An investigation into the collaboration of the students of the Library and Information Sciences faculty on the production of scientific articles for the annual student convention of the Faculty of Library and Information sciences of the University of Al

A survey of collaboration rate among of Iranian LIS students in producing scientific articles for annual student conference of Al-Zahra University

(2000-2006)

Amir Reza Asnafi

PhD Student of Library and Information Sciences,Iran, University of Ahwas

Email:aasnafi@yahoo.com

Farshid Danesh

Academic member, department of medical library and information science,Iran,Isfhan, University of medical science

Email:farshid_danesh@yahoo.com

Maryam Pakdaman naeini

Postgraduate Student of Library and Information Sciences ,Iran,Tehran, University of Al Zahra

Email:m.pakdaman@gmail.com

Abstract

Collaboration in research and production of scientific publications is common in all academic areas. This collaboration among researchers results in the development of scientific knowledge and hence the attainment of wider information. The significance of collaboration in the production of scientific publications in today's complex world where technology is everything is very apparent. Scientists from many nations have realized that in order to get their work wildly used and cited to by experts, they must collaborate. This research aims to survey the rate of collaboration among Iranian LIS students on the production of scientific articles for the annual student conference of Al-Zahra University and assess their contribution to domestic scientific production in the field of Library and Information Sciences. It is through the efforts of the Al-zahra library and information science students accosiation and their lecturers , that this annual conference happens every year and has been able to bring together lecturers, librarians and LIS students in order to debate the latest information in the aforementioned field since its establishment in 2000 for seven consecutive years. As this is a student conference and most of the LIS students of all levels submit papers to this conference. The aim of the present article is to survey the rate of collaboration among contributors which in turn should clarify the contribution of Iranian LIS students in the production of these articles. To that end submitted articles and thematic inclinations of each conference has been examined.

Research results indicated that in the seven conferences held 63 articles were present in speech form, of the 91 authors collaborating in the production of these articles, 51 were female and the rest i.e. 37 were male. The most number of articles, 15 on the subject of Iranian University Libraries in the form of a speech were presented in 2003. The least number were submitted in 2000 and 2004 where a total of 7 in the form of speech on the subject of the education of Library and Information sciences and its difficulties were submitted. Of the 63 articles 42 were presented individually while the other 21 were as a result of collaboration where 15 were the result of the collaboration of 2 authors and the other 6 the work of 3 authors. The most number of collaborative articles were submitted in 2005 and 2006 with 6 and the least number was presented in 2001 and 2003 where nothing was presented. The results of this research indicated that The LIS students of AL Zahra University with 18 articles took first place while The Chamran University of Ahvaz with 8 was second and Shiraz University with 5 came third.

Keywords: Collaboration, Scientific productions, Iranian Students of library and Information Sciences, The University of Al Zahra

Introduction

The scientific knowledge throughout the world has been enhanced due to a rapid increase number of interdisciplinary courses in recent decades. As a result, scientists in different scientific categories are not able to maintain researches individually anymore, instead “discussion group” scientific round table, “study group” have benefited the researchers to exchange viewpoints on different aspects of science in order to achieve advancements and improvement in science and technology (Osareh,2005a). The number of international group articles has been increased throughout the world consistently. However, from the average of 7.8% between the years of 1986-1988 it’s increased to 14.8 % during the period of 1995-1997 (Goupta, Dhavan and Osareh, 2004).This is mostly due to the effect of the international scientific collaboration on research areas which leads to a development of human resource and labor force, facilities, advancement of technology and innovative shared knowledge.

In early 19^th centaury French chemist conformed the first scientific collaboration which gradually developed until World War I. however the rapid growth occurred ever since (Osareh, 2005 b). Possibly the cause of this rapid growth is the benefits researchers have acquired for an exchange of idea in scientific collaborations, Moreover the quality enhancement of group articles, receiving more citations, the use of co-authors specialization and skills, tentative increase of publishing group articles in widely known scientific journals, enhancement of written articles by the faculty members regarding promotions, increase motivation among the researchers toward research activities implied as a tool to withstand ignorance in knowledge. Other reasons for the mentioned rapid development would be the availability of less expensive communication systems such as, E-mail and online databases and facilities of WWW. The researchers nowadays do not tend to conduct a research individually with compare to the past nevertheless the decrease of individual activities and increase of group articles in a number of scientific courses have been indicated that most scientific publishing in different courses belong to the group articles.

