Library Catalog Analysis as a tool in studies of social sciences and humanities: An exploratory study of published book titles in Economics

This paper explores the use of Library Catalog Analysis (LCA), defined as the application of bibliometric or informetric techniques to a set of library online catalogs, to describe quantitatively a scientific-scholarly field on the basis of published book titles. It focuses on its value as a tool in studies of Social Sciences and Humanities, especially its cognitive structures, main book publishers and the research performance of its actors. The paper proposes an analogy model between traditional citation analysis of journal articles and Library Catalog Analysis of book titles. It presents the outcomes of an exploratory study of book titles in Economics included in 42 academic library catalogs from 7 countries. It describes the process of data collection and cleaning, and applies a series of indicators and thematic mapping techniques. It illustrates how LCA can be fruitfully used to assess book production and research performance at the level of an individual researcher, a research department, an entire country and a book publisher. It discusses a number of issues that should be addressed in follow-up studies and concludes that LCA of published book titles can be developed into a powerful and useful tool in studies of Social Sciences and Humanities.