Yaşar Tonta and Doğan Karabulut, The anatomy of an electronic discussion list for librarians, KUTUP-L: Bibliometric and content analyses of postings. In Turid Hedlund and Yaşar Tonta (eds.) Publishing in the Networked World: Transforming the Nature of Communication. 14th International Conference on Electronic Publishing 16-18 June 2010, Helsinki, Finland. (pp. 234-244) Helsinki: Hanken School of Economics, 2010. (ISBN: 978-952-232-086-5).

1. The Anatomy of an Electronic Discussion
List for Librarians, KUTUP-L:
Bibliometric and Content Analyses
of Postings
Yaşar Tonta Doğan Karabulut
Department of Information Management Turkish Grand National Assembly Library
Hacettepe University Kızılay, Ankara, Turkey
tonta@hacettepe.edu.tr dogankbulut@gmail.com
yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~tonta/tonta.html
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2. Outline
• Theoretical framework
• Methodology
• Findings and Discussion
• Conclusions
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3. Theoretical framework
• Computer mediated communication
• Electronic mail
• Discussion lists
• Blogs
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4. Data and methods - I
• Descriptive statistics
– Data source: KUTUP-L: An electronic
discussion list for Turkish librarians (1991-- )
– Some 20,000 KUTUP-L postings (1994-2008)
– Bibliometric characteristics of postings (e.g.,
authors’ productivity, distribution of postings)
• Pareto Law: 20% of authors post 80% of messages
• Price Law: Half the messages get sent by the square
root of the total number of authors
• Lotka Law: 60% of authors send only 1 message
while 15% send 2, 6.6% send 3, 3.75% send 4
messages and so on.
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5. Data and methods - II
• Content analysis of postings
– Based on a stratified sample of c. 1,000 postings
– Intent analysis:
• Initiative vs. reflexive postings (Bellack, 1966)
• Postings requesting information, transferring
information and discussing a topic (Berman, 1996)
– Subject analysis
• Analysis of each posting to identify its subject(s)
• Classification of each posting under subjects (Jarvelin
& Vakkari, 1990, 1993)
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6. Findings
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7. Average number of monthly postings (1994-2008)
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8. Authors’ productivity by gender
Authors Messages Average number
of postings per
Sex N % N % author
Men 502 48 11,142 59 22
Women 547 52 7,768 41 14
Total 1049 100 18,910 100 18
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9. Distribution of postings and power laws
Number
Bibliometric Number of Parameter
of Expected % Observed %
laws authors (Authors)
postings
Pareto 1,232 19,827 20% (246) 80% 83.5%
Price 1,232 19.827 1,232 (35) 50% 49.1%
Distribution fits Pareto and Price Laws.
KUTUP-L has many “lurkers”.
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10. Lotka’s Law
Expected number
Expected
Observed number of authors
Observed percentage of
# of of authors posting X
percentage of authors
postings posting X messages
authors (%) according to
messages according to
Lotka’s Law
Lotka’s Law
1 369 739 30.0 60.0
2 178 184 14.4 15.0
3 101 82 8.2 6.6
4 92 46 7.5 3.75
5 58 30 4.7 2.4
6 41 20 3.3 1.6
7 38 15 3.1 1.2
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11. Intent analysis of postings – I (N=977)
Type of 1995-1999 2000-2004 2005-2008 Total N
postings N % N % N % N %
Initiatory 137 63 279 80 325 79 741 76
Reflexive 82 37 70 20 84 21 236 24
Total 219 100 349 100 409 100 977 100
Majority of postings (76%) are initiatory, generating much less feedback (ie,
reflexive messages)
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12. Intent analysis of postings – II (N=977)
1995-1999 2000-2004 2005-2008 Total N
Type of postings N % N % N % N %
Information
30 14 25 7 41 10 96 10
requests
Discussion 60 27 79 23 89 22 228 23
Information
129 59 245 70 279 68 653 67
transfer
Total 219 100 349 100 409 100 977 100
Two thirds of postings aim to transfer information while less than a
quarter discusses certain issues.
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13. Subject analysis of postings (N=650)
Subjects Subject 1 Subject 2 Total %
1100 Other LIS Aspects 148 0 148 23
1003 Other Aspects of Scientific or
Professional Communication 101 12 113 17
701 Inter-library loan activities 59 20 79 12
702 Collection 57 6 63 10
100 Professional issues 39 4 43 7
101 Library Association’s activities 30 0 30 5
300 Publishing 18 6 24 4
707 Library Automation 22 2 24 4
801 Cataloguing 14 3 17 3
708 Other Library or Information Service 14 1 15 2
400 Education in LIS 12 2 14 2
705 Library Buildings or Facilities 12 0 12 2
805 Databases 9 2 11 2
706 Library Administration or Planning 10 0 10 2
1001 Scientific or Professional Publishing 10 0 10 2
803 Information Retrieval 4 5 9 1
901 Information Dissemination 7 1 8 1
804 Bibliographic Databases 5 1 6 1
802 Classification or Indexing 3 1 4 1
906 Information Management 4 0 4 1
703 Information or Reference Services 2 0 2 0
905 Information Use 2 0 2 0
600 Analysis of LIS 1 0 1 0
704 User Education 1 0 1 0
Total 584 66 650 100
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14. Off-topic KUTUP-L postings (N=393)
1995- 2000- 2005-
Types of messages 1999 % 2004 % 2008 % Total
Irrelevant messages 47 22.5 78 37.3 84 40.2 209
Announcements of
promotions,
congratulations, etc. 6 9.5 18 28.6 39 61.9 63
Announcements of
deaths, etc. 0 0.0 9 24.3 28 75.7 37
Job Ads 1 2.9 15 44.1 18 52.9 34
Trial messages
3 21.4 6 42.9 5 35.7 14
Messages on social
activities 3 21.4 6 42.9 5 35.7 14
KUTUP-L 5 41.7 6 50.0 1 8.3 12
Virus warnings 2 20.0 7 70.0 1 10.0 10
Total 67 145 181 393
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15. Distribution of postings by domains
Domain 1995-1999 2000-2004 2005-2008 Total N
type N % N % N % N %
.edu 136 31.5 154 35.6 142 32.9 432 44.5
.com 23 7.2 106 33.1 191 59.7 320 33.0
.gov 35 32.1 36 33.0 38 34.9 109 11.2
.org 11 21.2 33 63.5 8 15.4 52 5.4
.net 14 46.7 8 26.7 8 26.7 30 3.1
.k12 0 0.0 11 39.3 17 60.7 28 2.9
Total 219 22.6 348 35.8 404 41.6 971 100.0
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16. Conclusions
• KUTUP-L is an effective communication tool
• Topics of postings tend to change by years
• Aspects of LIS and scholarly/professional issues
along with ILL and collections are the most frequently
discussed topics
• Postings discussing professional issues generate
more feedback
• The percentage of non-relevant, off-topic postings is
quite high (40%)
• Distribution of postings fits Pareto and Price Laws,
but not Lotka’s Law
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17. The Anatomy of an Electronic Discussion
List for Librarians, KUTUP-L:
Bibliometric and Content Analyses
of Postings
Yaşar Tonta Doğan Karabulut
Department of Information Management Turkish Grand National Assembly Library
Hacettepe University Kızılay, Ankara, Turkey
tonta@hacettepe.edu.tr dogankbulut@gmail.com
yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~tonta/tonta.html
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