Copyright's Impact: A 20 Year Informetric Study of the Library and Information Science Copyright Literature as Indexed in Library Literature

Abstract

This study examined the growth pattern, authorship and publication characteristics of the professional and academic library and information science literature on the subject of copyright from 1984 to 2003 based on a subject search of the descriptor field in the Library Literature database. The literature was found to have a non-linear growth pattern which appears to be strongly affected by significant moments in copyright legislation over the 20 year period of the study. Authorship trends did not follow Lotka's law, with a significantly higher proportion of authors contributing only 1 article. The spread of authorship suggests that the most prolific authors in this area tend to be professional librarians or academics who publish extensively in the professional literature. The majority of documents in this area are journals, suggesting an emphasis on rapid dissemination of knowledge. Journal publication trends followed Bradford's law with the majority of journals contributing fewer than 1 article per year of the study.