The collaborations in both social science and humanities have continually been increased due to access to the newest findings of the researchers. James Terry’s article on library and information science is a good example of eye catching development in group collaborations. Terry went over the complete articles of different authors published in a magazine named (University and Research library) during 1939 to 1994. However, he reached to a conclusion the single author articles consistently have been decreased from 95.7% within 5 years (1939-1944) to 40.5% during (1989-1994) (Hart, 2000).

Problem statement

Scientific conferences are the most important tools in information sciences and the growth of knowledge in every field. Ordinarily the latest findings are published in scientific journals. In reality publications in these journals are an indication of the interests and tendencies of the authors of each subject who may be employed in educational, research or service units. In the field of LIS in Iran scientific journals of more than three decades are available and are always relied upon as a source of publication and new information.

In the past few decades, there has been a daily increase in the publication of collaborative scientific articles. This phenomenon was in the past discussed in science and social science fields. Recently there has been a noticeable increase in the collaboration of the authors of LIS materials to the extent that these collaborations have shown a greater increase than the publication of the scientific materials themselves (Hart, 2000).

No study which clearly surveys the collaboration of the authors of LIS materials exists in scientific journals in Iran. Therefore the present research on this theme can indicate the state of this collaboration and whether its rate of growth is satisfactory. The collaboration coefficient of the authors in various years can be obtained through this research and discuss their process of change in order to improve them.

The significance of research

In recent years the establishment of E-mail networks and the advance of information and communication technology have resulted in the increase of communication and collaboration of researchers. Although collaboration in scientific areas has existed for a very long time, but this collaboration has in recent years experienced significant increase in social science specially in LIS. Evidence in the Library and Information sciences articles is suggestive of the existence of a relationship between the rate of collaboration and the better quality of articles, i.e. the greater collaboration the better the quality of the articles (Hart 2000). Therefore Iranian researchers of LIS are able to increase the quality of their articles by the utilization of collaboration and hence publish them in credible national and international journals. The object of collaboration is the scientific collaboration of two or more researchers in order to produce a new and significant article worthy of being published in a notable scientific journal.

On the other hand surveying of scientific collaboration of researchers has important applications in strategic planning in research execution and policies of a scientific area and provides effective tools for the planners in this field which as well as evaluation and control of the resultant improvements in their research activities, would indicate existing shortages and faults and identify factors restricting collaborations and their solutions.

Aims of the research

The primary aim of the present research is the discovery of the rate of collaboration of the authors in the articles submitted to the LIS student conferences of the University of Al Zahra during the years 2000 – 2006 and another secondary aims are:

The identification of the authors with the most collaboration;
Identification of the organizations and departments having the most collaboration of authors;
The determination of the mean number of authors in each article;
Identification of the organizations and institutions with the most articles in the student conferences of the Al-Zahra university;
The determination of the collaboration of authors on various subjects.

Research questions

How many authors were present in each conference?
How many of the articles submitted in each conference were in collaboration?
In which years there has been the most collaboration among the authors of the articles and in which years the least?
Which organizations and institutions have contributed the most in the collaboration of the authors?
Which organizations and institutions have contributed the most in submitting articles to the LIS student conferences of Al-Zahra University?

The research population

The statistical population of this research consists of all articles submitted in the form of speech to the student conferences of Library and Information Sciences of the Al-Zahra University during the years 2000-2006.

Method of data collection

To collect the data the abstracts from the submitted articles to each conference were studied and various information such as names of authors, their organizational association was selected from each and entered in various tables.

