Citation Analysis of Doctoral Theses in Biotechnology Submitted to Kuvempu University, Karnataka: A Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to describe the citation study as an emergent field for university libraries. There is a constant need to adapt to the ongoing changes and new demands of today's information environment, and the increasing importance citation study certainly presents a great opportunity for librarians to broaden their horizon. The study employed descriptive research design. Data collected from 15 doctoral theses accepted by the Kuvempu University, Karnataka, India in the field Biotechnology from 2003–2006. Data were extracted from title page and references given at the end of each chapter. The cited documents are recorded on 5"x3 ” slips and the same has been tabulated in Microsoft Excel, and extracted data were analysed using statistics.

Citation study is ideal for librarians to develop and provide innovative services for both universities and administrative university staff. The study reveals that journals are the most preferred sources of information used by the researchers in the field of biotechnology accounting for 79.72% of total citations although citations from books, proceedings, theses, reports and patents are also found. It is also observed small percentage of users also cited web resources. Plant cell tissue & org.cult (Netherlands) has ranked the first with 121 citations accounting for 4.16% of the total journal citations. Further, Bradford's Law of Scattering was applied. It is observed that major citation from journal literature, besides that study examined the authorship pattern more cited materials were contributed by Multi authors and Degree of collaboration is 0.85.