.; Saroja G.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Srikakulam
No Permanent faculty
Dravidian University
No Permanent faculty
Kakatiya University
No Permanent faculty
Osmania University
Dimple Patel; Guruswamy Naidu N.; Laxman Rao N. (Retired); Raja Gopal T.; Raju A.A.N. (Retired); Sripati
Naidu R. (Retired); Sudarshan Rao; Venugopal M.; Viswa Mohan V.; Yadagiri Reddy J.
Sri Krishnadevaraya University
Kamaiah P. (Retired); Pratap Reddy B.; Rajarathnam Chetty P.; Ravinder D.
Sri Venkateswara University
Chandraiah I. ; Chandran D.; Padmini K.; Prasantha Kumari M.; Pulla Reddy V.
Karnataka
Bangalore University;
Asundi A.Y. (Retired); Jayarama Naik K.G.; Kemparaju T.D.; Lalitha Ashwath (Lalithamba G.);
Raghunandan M. ; Ramesha; Sadashiva Murthy (Retired);Veerabasavaiah M.
Bijapur Womens University
Gavisiddappa A.; Shanthadevi T.; Tadasad P. G.

28. Documentation Research and Training Centre (DRTC)
Bhattacharya G. (Retired); Devika Madalli; Gopinath M. A. (Retired); Krishnamurthy M.; Neelameghan A.
(Retired); Prasad A.R.D.; Raghavan K.S.; Ravichandra Rao I. K.; Seetharama S. (Retired)
Gulbarga University
Gunjal S.R. (Retired); Kamble V.T. ; Lalitha Sami; Maheswarappa B.S.; Parvathamma N.; Patil D.B.
Karnatak University
Atagur R.R. (Retired); Gururaj S. Hadagali; Hungund B.B. (Retired); Ijari S.R. (Retired); Karisiddappa
C.R.(Retired); Konnur P.V.; Krishnamurthy C.; Kumbar B.D.; Kumbhar M.R. (Retired); Rajashekhar B. V. (Retired);
Ramesh Naik; Sangam S.L.
Kuvempu University
Biradar B.S.; Dharani Kumar P.; Padmamma S.
Mangalore University
Baradol A.K.; Kaiser M. Khan; Mahesh V. Mudhol; Umesh Naik
University of Mysore
Adithya Kumari H.; Chandrashekara M.; Harinarayana N.S.; Indira C.; Khaiser Nikam (Kaiser Jahan Begum);
Khan H.A. (Retired); Mallinath Kumbar; Nagappa B. (Retired); Pangannaya N.B. (Retired); Patil P.K. (Retired);
Shalini R. Urs; Subramanyam T.V. (Retired); Talawar V.G.; Yenkatesh Y.
Tumkur University
Hemavathi B. N.; Keshava; Rupesh Kumar A.; Sampath Kumar B. T.
Kerala
Calicut University
Bavakutty M. (Retired); Jalaja V. (Retired); Mohamed Haneefa K.; Parameswaran M.; Raju M. Mathew
(Retired); Vasudevan T. M.
Kannur University
No permanent faculty
Kerala University
Augustine C. A. (Retired) ; Devarajan G. (Retired); Gopikuttan A.; Humayoon Kabir S.; Isaac K.A. (Retired); Job
M. M. (Retired); Lalitha Bai K.K.; Rajan Pillai C.V.; Ramakrishnan Nayar M. N.; Sudhier K.G. Pillai; Vijayakumar
K.P.
Pondicherry
Pondicherry University
Anas .K; Leeladharan M.; Mangkhollen Singson; Ramaiah C. K.; Rekha Rani Varghese; Sevukan R.

29. Tamil Nadu
Annamalai University
Mohamed Esmail S.; Nagarajan M.; Ponnu Dorai R.; Ravi S.; Ravichandran; Saravan; ;Sathik Batcha; Sivaraman;
Suriya M.; Vijayakumar K.
AVVM Sri Pushpam College
Ganesan A.; Selvam J.; Viji P.
Bharathidasan University
Balasubramani R.; Jeyapragash B.; Renganathan C.; Srinivasaraghavan S.; Suralinathi
Bishop Heber College
Ally Sornam; Geetha V.; Manoharan; Swaroopa Rani
Madras University
Amudhavalli A.; Ramesh Babu B.; Chandrakumar V.; Gangadhara Rao P. (Retired); Manorama Srinath(Retired);
Subramanian M. S. (Retired); Seethapathy R.K. (Retired); Sankaralingam P. (Retired); Palani S. (Retired);
Bhattacharya (Retired); Krishna Rao D. B. (Retired); Mohana Raj (Retired)
Madurai Kamaraj University
Kumaravel T.P.S.; Paul Mohun Roy; Srimurugan; Thirumalai Muthusamy A.
Citations for this article:
Harinarayana, N.S., & Vasantha Raju, N. (2012). Citation analysis of publications
of LIS teachers in South India. Information Studies, 18(3), 143-161. ISSN: 0971-
6726