A Bibliometric Study of Scholarly Articles Published by Library and Information Science Authors about Open Access

Introduction: This study aims to gain a greater understanding of the development of open access practices amongst library and information science authors, since their role is integral to the success of the broader open access movement. Method: Data were collected from scholarly articles about open access by library and information science authors from 2003 until 2011 found in the Library and Information Science Abstracts database. Analysis: A bibliometric approach is taken for the information gathered from 203 articles. Excel and SPSS were used to derive descriptive statistics and correlations. Results: Overall an open access rate of 60% was found, which was lower than expected considering 94% of these articles appeared to endorse open access. Conclusions: Although these results show a higher open access rate than previous studies, and a linear growth of open access publications over the years, there is still a large gap between theory and practice which needs to be addressed.