Literature review

Studies that have been carried out on the collaboration and specially scientific collaboration of Iranian researchers in the production of scientific material are as follows:

Tavassoli Farahi (1994) During his surveying of the materials published in one of the credible national or international scientific journals in the years 1986 to 1991 by the members of the scientific board and their assistance from various faculties of the Universities of Medical Science of Tehran, Iran and Shahid Beheshti, he concluded that the most materials published in national journals 56.9% and in international journals 58.9% is of the clinical type. 48.5% of the materials published nationally and 13% of those published internationally were of single author type and the rest of the internationally published articles 87% had more than one author. 3.3% of the materials were published as a result of the collaboration of the three universities where the Medical science University of Tehran with the publication of 60.1% was in first place. Abam (2000) in her masters thesis surveyed the rate of scientific material produced by the members of the scientific board of the Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz in the shape of 40 educational groups and 11 faculties and separated into 4 scientific certificates (book, article, thesis and research proposal) during the years 1979 to 1999. Her findings indicated that of a total of 431 members of the scientific board under study, 51 people(11.83%) were women and the rest 380 people (88.17%) were men, and 5.76% of the scientific information was produced by women while the rest 94.24% was produced by men. In the collaboration of the authors about one third (33.65%) was produced in collaborative form while the remaining two thirds (66.35%) was produced individually. Sarrafzadeh(2000) in her masters thesis studied the state of the Iranian articles indexed on the CAB and Agris databases since the beginning till 1997 with the aim of the determination of the share of the Iranian articles from the total number of the articles that had appeared on these databases and the clarification of the extent of the collaboration of each of the nations educational and research centers in the production of the articles present in these databases. The results indicate a reduction in the number of Iranian articles submitted after the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979) which he attributes to the occurrence of events such as the Iranian Revolution, The closure of the universities and the Iran-Iraq war. However, from the nineties onward there has again been an increase in the appearance of Iranian articles on these databases. Other data indicated that from the 47 centers which had contributed more than 5 articles to these databases, The University of Tehran had the biggest share and The Semnan Agricultural Research Centre the least. Osareh and Marefat (2005) in a research surveyed the growth and development of the articles submitted by Iranian researchers in foundation sciences and inter- medicinal areas to the medical science information network Medline in the years 1976 to 2003 and identified the Iranian universities, journals and researchers who had produced the most scientific articles and indicated those subject areas which these researchers were wore interested in. The results of this study indicated that articles and materials submitted to Medline by Iranian researchers had increased significantly so that during the period under research 2695 articles from 9373 coauthors has been published where the average number of authors collaborating on an article was 3.4 people. In the international scale there have been many researches on collaboration in the production of scientific material. Hart(2000) in his surveying of the collaborations published by the LIS students of the Pennsylvania State University found that there has been more collaboration among authors in the core LIS journals than in other judged and non-judged journals, so that from 315 articles published by 52 librarians from this university 230 (73%) had only one author and 85(27%) involved 2 or more authors where most of the articles in the non-judged journals were written individually and the proportion of single author articles to multi author articles in judged journals was about 2 to 1 and this proportion for all core journals was almost 1 to 1. Another study on the rate of collaboration of the authors of the developing nations and the Eastern European countries in 21 core LIS journals during the years 1980-1999, indicated that from a total of 10400 articles published only 826 (7.9%) were published by the aforementioned authors which is not very significant. In Important countries such as India, China and Hungary most articles on themes related to LIS such as bibliometrics, scientometrics, infometrics, information retrieval , information systems and networking exist in libraries while researchers in many African and Asian countries concentrate on themes relevant to libraries, library experts, library and information sciences education and the related complications. In the countries of the Middle East especially in Arab nations there is more activity in collection development, cataloguing, library automation and their related services (Uzun,2002).Osareh and Wilson (2002) in a research undertaken to survey the rate of international collaboration in the scientific works of the Iranians in the area of science citation index during the years 1995-1999 and in comparison with their previous study on the same theme found that the scientific works of the Iranians in science and technology in three five year periods in this area has increased. Iran has increased its publications by two fold in the first two periods and by 2.8 times in the third period. The greater part of the Iranian's international collaboration in these three periods has been with American and British coauthors and collaboration with the authors of other nations has also had a significant increase. Gupta, Dhavan and Osareh (2004) in study based on the amount of group articles published in the existing journals on science citation index in India considering the collaboration of Indian authors with authors from the countries of the Middle East on science and technology during the years 1996-2000 indicated that from 202 group articles published, 65% resulted from bilateral collaborations and the rest were the results of multilateral collaborations between Indian and the countries of the Middle East. Israel, Iran and Kuwait were the major participants in this scientific collaboration. Incidentally more than 68% of these collaborations were in fields of Medicine, Chemistry, Biomedicine and Physics. Osareh(2005b) in an article entitled « Higher education and research collaboration between Iran and The UK » has surveyed Iran's collaborations on the basis of previous research findings. This research indicates that the collaboration of the Iranians in the last five years in comparison to some decades ago has increased rapidly and Iran continues to seek ever increasing collaborations. During the period 1985-2003 The UK has been the second principal nation with which Iran has collaborated. Osareh(2005a) in another study on the extent of scientific collaboration on astronomical articles on the internet site Science Direct during the period 2000-20004 concluded that the most of the collaborations happened in the last two years and the number of articles submitted were significant such that there are 419 astronomical articles written by 2761 co-authors from 37 countries on this site and there were on average 6.6 on every article. Farajpahlou (2004) in a study entitled « collaboration among Library and Information Sciences experts and scientists » discussed the collective works of the Iranian authors of this area in four specialized Farsi journals during the period 2001-2003 so as to determine the extent of these authors endeavors in the production and conveyance of knowledge and information to the community and present the authors, universities and journals involved in most collaborations. The findings indicate that from 168 existing articles only 23 (14%) were the result of collaborations, of 41 authors with a mean of 2.043 person author per article which is an indication of the insignificance of the rate of the collaboration of the authors of this area.

