Annals of Library Science and Documentation 46, 3; 1999; 8 1-%.

BIBLIOMETRICS OF ANIMAL CELL CULTURE TECHNOLOGY LITERATURE: A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

N V RAMAKRISHNA National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) University of Pune Campus Ganeshkhind Pune - 411 007

Quantitative studies in science have usually concentrated on data about formal communications, especially on publications in scientific journals as their empirical source. This study identifies core and significant literature for animal cell culture technology based on the citations culled from the serial publication Animal Cell Biotechnology. In addition to determining country, subject, physical format, chronological distribution of core journals in animal cell culture technology, the obsolescence and citation peak of journals in animal cell culture technology have also been worked out. The scattering of literature in the subject is determined by verifying Bradford's Law.

INTRODUCTION

Citation analysis has long been recognised as an important ind icator of the communities and the disciplines [1] . The structure of evolving field of biotechnology has received considerable attention. Almost every facet of biotechnology, as it developed, has spawned its own journal or journals often reflect ing the establishment of common interest group , within a scientific society or association. A number of these have subsequently broken away from the parent to form their own more specialist society or association , often proliferating further journals and newsletters [2] . Collection development and information services playa vital role in any R&D venture and it is necessary to prov ide access not only to field specific core journals but also to significant application related and' basic research journals for qualitative and quantitative research work carried out by the scientists/engineers in a highly

Vol 46 No 3 September 1999

N B PANGANNAYA University of Mysore Department of Studies in Library& Information Science

Manasagangothri Mysore - 570 006

multidisciplinary research like biotechnology. Identification of these journals could be achieved through the bibliometric analysis of published research literature. Problem of quantitative overload of literature in biomedical science is however well looked after by computerised databases like MEDLARS , EMBASE , Biotechnology abstracts (all of them are available online and as CD-ROM) . Since quality criteria are not applied while inclusion of literature in these databases , they are known to contain a substantiative amount of irrelevant information of low quality [3]. Bibliometric methods based on statistical analysis help to eliminate low quality literature and to select a small portion of Significant, reliable and relevant information. The techniques of bibliometrics offer a number of effective indicators to quantify scientific research to assess the scientific performance and can be used in conjunction with the review process . Citation analysis gives quantitative support to the qualitative test of time criterion that the longer a specific finding lasts, the better it is proved to be [4] . It is specially applicable to the periodical literature because of continuity in their publication pattern. It is through this approach, attempt has been made to identify core and significant journal literature in the field of animal cell culture technology.

BACKGROUND

Technological innovation drives the field of biotechnology. The revolution in biotechnology has come about as a consequence of the development of a number of techniques , prominent among which are recombinant DNA technology, hybridoma technology, tissue culture , chemical

XI

N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANGANNAYA

synthesis of proteins and DNA and in-vitro fertilisation . The use of these techniques against the background of knowledge acquired in the last couple of decades with regard to the structure of living systems has opened up new vistas of application .

The National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, USA defines biotechnology as the body of knowledge which relates to the use of organisms, cells or cell derived constituents for the purpose of developing products which are technically, scientifically and/ or clinically useful [5].

Animal cells are relatively newcomers in the field of biotechnology, but they are increasing in importance with the development of genetically engineered cell lines. Cell culture refers to cultures derived from dispersed cells taken from the original ti ssue, from a primary culture or from a cell line or cell strain by enzymatic, mechanical , or chemical disaggregation [6] . Ce lls are cultured for many reasons. The majority of the cell literature is related to some function of the cells rather than to the culture of cells purely with objective of culturing cells . This is especially true in most of the recent cell literature as it includes the new and established cell types in culture. New culture systems and successful culture of new cell types are continuously developed, however, the established cell type s are continuosly provid ing new experimental information and new products and the literature related to this may easily be seen to be characterised by a very large number of primary sources of information such as journals, meetings, proceedings, books, technical reports/manuals etc .

