Mapping knowledge domains of Chinese digital library research output, 1994-2010

The aim of this paper is to identify the research paradigms on digital libraries in China while compared with that of international digital libraries research via scientometric analysis. Co-word network constructed by keywords in documents and their co-occurrence relationships is a kind of mapping knowledge domains, which represents the cognitive and intellectual structure of science. A total of 6068 and 1250 papers published between 1994 and 2010 were, respectively retrieved from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and ScienceDirect databases with a topic search of digital libraries or digital library in abstracts of papers. This paper uses methods of co-word analysis, social network analysis and mapping knowledge domains as theory basis, with assistance of softwares of UCINET and Netdraw, to construct the co-word network of digital libraries/library research in China, present the study status quo and evolution on digital libraries/library in China and analyze the research paradigm structure of digital libraries/library in China.