Research findings

The findings of this research are illustrated in the following tables:

Table1. Data related to those submitting articles to the first conference in 2000

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
A. Shokri	R. Ebrahimi	-	BA student	Shahed university
N. Naghshineh	-	-	Post graduate	Tehran university
S. Ghafari	-	-	Post graduate	Amirkabir university
A. Hatami	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
S. Darzi	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
M. Rabani	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
R. Masoompour	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university

As it can be observed from the table1, in 2000 when the first University of Al Zahra conference was held from a total of seven articles only one article was jointly submitted by the postgraduate students of LIS. However, these students submitted a total of 4 articles which was the most submitted to the conference.

Table 2. Data related to those submitting articles to the second conference in 2001

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
S. Rezaie shrifabadi	-	-	PhD	Al Zahra university
K. Kosha	-	-	PhD student	JASIS
M. Taghavi	-	-	Engineer	JASIS
Y. Mansourian	-	-	Postgraduate	-
M. Fatthi	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
M. Samiee			Post gradate student	National library
Z. Cherghi	-	-	Librarian	Al Zahra university
B. Davodi	-	-	???	???
A. Milan Milaie	-	-	???	???

This table indicates that in the second conference held in 2001, from a total of 9 articles submitted there were no collective works. At that conference one article was submitted by the National Library, two by the Agricultural Movement Centre and 3 were courtesy of Al Zahra University. No information about the other two authors was available.

Table 3. . Data related to those submitting articles to the third conference in 2002

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
H. Kyani	-	-	PhD	Al Zahra university
F. Tabandeh	-	-	Postgraduate	Mirza shirazi library
N. Ghafori	-	-	BA student	Yazd university
F. Hamidi	J.Abbaspour	-	BA student	Sahed university
S.Karimi	M. Rasi	-	BA student	Sahed university
M. Binesh	A. Hamidi		BA student	Shiraz university
H. Solymani	-	-	Postgraduate/Librarian	Central library of Medical university
D. Alimohamdi	A. Komijani	-	Postgraduate	Library of Parliament/ Qom Agricultural Research Centre
M. Hasanzadeh	-	-	Postgraduate	Tarbiat modares university

This table indicates that from the nine articles submitted to the third conference in 2002, 4 were as a result of collaborations. In that year the two organizations The Library of Parliament and The Qom Agricultural Research Centre had collaborated together.

Table 4. Data related to those submitting articles to the forth conference in 2003

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
M. Bahrebar	-	-	Post gradate student	Shiraz university
H. Ashrafi	-	-	Postgraduate	Tehran university
A. Asnafi	-	-	BA student	Shiraz university
M. Amiri	-	-	Postgraduate student	Chamran university
A. Naghi mehr tabaie	-	-	Postgraduate student	Azad university
S. Nazar nofekandeh	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
S. Mousavi dizaj	-	-	BA student	Tabriz university
A. Mosa chamani	-	-	BA	Tehran university
M. Fatthi	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
T. Karami	-	-	Postgraduate student	Tehran university
M. Alipuor hafezi	Y. Nourozi	-	Postgraduate	Communication Research Center
M. Abaeyan	-	-	BA student	Al Zahra university
M. Samiee	-	-	Post gradate student	National library
H. Radfar	-	-	Post gradate student	Azad university
N. Jalilyan	-	-	BA student	Yazd university

The data in this table indicates that from a total of 15 articles submitted only one was written through collaboration and that most number of articles submitted to a conference was to this conference in 2003.