There are a small number of earlier bibliometric analysis of biotechnology with which the present study can be compared . Rip and Courtial [7] conducted a co-word analysis of biotechnology based on articles in biotechnology and bio­engineeri ng published between 1970 and 1979. They identified several research themes and a general three region structure in the co-word maps­centering on methods, terms and surrounded by other methods, terms and specific products and process. Nederhof [8] developed 11 and 22 core biotechnology journals based surveys of several hundred Dutch biotechnologists and publication outlets chosen by researchers participating in the

R2

European Biotechnology Program. McCain [9] conducted a database filtering approach (through the analysis of journal citation network) for identifying core a nd non core journals in biotechnology and identified eighty nine journals as potentially important for supporting biotechnology research and development. Lewison and Cunningham [10] compared national ity of authorship and aging rates of papers published by researchers in the biomolecu lar engineering program (BEP) with non BEP papers in 10 biotechnology journals used extensively by BEP authors . Hinze [11] explored the interdisc iplinary structure of bioelectronic using co-classification and co-ward analysis and discussed the benefits and limitations of these techniques in studying emerging interdisciplinary fields. Arora and Kaur [12] developed a list of 66 ranked core periodicals on immunology based on the analysis of the Annual Review of Immunlogy. The present study would prove useful to scientists/engineers and librarians seeking a broader view of journals which are likely to meet the information and publication needs of cell technologists/biotechnologists.

SOURCE OF DATA

In the present study, Animal Cell Bio technology, a review publication , published by Academic Press (1983-1995) has been used as the source. Animal Cell Biotechnology, is one of the prominent publications in the area of biotechnology and covers diverse topics like cell cultu re systems, cell products, mass cell cultivation and down stream processing etc .

Six volumes have been published so far. A review publication synthesizes proliferating fragmented knowledge appearing in a plethora of publications and carries a highly analytical , organised and complete synthesis of information in a given area. Review literature is preferred as a source of citations for bibliometric analysis over citations from primary information sources, as the former as a source of citation is known to have an edge over the later. Pao [13] conducted a quality filtering system for medicallitel-ature to identify recognised authorities in the field and also used the bibliographies of these review art icles to identify relevant and influencial journals and text book literature. Sengupta [14] elaborates factors favouring creation of a citation base for bibliometric

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A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

analysis from citations given in the annual reviews. The fact that citations collected from the reviewing publication have a definite edge over the citations collected from primary literature was amply established in related studies reported elsewtlere [15. 16] .

In view of above reasons , Anim a ll Cell Biotechnology, a reviewing publication has been used for the present quantitative study.

METHODOLOGY

Citations from each chapter of the publication were collected with adequate details such as journal name. year of publiction, number of authors etc . for further analysis . The types of documents such as conference proceedings , reports, manuals , standards and patents etc . were also listed separately to identify the forms of literature , chronological distribution , obsolescence etc . Ulrich's International Periodical Directory on CD­ROM for 1996-97 was used for identification of journal titles . Any incomplete/inadequate citations were checked by using the MEDLINE and Biotechnology Abstracts available on CD-ROM .

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Ranked List for Periodical Literature

Journal publications are vital vehicles for disseminating current information as regards results of current research and other investigative activities in a subject field. Therefore, the journal literature on animal cell culture technology has been further analysed in this study so as to determine the most cited journals in the field .

Table 1 shows 88 core journals in the field of animal cell culture technology arranged in decreasing frequency of citations. In case of ties, that is , the citations received by two or more journals being the same, the impact factor has been taken into consideration . Journals having atieast ten citations are listed in the table (88 numbers) and the remaining journals (549 numbers) have not been included in the ranked list as each..of them have very insignificant number of citations to their credit. It is found that the highly cited general journals: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States of America and the Nature are put in the two top slots in the ranked list of periodicals listed. These two journals

Table 1

Ranked list of periodicals

Rank Name of Periodicals Year Country No. of % No. Citations

1. Proc. National Academy Sciences 1915 USA 384 7.134 2. Nature 1869 UK 353 6.558 3. Dev. in BioI. Stdn 1964 Switzerland 253 4.700 4. Science 1883 USA 207 3.846 5 . Cell 1974 USA 200 3.716 6. Journal of Virology 1967 USA 163 3.028 7. Biotechnology & Bio-Engineering 1958 USA 155 2.879 8. Journal of Immunology 1916 USA 118 2.192 9. Mol & Cellular. Biology 1981 USA 115 2.136

10. Journal of Biological Chemistry 1905 USA 114 2.118 11 . Nature Biotechnology 1983 USA 108 2.006 12. Journal of Immunological Methods 1971 Netherland 91 1.690

contd .

Vo l 46 No 3 September 1999

N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANGANNAYA

(contn.) table 1

Rank Name of Periodicals Year Country No. of %

No.

