Study of the world scientific output trends in the field of social services of public libraries in Scopus database with Scientometrics approach

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the research indexed in the Scopus database, related to the field of social services of public libraries from 1939 to 2020. Methodlogy: This research is an applied study that has been done by library and Scientometrics methods. The research community consists of 1465 articles in English. Excel software, descriptive statistics (frequency distribution) were used to analyze the data and VOS viewer, pajek, Ucinet and Net Draw were used to draw the maps..Findlings: The highest growth trend of scientific productions was recorded in the period 1979-1983 with 3% and the lowest growth trend was recorded in the period 2019-2020 with 0.61%. The University of Maryland is the most active organization in the field with 28 degrees. In the field of scientific production, the United States alone is at the top with 37%. According to the most frequent words, the main concepts were classified into five clusters.Conclusion: The 81-year period showed that the scientific production of social services in public libraries has been increasing. Among domestic universities, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences is in a better position than other domestic universities. "The role of the public library", "Citizens' social participation", "Media literacy and information literacy", "Social capital" and "Scientific communication" are the thematic clusters of research in this field.Value: This is the first research with a quantitative approach that seeks to investigate research in the field of public library social services that can be useful for policy makers in

Keywords

• public library
• scientometrics
• social services
• scopus database
• scientific outputs