Application of Bradford’s law of scattering and Leimkuhler model to information science literature

Abstract

This paper discusses the theoretical aspects of Bradford’s law, its implications in different subject areas, various implementation forms, and its relevance in the published Information Science literature. The study attempts to apply Bradford’s law and Leimkuhler model on Information Science literature to a total of 213 source items listed in the Scopus database during the study period of 2001 to 2020. A ranking table of journals and articles has been prepared to contain the cumulative count. In the first phase, the verbal formulation or the laws’ algebraic form is employed in the journal distribution pattern that depicts a very high percentage of error in the actual observation that does not comply with Bradford’s distribution. The Leimkuhler model’s application follows this after finding the Bradford multiplier (k) value, thereby estimating the number of journals in the core and the successive two zones (r 0, r 1, r 2). A minor percentage error of 0.0092357% has been observed, followed bythe graphical depiction of the data, i.e., “Bradford’s Bibliograph.” “Scientometrics” (39), “Bulletin of the Medical Library Association” (33), “Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science”(26 ) were found as the most preferred journals with the highest frequency.