13. Cancer Research 1941 USA 87 1.616 14. Experimental Cell Research 1950 USA 84 1.560 15. Methods in Exnzymology 1955 USA 62 1.151 16. Journal of cell Biology 1955 USA 60 1 .111 17. Virology 1955 USA 59 1.096 18. Trends in Biotechnology 1983 UK 56 1.040 19. Journal of Experimental Medicine 1986 USA 54 1.003 20. Invitro Cellular & Deve (Animal) 1965 USA 53 0.984 21 . Journal of General Virology 1967 UK 52 0.966 22. Embo Journal 1982 UK 50 0.929 23. Journal of National Cancer Institute 1940 UK 49 0.910 24. Bba Inti Journal of Biochemistry 1947 Netherlands 43 0.798 25. Lancet 1823 UK 41 0.761 26. Endocrinology 1917 USA 39 0.724 27. Journal of Investigative Dermatology 1938 USA 38 0.706 28. Archives of Virology 1939 Austria 37 0.687 29. Annals of Newyork Academy of Sciences 1823 USA 35 0.650 30. Proceedings of the Society for

Experimental Biology of Medicine 1903 UK 33 0.613 31. Journal of Cell Science 1852 UK 32 0.594 32. Nucleic Acid Research 1974 UK 30 0.557 33. Journal of Cellular Physiology 1932 USA 29 0.538 34. Annual Review of Biochemistry 1932 USA 28 0.520 35 . Current Opinion in cell Biology 1989 USA 28 0.520 36. Analytical Biochemistry 1960 USA 27 0.501 37. Blood 1945 USA 26 0.483 38. FEBS Letter 1968 Holland 26 0.483 39. Biochemical Journal 1906 UK 25 0.464 40. Crybiology 1964 USA 25 0.464 41 . Gene 1977 Netherland 25 0.464 42. New England Journal of Medicine 1812 USA 25 0.464 43. Biologicals 1973 UK 24 0.445 44. Journal of Chromatography 1958 Netherland 24 0.445 45. Applied & Environmental Microbiology. 1953 USA 23 0.427 46. Biochemical & Biophysical

Research Communications 1959 USA 23 0.427 47. Infection & Immunity 1970 USA 23 0.427 48. Journal of Biotechnology 1984 Netherland 23 0.427 49. Annals De Chime France 1789 France 21 0.390 50. Archives of Biochemistry & Biophysics 1942 USA 20 0.371 51 . Biochemistry 1964 USA 20 0.371 52 . Cytotechnology 1988 Netherland 19 0.353 53. Toxicology Invitro 1987 UK 19 0.353 54. Immunology 1958 UK 18 0.334 55. Journal of Clin ical Microbiology 1975 USA 18 0.334

contd .

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(contn .) table 1

Rank Name of Periodicals Year Country No. of 0/0

No.

56. Journal of Steriod Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 1970 USA 18 0.334

57. European Journal of Immunology 1970 France 17 0.315 58. Journal of Infectious Disease 1904 USA 17 0.315 59. Vaccine 1983 UK 17 0.315 60. Annual Review of Cell Biology 1985 USA 16 0.297 61. Journal of Clinical Investigation 1924 USA 16 0.297 62. Trends in Biochemical Sciences 1976 UK 16 0.297 63. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals (ATLA) 1973 UK 15 0.278 64. Analytical Chemistry 1929 USA 15 0.278 65. Applied Microbiology & Biotech 1975 FRG 15 0.278 66. Immunology Today 1980 UK 15 0.278 67. Biotechnology Letters 1979 UK 14 0.260 68. Int. Journal of Cancer 1966 USA 14 0.260 69. Epidemiology & Infection 1901 UK 14 0.260 70. Journal of Molecular Biology 1959 UK 14 0.260 71 . Advanced in Biochem Engineering

& Biotech 1972 USA 13 0.241 72. American Journal of Veterinary Research 1940 USA 13 0.241 73. B·ritish Journal of Cancer Research 1947 UK 13 0.241 74. Journal of Interferon Research 1995 USA 13 0.241 75. British Medical Journal 1840 UK 12 0.222 76. European Journal of Biochemistry 1967 FRG 12 0.222 77. FASEB Journal 1942 USA 12 0.222 78. Journal of Molecular & Applied Genetics 1981 USA 12 0.222 79. Methods in Cell Biology 1964 USA 12 0.222 80. Trends in Cell Biology 1991 UK 10 0.185 81 . Advances in Experimental

