Bibliometrics
Tamil Literature Output in National
Bibliography of Indian Languages: A
bibliometric analysis
P.Clara Jeyaseeli
Ph.D. Research Scholar
Dept. of Library & Information Science
Madurai Kamaraj University,
Madurai. Tamilnadu. INDIA
Tamil Internet Conference, 17-19 June’2011, UPenn
Bibliometrics
Introduction
Tamil is one of the most classical and an ancient South Indian
Languages. In ancient times, the assembly or academy of
most learned men of Tamil land was called “Sangam” and
the literature produced from these assemblies is known as
the “Sangam literature”. Sangam age also renowned as
“Golden Age”.
The bibliometric study is a budding area of research in Library
and Information Science which quantifies and qualifies the
scholarly output of any literature. The bibliometric study
projects the strong and weak areas of any research or
documentation of bibliographical databases.
Bibliometrics
Introduction
NBIL

selective bibliography

compilation of works
 "of literary merit, and
important and significant books
Philosophy, Religion, History
and the other aspects of the Humanities".

Bibliography -1901 to1953.
Bibliometrics
Bibliometrics ?
Egghe

bibliometrics - quantitative study of
any literature as they are reflected in
bibliographies.

bibliometrics - study of the
analysis
quantitative
characteristics,
behavior and
Productivity of written communications.
Bibliometrics
Objective
 To apply bibliometric techniques
 available Tamil literature
 Digital South Asia Library’s NBIL,
 freely available bibliography in the internet.
 used by Tamil scholars and researchers
 This study exploits the characteristics of
Tamil literature output in NBIL.
Bibliometrics
Significance of the study
 NBIL - bibliographic database
• freely available
• 56,000 titles with imprints prior to 1954
• 22 Indian languages.
 To study Tamil literature output in NBIL
• Prediction of literature growth,
• author pattern,
• language dispersion &
• descriptor pattern.
Bibliometrics
Methodology
Database
: NBIL
Search Term : “tamil” (not case sensitive)
Hits
: 1218
S/w
: MS-Word and MS-Excel.
Bibliometrics
1. Literature Growth Study
One of the important aspects in bibliometric
study is the prediction of the pattern of growth
of literature.
Figure 1. Actual Growth of Tamil Literature (1886 to 1958)
Bibliometrics
Literature Growth Study…
Top 8 years productivity
1886 to 1958
- 698 publications (57.31%)
- 520 publications (42.69%)
Most productive years
Most productive year
-1946 to 1953
- 1953 (127 publications).
The linear trend calculates to 0.852x - 8.684.
Bibliometrics
2. Authorship Pattern
Authorship study - kind of authors, nature and degree of
collaboration .
Bibliometrics
Authorship Pattern…
 13 authors - 10 to 50 publications.
 71 hits
- no statement of responsibility.
 Most productive author - Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu (4.36%)
 The productivity difference among others - not quite high
 13 authors - 277 publications (24.15%)
 Others - 1 to 7 contribution(s)
 13 authors’ output < rest (75.85 % - high)
Bibliometrics
3. Language dispersion
•Language (document) -important factor- bibliometric studies
•References cited – depend - language of the documents.
•Non familiarity of a language – less citations.
•Translated works – cited by many.
Bibliometrics
Language dispersion…
Tamil ranks
- 90.23% (First)
Bilingual works - 9.77%.
Sanskrit
- II
Sanskrit and Tamil - III
English language
- IV
Pie diagram - rest of 119 hits language distribution.
Bibliometrics
4. Document Type
• Microforms - films or papers containing micro reproductions
(reduced to about 25 times of size) of documents
storage, retrieval, transmission, and printing.
•NBIL microfilms the Indian publications –
Microfilming of Indian Publications Project (MIPP).
•Govt. of India - approved a project by the National Library, Calcutta
Preservation Early 20th-Century South Asian Books.
• MIPP - preserving and making books accessible in the NBIL list
together with the pre-1954 titles in the NBIL supplement.
•In this analysis, out of 1218 documents, 944 documents are
microfilmed which accounts to 77.50%. This is an
appreciable mode of digital preservation for reference.
Bibliometrics
5. Subject Dispersion Study
Subject dispersion study - bibliometric study
• concentration of subject areas of documents;
• funding agencies to disburse the grant
•
based on the strong subject areas;
• enhance research in the needy and weaker areas.
The retrieved 1218 documents are categorized under 615
subject headings.
Bibliometrics
Subject Dispersion Study…
Bibliometrics
Subject Dispersion Study…
The top 15 ranking subject areas are tabulated.
Usually, number of subject areas >number of documents
(Because one document may belong >1 subject area)
•Philosophy and Religion
- 5.61% (First)
•History, biography and travel
- 4.07% (Second)
•Literary Criticism & General Anthology – 3.01% (Third)
The priority of subject areas as per NBIL is highlighted.
Bibliometrics
Conclusion
As per the bibliographical database,
The literature growth pattern analysis predicts that
• productivity reached its peak during 1946 to 1953.
•ups and down during the growth.
The authorship pattern study shows that
Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu –most productive author
•Collaborative authorship pattern cannot be predicted
•only single author contribution.
•Of course, there exist translators and editors.
Bibliometrics
Conclusion…
The language dispersion analysis yields that
•“Tamil” is the most predominant language (90.23%)
•Others are bilingual
The document type analysis yields that
•77.50% microfilmed documents
Subject Dispersion analysis shows that
•“Philosophy and religion” subject areas - first preference
• “History, biography and travel” - follows
Bibliometrics
Suggestions:
1) The National Bibliography of Indian Literature database
focuses from 1901 to 1954 and holds about 56,000 imprints
prior to 1954; policies may be framed to include the scholarly
output in Tamil prior to this period, since Tamil is a classical
and an ancient language.
2) Apart from preservation in any format, the bibliographic
databases dedicated for scholarly output in Tamil may be
created and launched freely over the internet.
3) The creation of online bibliographic databases of scholarly
output in Tamil spreads the richness of the scholars and
researchers who publish their output in Tamil.
Bibliometrics
Suggestions…
4) Citations may be made by the scholars and researchers from
these databases, which in turn raise the impact factor of Indian
journals and Indian authors.
5)
The creation of databases results in
reducing the
unemployment crisis and provides a wealthy literature output
for the future generation.
6) Uniformity in transliteration and subject term specification
through subject experts may be preferred to increase precision
in databases.
7) Literacy programmes on the usage of these bibliographical
databases may influence the researchers, scholars and authors
to publish their
findings in the journals indexed in these
databases.
Bibliometrics
Reference:
• http://www.culturopedia.com/Literature/tamil_literature.html
[accessed on 05-03-2011]
• http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/nbil.py [accessed on 06-032011]
• Jeyaseeli, P. Clara. Growth Pattern Analysis no Ascidians
Literature: A Scientometric Study (1998 to 2008). Journal of
Library, Information and CommunicationTechnology, 2(1-4):5159 (2010).
• Mahapatra, Gayatri, Bibliometric Studies: in the internet era, 2nd
ed. (New Delhi: Indiana Publishing House, 2009), 78.
• http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/nbil/aboutmipp.html
[accessed on 01-03-2011]
Bibliometrics
• Thanks to the efforts taken by The Digital South
Asia Library which is a project of the Center for
Research Libraries and the University of
Chicago . The Digital South Asia Library’s effort is a
global collaborative effort to make important and rare
resources available to the international community,
which is most appreciable and significant.
THANK U