A Bibliometric Study of Women's Studies Literature

• Main Authors: Li, Chia Ning, 李家寧
• Other Authors: Tsay, Ming Yueh
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/26958314198980042053

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 圖書資訊與檔案學研究所 === 102 === The purpose of the study is to understand the contents, relations, development, and trends between various disciplines of “women’s studies.” This study analyzes the characteristics of women’s studies literature during 1900-2013 by bibliometric approach, collecting analytical components such as the frequencies of the publication, publication languages, countries of publications, journal sources, cited times, disciplines of subject categories and document type from three major sub-databases of Web of Science services: SCIE, SSCI, and A&;HCI. A total of 16,852 bibliographic records were retrieved from the databases. The results of the present study are as follows. (1) The growth pattern of women’s studies literature during 1900-2013 generally fits exponential growth, but the growth has been slowed down since 2011. (2) United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands and Germany are five major countries of women’s studies publications. (3) English is the most often used language. (4) Journal articles are the major type of women’s studies publications, accounting for 62.86% of total publications. (5) Women’s studies are scattered in multiple disciplines, with five subjects significantly contributing to the literature count: psychology and its related disciplines, women’s studies (in narrow definition), history, literature, and education and educational research. (6) Despite of the scattered distribution of women’s studies literature, core journals of women’s studies still can be identified. (7)The distribution of journal articles fits Bradford Law, but it does not fit the typical Bradford-Zipf’s S-shaped curve. (8) The journal subjects of highly productive journals and highly cited journals vary. (9) Author distribution is counted by single authorship and collaborative authorship; the results show that author distribution neither fits Lotka’s law, Square Root Law or 80/20 Rule. (10) Academic institutions are major producers of women’s studies, with departments in universities and colleges concerning psychology and its related disciplines being the main contributors to the publications. (11) Most productive research institutions are distributed over United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Turkey. The findings of the study may provide better understanding of the past, current and future of women’s studies, and serve as references to identify more suitable, popular and influential journals and literature for both research purposes and library collection development and management.