Medicine & Biology 1967 USA 10 0.185 82. Aids 1987 UK 10 0.185 83. Antimicrobial Agents Chemotherapy 1972 USA 10 0.185 84. Methods in Cell Science 1953 USA 10 0.185 85. Cancer 1948 USA 10 0.185 86. Oncogene 1987 UK 10 0.185 87. Scientific Ame·rican 1945 USA 10 0.185

themselves account for 13.692% of total citations Testing Bradford's Law of Scattering of (PNAS 7.134% and Nature 6.558%). Development Literature in Biological Standardization constitutes 253 citations occupying 3rd position with a percentage Bradford's law comes ineVitably to mind while of 4.70%. Science and Cell which contributed 207 dispersion of subject literature among journals is (3.846%) and 200 (3.716%) citations ~espectively being studied. This regularity was originally stated occupies 4th and 5th place in the ranked list of in Bradord's Seminal paper of 1934. Bradford's core journals. Publication of articles in general Law states that "if scientific journals are arranged science may be interpreted as indication of pres~nt in decreasing productivity of articles on a given role of animal cell culture technology in the subject, they may be divided into a nucleus of advancement of fundamental sciences. periodicals more particularly devoted to subject

Vol 46 No :) September 1999 R5

N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANGANNAYA

and several zones of groups containing the same number of articles as the nucleus , then the zone will be as 1 =n=n2" (17).

Thi s law provides a very convenient base for estimating the size of subject literature and a means of estimating how, many journals must 6e checked to obtain a specified d egree of completeness. A general form of this law says that the cumulative number of papers on a given subject R (n) will be released to the journals in which they appear R(n) = R(1) + K.log( ).

Table 2 represents journals arranged in decreasing order of frequency of citations (5382) received from the animal cell biotechnology. Bradford's law of scattering is verified by plotting a graph by taking cumulative number of journals (Rn) on the ordinate aga inst the logarithm of cumulative number of citations log (n) in the abscissa. It is observed that the resulting bibliograph (Fig 3). is a non linear curve and indicates non-observation of Bradford 's Law of Scattering. In the present study, 7 journals covered 1715 articles, next 37 journals covered 1852 articles , and the re maining 593 journals covered 1815 articles and is in the ratio of 7:37:593 i.e. 1:5.28:112. The number of periodicals in the 3rd zone far out strips the expected value i.e. 195. Hence it cannot be said that the distribution follows Bradford's Law.

Distribution of Publications by Year

Some important conclusion s regarding obsolescence (ageing process) of the analysed literature were also drawn . The standard impact factor based on two years citation observation may be distorted by the deviating ageing behaviour in different subject field . The presen t findings confirmed the other studies , while for cancer literature according to Sengupta and Henzler (18) the two year standard citation period would do well and Arora and Kaur (19) developed less than six years towards the half l ife o f jo urnals in immunology. Wallace questions the usefulness of lSI 's citation indexing depending on the subject area (20). He suggests an observation period of five years fo r diachronous studies . However, in the case of animal cell culture technology, an even longer citation period seem s to be more appropriate for producing valid resu lts. Therefore a ten year citat ion period was choosen here as half of the total citations 53.214% pertained to 1985-1994. The year wise distribution of citations is given in Table 3. The data makes it obvious that the older research papers received fewer citations than the recent ones . The year-wi se distribution of citations varies from a maximum of 450 (8.361 %) in 1987 followed by 439 (8. 156%) and 355 (6 .596%) in 1986 and 1988 respectively. The

Table 2

Distribution of journals in decreasing order of citations

No. of Cumulative Log of No. of Total No. Cumulative %of % of Journals No. of 2 Citations of Citation No. of Citation 2 6

Journals 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 0.000 384 384 384 0.156 7.134 2 0.301 353 353 737 0.313 13.693 3 0.477 253 253 990 0.470 18.394 4 0.602 207 207 1197 0.627 22.240 5 0.699 200 200 1397 0.784 25.956 6 0.778 163 163 1560 0.941 28.985 7 0.845 155 155 1715 1.098 31 .865 8 0.903 118 118 1833 1.255 34.150 9 0.954 115 115 1948 1.412 36.194

10 1.000 114 114 2062 1.569 38.312

contd.

