Abstract:
Purpose– The purpose of this scientometric study was to conduct an analysis of the research
productivity andscholarly impactofacademiclibrariansinTanzaniaforaperiodof30yearsfrom1984
to 2013.
Design/methodology/approach– Data were obtained using the Publish or Perish software which
uses Google Scholar to retrieve scholars’ publications, citations and related metrics. For each librarian,
the retrieved metrics were the number of papers, papers per author, citation counts, average citations
per paper, average papers per author, average citations per year, average citations per author and four
indices, namely, the h-index, g-index, Hc-index and the HI-norm.
Findings– The study findings indicate that 434 publications were recorded for all librarians, giving
anaverageof14.5publicationsperyear.Theyear2008hadthemost(9.9percent)publicationsfollowed
by2010(7.8percent),whiletheyears1985and1987hadthelowest(0.2percent)numberofpublications.
About43percentofthepublicationsweresingle-authoredandthedegreeofcollaborationwas0.57.The
top-ten ranked librarians contributed more than half (53.2 per cent) of all publications, although they
showed considerable variation among different metrics. Only three journal articles had 25 or more
citations.
Originality/value– Previousstudiesonthetopicarescarce,and,therefore,thispaperprovidesuseful
recommendationstolibraryandinformationscience(LIS)schools, libraries and universities to improve
research productivity of their academic librarians in Tanzania and other countries with a similar
setting.
