A co-word analysis of digital library field in China

The aim of this study is to map the intellectual structure of digital library (DL) field in China during the period of 2002–2011. Co-word analysis was employed to reveal the patterns of DL field in China through measuring the association strength of keywords in relevant journals. Data was collected from Chinese Journal Full-Text Database during the period of 2002–2011. And then, the co-occurrence matrix of keywords was analyzed by the methods of multivariate statistical analysis and social network analysis. The results mainly include five parts: seven clusters of keywords, a two-dimensional map, the density and centrality of clusters, a strategic diagram, and a relation network. The results show that there are some hot research topics and marginal topics in DL field in China, but the research topics are relatively decentralized compared with the international studies.