A nn Lib Sci Doc

No. of Cumulative Log of Journals No. of 2

1 2 1 2 4 2 4

2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 6 8 3

12 15 17

Journals 2

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 35 36 38 42 44 48 49 51 53 56 59 62 66 70 74 80 88 91 93

108 125

3

1.041 1.079 1.114 1.146 1.176 1.204 1.230 1.255 1.278 1.301 1.322 1.342 1.362 1.380 1.398 1.415 1.431 1.447 1.462 1.477 1.491 1.505 1.519 1.549 1.556 1.579 1.623 1.643 1.681 1.690 1.707 1.724 1.748 1.770 1.792 1.819 1.845 1.869 1.903 1.944 1.959 1.968 2.033 2.096

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A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

ta~le 2 (contn .)

No. of Total No. Cumulative % of Citations of Citation No. of Citation 2

4

108 91 87 84 62 60 59 56 54 53 52 50 49 43 41 39 38 37 35 33 32 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10

9 8 7 6

5

108 91 87 84 62 60 59 56 54 53 52 50 49 43 41 39 38 37 35 33 32 30 29 56 27 52

100 48 92 21 40 38 54 51 48 60 56 52 72 80 27 16

105 102

6

2170 2261 2348 2432 2494 2554 2613 2669 2723 2776 2828 2878 2927 2970 3011 3050 3088 3125 3160 3193 3225 3255 3284 3340 3367 3419 3519 3567 3659 3680 3720 3758 3812 3863 3911 3971 4027 4079 4151 4231 4258 4274 4379 4481

7

1.726 1.883 2.040 2.197 2.354 2.511 2.668 2 .825 2.982 3.139 3.296 3.453 3.610 3.767 3.924 4.081 4.238 4.395 4.552 4.709 4.866 5.023 5.180 5.494 5.651 5.965 6.59 6.907 7.535 7.692 8 .006 8.320 8.791 9.262 9.733

10.361 10.989 11 .616 12.558 13.814 14.285' 14.599 16.954 19.623

% of 6

8

40.319 42.010 43.626 45.187 46.339 47.454 48.550 49.591 50.594 51 .579 52 .545 53.474 54.384 55.183 55.945 56 .670 57.376 58.063 58.714 59.327 59.921 60.479 61 .018 62 .058 62.560 63.526 65.384 66.276 67.985 68.376 69.119 69.825 70.828 71.776 72 .668 73.782 74.823 75.789 77.127 78.613 79.115 79.412 81.363 83.259

contd .

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N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANGANNAYA

table 2 (contn.)

No. of Cumulative Log of No. of Total No. Cumulative % of % of Journals No. of 2 Citations of Citation No. of Citation 2 6

Journals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

13 138 2.139 5 65 4546 21 .664 84.466 40 178 2.250 4 160 4706 27.943 87.439 60 238 2.376 3 180 4886 37.362 90.784 97 335 2.525 2 194 5080 52.590 94.388

Table 3

Distribution of publications by year

Period Year Citation % of col 3 Cum. Citaticn % of colmn 5 1 2 Rcvd 3 4 5 6

1994 2 0.037 2 0.037 2 1993 64 1.189 66 1.226 3 1992 154 2.861 220 4.087 4 1991 194 3.604 414 7.692 5 1990 289 5.369 703 13.062 6 1989 279 5.183 982 18.246 7 1988 355 6.596 1337 24.842 8 1987 450 8.361 1787 33.203 9 1986 439 8.156 2226 41 .360

10 1985 336 6.243 2562 47.603 11 1984 302 5.611 2864 53.214 12 1983 295 5.481 3159 58.695 13 1982 287 5.332 3446 64.028 14 1981 276 5.128 3722 69.156 15 1980 237 4.403 3959 73.560 16 1979 173 3.214 4132 76.772 17 1978 109 2.025 4241 78.799 18 1977 122 2.266 4363 81 .066 19 1976 104 1.932 4467 82.998 20 1975 85 1.579 4552 84.578 21 1974 62 1.151 4614 85.730 22 1973 94 1.746 4708 87.476 23 1972 78 1.449 4786 88.926 24 1971 67 1.244 4853 90.170 25 1970 55 1.021 4908 91. 192 26-35 1969-60 310 5.759 5218 96.952 36-45 1959-50 118 2.192 5336 99.145 46-55 1949-40 20 0.371 5336 99.516 56-65 1939-30 16 0.297 5372 99.814 66-75 1929-20 8 0.148 5380 99.962 76-85 1919-10 2 0.037 5382 100.000

88 Ann Lib Sci Doc

Ul c: 0 ;; !'CJ :!:: 0 <II > ;;