Table 5. Data related to those submitting articles to the fifth conference in 2004

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
J. Abbaspour	M. Mirzabeygi	G. Ghanavizchyan	Post gradate student	Tarbyat modares university
S. Ghafari	-		PhD	Azad university
M. Saberi	F. Hamidi	-	Post gradate student	Chamran university
A. Hosseinikhah	-	-	Post gradate student	Tehran university
A. Naghi mehr tabaie	-	-	Postgraduate student	Azad university
A. Ahangar	-		BA student	Al Zahra university
R. Marefat	F. Danesh	A. Asnafi	Postgraduate student	Chamran university

From seven articles submitted to the fifth conference, three were the result of collaboration.

Table 6. Data related to those submitting articles to the sixth conference in 2005

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
Z. Bahmani	-	-	BA student	Chamran university
A. Asnafi	-	-	Post gradate student	Chamran university
S. Pirehmoradi	F. Shafiei		BA student	Al Zahra university
Z. Batoli	F. Aftabi araiei		BA/ BA student	Medical university of Kashan/ Qom university
J. Ryahi asl	M. Alaiei araiei		BA student	Shahed university
F. Samet	A. Hajimohamadi	M. pakdaman naeini	BA student	Al Zahra university
S. Farghdan	S. Eshaghyan		BA student	Chamran university
M. Mahdinejhad	M. Seyfi	Z. Abolghasemi	BA student	Al Zahra university

In 2005 from a total of 8 articles submitted to the conference, 6 were the results of collaboration.

Table 7. Data related to those submitting articles to the seventh conference in 2006

First author	Second author	Third author	Education	Institution or university
A. Mansouri	M. Pashotanizadeh	-	Post gradate student	Chamran university
F. Zakerifard	S. Shafiei	-	Post gradate student	Al Zahra university
M. Zareh	Y. Feyzehlaiei	-	BA student	Chamran university
A. Naghi mehr tabaie	H. Alipourhafezi	-	BA student	Sahed university
J. Ranjbar	-	-	Post gradate	Regional Library of Science and technology
A.R. Sadat	-	-	Post gradate student	Shiraz university
N. Amirloo	R. Kyani	S. Rafva	BA student	Al Zahra university
M. Pakdaman	S. Fahimifar	M. Mosavizadeh	BA	Al Zahra university

This table illustrates that from 8 articles submitted to the conference, 6 were the results of collaboration.

Table8.The position of the participating universities and organizations in the conference

Rank	Universities or organizations	Number of articles
1	Al Zahra university	18
2	Chamran university	8
3	Shiraz university	5
4	Sahed university	4
5	Azad university	4
6	Tehran university	4
7	Tarbyat modares university	2
8	Communication Research Center	2
9	JSIS	2
10	National library	2
11	Yazd university	2
12	Medical university of Tabriz	1
13	Medical university of Kashan	1
14	Nabie akram university	1
15	Library of Parliament	1
16	Iran medical university/ central library	1
17	Qom information research center	1
18	Amir kabir university	1
19	Regional library of Science and Technology	1

This table indicates the position of the organizations which have had articles submitted to the recent seven conferences of the Al Zahra University. From this table it is understood that The University of Al Zahra with 18 articles submitted was the most active university while the Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz and The University of Shiraz respectively with 8 and 5 articles attained second and third place.

Table 9. The number of group articles submitted per conference

Year	Number of articles	Female Authors	Male Authors	One Author	Two Author	Three Author	Conference subject
2000	7	5	3	6	1	-	Education of LIS
2001	9	4	5	9	-	-	Digital Libraries
2002	9	6	7	5	4	-	Internet and utilization in university libraries
2003	15	9	7	14	1	-	University libraries and their problems
2004	7	6	6	4	1	2	Distance education in LIS
2005	8	13	3	2	4	2	Information technology in library and information centers
2006	8	10	6	2	4	2	Ethics in LIS

In table 9 the general statistics of the submission of articles to all seven conferences at Al Zahra University are illustrated.

