Published Librarian Research, 2008 through 2012: Analyses and Perspectives

This research paper reviews published library science literature from 2008 through 2012 using a purposive sample of 13 Library and Information Science (LIS) journals. The texts of 1,778 LIS articles were analyzed and classified as research versus non-research. Of these articles, 769 (43.1%) determined as research were examined in order to collect data on numerous variables including authorship, topic, type of research, data collection, and data analysis techniques. The selected LIS journals draw a representative sample of practitioner research with 438 (57%) research articles solely written by practitioners, 110 (14.3%) research articles written collaboratively by at least one practitioner and one academic. The overall authorship pattern was widely multi-authored with 64.5% of the research articles written by two or more authors. It is hoped that the results of this investigation will provide insight for more extensive collaborative librarianship research in the future