.!!! :J E :J U

6000 I

5000

4000

3000

2000 I

1000

0

A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

No. of Years

Fig. 1 Year wise distribution

500 ,-------·--------------------------,

C I T 400 A T I o N 300 S

I N

A N

200

Y 100 E A R

O L---------------------------------~ 1994 1992 1990 1988 1986 1984 1962 1980 1976 1976 1974

YEARS OF CITED ARTICLES

Fig. 2 Year wise distribution of citations (citation decay curve)

Vol 46 No 3 September 1999 ~9

N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANG.ANNAYA

oldest cited article was publ ished during 1900-1910 and the citations to research articles published from 1900-1910 to 1950-1959 were between 2 and 118. A gradual and steady increase in citations to the articles published from 1974 onwards is quite evident from the Table. Fig . 1 and 2 charts the year-wise distribution of citations in animal cell culture technology on the basis of citations collected from the animal cell biotechnology.

Forms of Literature

Various physica l formats are used to record information and each torm of publication is intended to serve a specific purpose or information

need. The bibliographic items classified into journal articles, books, conference proceedings, reports and manuals, patents , thesis and standards are presented in Table 4. It was found that journal articles were the most important form of publication in the literature of animal cell culture technology which amount to 5382 citations (83.47%). This is followed by books with 726 citations (11.26%) while reports and manuals account for 112 citations (1 .76%). Patents are represented with 61 citations. Thesis are cited 22 times (0 .34%) while personnel communication received 19 (0 .29%) citations . Standards have representation with 7 (0 .10%) citations.

Table 4

Forms of literature cited

SI.No. Forms of Documents

1. Journal Articles 2. Books 3. Conference Proceedings 4 . Reports/Manuals 5. Patents 6. Thesis 7. Personnel Commn 8. Standard

Total

The low percentage of patent literature in animal cell culture technology may be attributl3d to the fact that the major sources of biotechnology information do not index patents. It is suggested that the major sources of biotechnology in1'ormation particularly MEDLINE and BIOSIS must include patent literature on par with Chemical Abstracts which has always used patents as source of information and indel(ed.

Citations

5382 726 119 112 61 22 19

7

6448

Percentage

83.47 11.26 1.84 1.76 0.95 0.34 0.29 0.10

100.00 (approx)

Subject-wise distribution of core journal

Subject-wise distribution of core journals in the field of animal cell biotechnology is p,resented in Table 5. A most interesting finding from the analysis is that literature on animal cell culture technology is scattered among various subjects (Fig. 4). This is clear from the diversity C) f subjec t scope , that animal cell culture technology is used in a multitude

An n Lib Sc i Doc

A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

C U M

6 ,------

U l A T I

, 5 1

I V E 41 c I I '

13 ! T ..-;I ! A I

T J o 2 N S

x

,

!

!

J ~ ! , i

•

," .;

1 o o o 0 L_w-'w-.. ,.----- --- --------.-_--,.---,_-

- '0 0 ,3 (J.G 1,0 1.6 1.9

LOG OF CUMULATIVE NO'.OF JNLS

Fig, 3 Bradford bibliograph

of disciplines in the biomedical sciences for wider application with its development of genetically engineered cell lines and deals with disciplines like biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, immunology, etc , The findings of the present study reveal that the journals are distributed as follows : 17 journal titles (19,31%) in cell biology, 13

Vol 46 No 3 Septem ber 1999

(14,77%) in biochemistr;y, 11 journals in immunology, 10 (11 .36%) in molecular biology, 9 (10 .22%) in biotechnology and the rest in toxicology, dermatology, endocrinology, hematology and multidisciplinary sciences, On the basis of this scattering data it can be interpreted that animal cell culture technology is a collection

9 1

N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANGANNAYA

Tab le 5

Subject-wise distribution of core journals

SI.No. Subject No. of titles Percentage

1 . Biochemistry 13 14.77 2 . Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology 9 10.22 3. Cell Biology 17 19.31 4 . Dermatology 1.13 5. Endocrinology 1.13 6. Hematology 1 1.13 7. Infectious Diseases 2 2.27 8. Immunology 11 12.50 9. Medicine . Research Experimental 5 5.68

10. Molecular Biology 10 11 .36 11 . Multidisciplinary Science 7 7.95 12. Oncology 6 6.82 13. Toxicology 1.13 14. Veternary Science 1 1.13 15. Virology 3 3.40

Total 88

Multid ss d , Sd en

r 7%

_1_-Olcology

Cel Biology 17%

2%

Immunology 11 %

Re;e 5% 10%

Fig. 4 Subjectwise distribution of core journals

6%

Virology 3%

B iochemis tr 13%

Biotech &Apj. Miao

9%

92 An n Lib Sc i Doc

A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

of methods/techniques rather than a special discipline and that researchers in animal cell culture technology search for and use common methods/techniques and then return to their own knowledge base in the original subject field , which may be immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, etc.