Conclusion and Discussion

The findings of this research indicated that 63 articles submitted to all seven conferences were in the form of speech. From the 90 authors collaborating on the production of these articles, 51 female were and 37 male. The most number of articles were submitted in 2003, when 15 articles on the theme of the University libraries and their problems in the form of speech were submitted. The least number of articles were submitted in the years 2000 and 2004 on the theme of the education of Library and Information Sciences in Iran and its difficulties only seven articles in speech form were submitted. 9 articles in the form of speech were submitted to the other conferences. Throughout the seven student conferences held by the Al Zahra University department of LIS there were 42 individual and 21 collaborative articles submitted. From the 21 produced collaboratively 15 were produced and presented by the co-authorship of 2 authors, and 6 with the co-authorship of 3 authors. The most collaborative articles, six, were presented to the conferences in 2005 and 2006 and the least with no collaborative articles in 2001 and 2003. The students of Library and Information Sciences of the Universities of AL Zahra with 18 articles, Shaid Chamran of Ahwas with 8 and Shiraz with 5 articles obtained the following ranks in the submission of articles. This research also indicate that the Universities of Al Zahra and Shahid Chamran by submitting 6 collaborative articles have been the most active and The university of Shahed follows them with 4 articles.

It seems that there is increased motivation to do more collaborative works. From the results obtained it can be concluded that in the recent seven year period, in harmony with the development of the field of Library and Information Sciences and the widening of the horizons for the students of this field, There is increasing tendency towards research and now they have their own private space or tribune to present the results of their research for the benefit of others. The collaboration of these students for the production is significant and thought provoking and this shows that they have realized the importance of collaborative works. As collaborative work increases the quality of the work and the rate of citations to them also improves. As a consequence the expansion of collaborative works and the discovery of more theories in the production of research articles will result in the overhaul of the field of Library and Information sciences and the revelation of its scientific reputation.

References

Abam,Z.(2000).surveying in condition of scientific information producing by academic members of chamran university of Ahvaz during 1978-1998. MA dissertation , group of library and information science , psychology and educational sciences department , chamran university of Ahvaz.

Ansafi,S; Gharibi,H.(2004) .Iran knowledge in International level in 2002 ._Tehran: IRANDOC,2004.

Farajpahlou, A. H. (2003). Collaboration among Library and Information

experts Vs. scientist.

Gupta, B. M.; Dhavan, S. M.; Osareh, F. (2004). India-Middle East collaboration in S&T: An analysis through co-authored publications, 1996-2000. Library Herald. 42(4): 309-323.

Hart, Richard L. (2000). Collaborative publication by University librarians: An exploratory study. Journal of Academic Librarianship. 26(2): 94-99.

Horri, A.(2002) . Studying in rate of subjective correlation in Persian dissertation and articles in library and information science in Iran. Journal of psychology and educational sciences .32(1) :43-74.

Osareh,F.(2005 a).Collaboration in Astronomy knowledge production: A case study in Science Direct from 2000-2004. held in 10^th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, 24-28 July in Stockholm-Sweden.

Osareh, F. (2005 b).Higher Education Research collaboration between Iran &UK . held in COLLINET Meeting Extra Session in conjunction with 10^th ISSI Conference, 28^th July in Stockholm-Sweden.

Osareh,F;Marefat,R.(2005).collaboration of Iranian researchers in producing world science in Medline .Rahyaft quarterly.35(spring):39-44.

Osareh, F.; Wilson, C. S. (2002). Collaboration in Iranian Scientific publication. Libri. 52(2): 88-98.

Sarrafzadeh, M. (2000). Reflection of Iranian articles in tow databases CAB and AGRIS from the first till 2000 . journal of rahyaft,22(spring and summer):88-97.

Tavasoli farahi, M.(1994) .Quantitative studying of medical and biomedical information produced faculties of Tehran university of medical sciences . Iran University of medical sciences and shahid beheshti university during 1986-1991.MA dissertation, medical information department, Iran university of medical sciences.

Uzun, Ali. (2002). Library and Information Science research in Developing Countries and Eastern European Countries: A brief bibliometrics perspective. International Library Review.34:21-33