An Empirical Evaluation of Research on “Library Management” at the Doctoral Level in India: A Study of the Last 50 Years from 1971 to 2020

Abstract

Abstract The current study is undertaken to report a statistic and study the growth of doctoral research in India under the domains of “library management” in the last 50 years from 1971 to 2020. Two central repositories of India, i.e. INFLIBNET “Shodhganga” and INFLIBNET “INDCAT” services, were used to curate data for the PhD theses for the studied period. A hypothesis was formulated and statistically proved that research on library management has witnessed significant growth during the period. A total of 304 theses were produced by 89 universities during the period that dealt with the subject of library management, out of which Gauhati University produced the highest (4.23% of the total). Northeastern and Southern India universities have a higher thesis productivity average per institution than the national average during the studied period. A positive correlation was found between the age of the Library and Information Science (LIS) department with thesis productivity. Significantly, several non-LIS departments have produced PhDs in the areas of library management during the studied period. Decade-wise growth study revealed that after the year 2000, Financial Planning, Human resource management, Total Quality Management, and Management of Digital resources are some prominent micro-level areas of the doctoral theses of Indian universities in the last 50 years.