Country-wise distribution of core journals

A geographical analysis of citations furnishes information on countries active in a subject field and their relative contribution to the development of the subject. Table 6 shows that the USA is the major contributor with 50 journals (56 .818%) followed by UK with 25 (28.409%), Netherlands 7 (7 .954%),Germany stands fourth with 3 core journals (3.409%) followed by Austria, France and Switzerland each contributing one journal.

Authorship Pattern

The characteristics of any subject literature consist of not only the basic publishing patterns but that of the authors themselves. Therefore , th ::: authorship was analysed to determ ine the percentage of single and multiple authors. It was found that 869 (16 .01 %) papers were single

authored, 1241 (22.875%) papers were contributed by two authors while three authors contributed 1110 (20.460%). The remaining 2205 (40.645%) papers were by more than 3 authors . The percentage of multiauthored papers in life sciences is reported to be in the range of 83 [21] and the present study confirms the same (Fig. 5) . In order to determine the extent of collaboration in quantitative terms, the formula given by K. Subramanyam [22] has been used.

Nm C = ---

Nm+Ns

Where

C = Degree of collaboration in a discipline Nm = Number of multiauthored papers Ns Number of single autho red papers

4556 4556 C=----- =--- = 0.839

4556 + 869 5425

Thus the degree of collaboration in an imal cell technology is 0.839%. Th is brings out clearly the prevalence of non-solo research in the fi eld .

Table 6

Countrywise distribution of core journals

SI.No. Country No. of Titles Percentage

1. USA 50 56.818 2. UK 25 28.409 3. Netherlands 7 7.954 4. FAG 3 3.409 5. Austria 1.136 6. Switzerland .1 1.136 7. France 1 1.136

Vol 46 No 3 Septem ber 1999 93

N V RAMAKRISHNA and N B PANGANNAYA

N 0

0 F

P A P E R S

94

2 5 00 1-----· -.-- .. ---..

! i

2000

1500

1000 :

500

1

--_._ .. _ ........... __ ._-_ .. _--- "'-

2 3 4 AND ABOVE

NO.OF AUTHORS

Fig. 5 : Authorship pattren

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A STUDY BASED ON THE ANIMAL CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY

CONCLUSION

Scientometric studies are useful in understanding the dynamics and performance of science, as well as for making policy decisions . For decades librarians have used citation counts to determine the adequacy of a periodical collection, the optimum size of back files to be acquired, binding and retention schedules and for cost benefit analysis in the management of subscription budget. Some important conclusions based on the study are:

1. The ranked list of periodicals based on the frequency of citation counts is a simple technique and can be used as a guide for formulating the acquisition policy periodicals.

2. The core journals identified on animal cell culture technology by analysing animal cell biotechnology, highlights potentially important titles that serve as channels for communicating domain specific animal cell culture technology.

3 . The highly cited general journals, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Nature and Science, indicate the potential role of animal cell culture technology in the fundamental sciences and also its long established reputation .

4. The half life of animal cell culture technology literature is 10 years .

5. Conference literature occupying third highest slot, aggregating a total number of 119 citations , shows the decline of science oriented meetings in animal cell culture technology; whereas events with topics like methodology, techniques are more popularly referred to by the scientists.

6. Researchers in the field of animal cell culture technology need to understand that patents are an important source for scientific information and MEDLlNE, BIOSIS etc. must index patents for retrospective searching and current awareness.

7 . It is necessary to identify all potential sources of information relevant to the development and evaluation of cell culture techniques, methods,

Vol 46 No 3 September 1999

applications etc. and these data should be incorporated into various databases available in the area of biotechnology.

8. Based on the analysis , it can be concluded that animal cell biotechnology is a collection of methods/techniques rather than a special discipline. Further, the analysis has provided the National Centre for Cell Biology (NCCS) sufficient insight in planning and managing the information resources and services in the field of animal cell culture technology.

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