Contributions of Pakistani authors to foreign library and information science journals An evaluative study

Purpose - In addition to quantitative analysis, the purpose of this paper is to measure the quality of articles published in foreign LIS journals by Pakistani authors based on their Impact Factor (IF) scores reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of 2010; also to discuss the significance and implications of this study for the current and potential authors in Pakistan and other developing countries. Design/methodology/approach - The data for this study were collected from two sets of sources: first, online sources of Google Scholar, LISA, LISTA, an online 50-year cumulative index of Pakistani LIS literature, and web pages of several authors; and second, printed indexes and bibliographies. The data collected were manually entered into MS Excel for tabulation and created nine tables, which formed the basis of discussion in the paper. Findings - The contribution of Pakistani authors to foreign LIS journals is reasonable in number and below average in quality, according to the JCR IF scores. The authorship patterns show that there is a shift from single-authorship to collaborative authorship. The contribution of academics is several times higher than that of library practitioners. Likewise the non-resident Pakistani authors' share in the global LIS literature is much larger as compared to their counterparts living in Pakistan. Originality/value - This is the first study that evaluates the quality of Pakistani LIS literature using the more popular journal ranking method, JCR IF. The results of this study are expected to have a positive impact on Pakistani authors as they start preparing articles according to the quality requirements of JCR-ranked journals in the future.