Doctoral theses awarded in library and information science in India during 2015 - 2023: A descriptive study

This study is an attempt to overview doctoral theses submitted to Indian Universities during 2015 - 2023 in the Library and Information Science discipline. Data is collected from the Shodhganga digital repository of Indian theses and dissertations of INFLIBNET Center, “University News” and AISHE Report published by Govt. of India. It was found that 486 research supervisors (including 82 co-supervisors) of 136 Universities across 21 States and 3 Union Territories had supervised 1227 theses during 2015 - 2023. The LIS discipline had awarded less than 1% doctorate, compared to the overall doctorate awarded in India. Overall, 96.98% of these were written in English followed by Hindi (1.30%), Marathi (0.73%), Gujarati (0.42%), and Bengali (0.40%). The subject area Information Studies (32%) was the popular subject area followed by Metric Study (17.09%), Resources and Services (11%), and another Subject area (12%). Other subject areas include Green Library, Prison Library, Disaster Management, Grey Literature, Museum Library, Media Library, Organization of Map Collection, ROI, Cost Benefit Analysis, Local History Collection Conservation of Manuscript, Monasteries Library, Incunabula, Guideline for identification of rare book, Library Classification Model, Thesaurus, Development of Metadata, Personal Collection and NAAC Assessment.