Library Professionals’ Scholarly Communications over Online Forum: Content Analysis of New
Millennium LIS Professionals (NMLIS)
Dr. Akhandanand Shukla Assistant Professor
Department of Library & Information Science Mizoram University, Aizawl
Jacob MS Dawngliana Research Scholar
Department of Library & Information Science Mizoram University, Aizawl
INTRODUCTION
• LIS Professional - scientific dissemination and knowledge transfer.
• Seminars & Training Programs – lesser opportunities for communication between LIS Professionals.
• Traditional methods of communication – not interactive and time consuming.
• Internet and Mobile technology – revolutionary communication methods.
• Internet - platform to expand the scope of collaboration and professional conversations.
• Online forum - potential to gain knowledge from and share experiences with other library professionals.
• Library professionals – different geographical locations – participation – online social medium – professional communication – wider audience.
• Online discussion forum - Web-based communication tools – communicates asynchronously.
• New Millennium LIS Professionals (NMLIS) Group - widely accepted and used by the library professionals.
• NMLIS created on 22nd October 1999 by Prof. N.
Laxman Rao on Yahoo!
• The biggest discussion group in LIS – 3111 Group members & 33269 posted communications (as on 16.03.2017).
• “Content analysis is described as the scientific study of content of communication” – (Prasad, 2008).
• 2403 scholarly communications (messages).
• For the year 2016.
• From 1st January, 2016 to 31st December, 2016.
SCOPE
OBJECTIVES
• Examine the extent of scholarly communications among LIS professionals’ over online forum.
• Examine the category of scholarly communications among LIS professionals’ over online forum.
• Determine the focus of scholarly communications over online forum.
• Find out the most prolific contributors of scholarly communications over online forum.
• Examine the extent of file attachments and category of file types communicated over online forum.
• Find out the degree of contribution and most prolific contributor for job posts communications over online forum.
• Find out the degree of contribution and most prolific contributor for library specific scholarly communications over online forum.
• Survey and Observation methods of research used.
• Tracked the data about level of involvement, type of activity, and number of scholarly communications (postings) with description.
• Archived conversations tracked for the period of one year from 1st January, 2016 to 31st December, 2016.
• Conversations collected and grouped into different categories and transcribed group messages were coded appropriately.
METHODS & PROCEDURES
DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION
Extent of Scholarly Communications
• Total 2403 scholarly communications.
• Highest no. of communications - January (235, 9.78%) followed by June & September (232, 9.65% each).
• Least no. of communications - October (148, 6.16%).
• In a year, 7 months have more than 200 communications.
• Monthly average of communications is 200 per month.
Category of Scholarly Communications
Eight (8) kinds of categories have been identified:
• Conference Communications (CON)
• Faculty Development Communications (FDM)
• Job Posts Communications (JOB)
• General Information Communications (GIC)
• Library Science Communications (LSC)
• Greetings Communications (GRC)
• Obituary Communications (OBI)
• Other Communications (OTH)
Focus of Scholarly Communications
• General Information Communications (GIC) – 34.42%
• Library Science Communications (LSC) – 23.3%
• Conference Communications (CON) – 18.73%
• Other Communications (OTH) – 10.32%
• Job Posts Communications (JOB) – 9.74%
• Greetings Communications (GRC) – 1.62%
• Faculty Development Communications (FDM) – 1.21%
• Obituary Communications (OBI) – 0.67%
Focus of Scholarly Communications
• Categories CON, FDM, JOB, and LSC are directly related to development of LIS professionals.
• 52.97% scholarly communications belongs to four core categories (CON, FDM, JOB, and LSC) identified for professional development.
• Except “General Information Communications (GIC)” which is sharing one-third (34.42%) scholarly communications, Conference Communications (CON), Job Posts Communications (JOB), and Library Science Communications (LSC) were the major focus of scholarly communications in NMLIS group.
Most Prolific Contributors
Months Extent of Contributor
s
Top 5 Contributors in Coden Name (with extent of Scholarly Communications)
January 41 AMR (55) NL (46) PJ (42) NLR (40) DK; ASLA (4) February 31 PJ (79) NLR (47) NL (45) AMR (20) GS (5)
March 25 PJ (53) NL (45) AMR (23) NLR (15) RCG (4) April 34 PJ (63) NL (48) NLR (40) AMR (19) AL (6)
May 30 NLR (62) NL (53) PJ (27) LR (11) AL (8)
June 29 PJ (101) NLR (52) NL (36) TLA (9) ASLA (5)
July 34 NL (67) PJ (66) NLR (45) PER (6) GS (5)
August 30 PJ (49) NL (42) NLR (35) ASLA; AL (4) TLA (3) Septembe
r
31 PJ (86) NLR (54) NL (44) AMR (9) PER (4) October 23 PJ (52) NLR (21) AMR (24) NL (16) AL (11) Novembe
r
25 PJ (74) NL (27) NLR (25) AMR (5) DS (3) Decembe
r
24 PJ (97) NL (37) NLR (20) AMR (18) AL (7)
Legends: AMR = A Madhava Rao; PJ = Pralhad Jadhav; NL = Naglaxman; NLR = Prof.
N. Laxman Rao; LR = Laxman Rao; GS = gopalakrishnan shanmugam; TLA = Telangana library Association; ASLA = ASIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION; DK = Dattatraya Kalabande; PER = Prakasan E.R.; RCG = Dr. Ramesh C Gaur; AL = **@nil**; DS = dinesh sanadi.
Most Prolific Contributors
Name of
Contributor(s)
Extent of Contribution
(Posts)
Percentage (out of 2403)
Frequency of Contribution
(Months)
ASLA 13 0.54% 3
AL 36 1.49% 5
AMR 173 7.19% 8
DK 4 0.16% 1
DS 3 0.12% 1
GS 10 0.41% 2
LR 11 0.45% 1
NL 506 21.05% 12
NLR 456 18.97% 12
PER 10 0.41% 2
PJ 789 32.83% 12
RCG 4 0.16% 1
TLA 12 0.49% 2
Extent of File Attachments
Months Extent of Scholarly Communications
Extent of
Communications having File Attachments
Extent of Files
January 235 45 65
February 230 35 68
March 163 11 20
April 214 37 79
May 192 30 44
June 232 33 43
July 227 35 54
August 165 36 58
Septembe r
232 40 44
October 148 25 51
Novembe r
159 23 26
December 206 37 47
Total 2403 387 599
Extent & Category of File Types
• 10 file types identified for scholarly communication.
• Microsoft Power Point (PPT), audio files and video files have not been observed as file attachments.
• Majority of file attachments found in the form of Image files (50.41%) followed by PDF (29.04%), and MS-Word (9.01%).
• MS-Excel, HTML and Zip files appeared rarely.
• 10.68% files are unidentified and kept under
“Others” category.
• Most used file types – Image files, PDF files and MS-Word files which consists 88.48% of total files as attachments.
Degree of JOB Posts Contribution &
Contributor
Months Extent of Scholarly Communications
Extent of JOB Posts
Top Contributor
January 235 44 AMR (34)
February 230 27 NL (11)
March 163 19 NL (13)
April 214 22 NL (6)
May 192 22 NL (9)
June 232 20 NL (9)
July 227 17 NL (8)
August 165 18 NL (6)
September 232 29 NL (15)
October 148 2 NL (1), NLR (1)
November 159 6 NL (3)
December 206 8 NL (3), NLR (3)
Total 2403 234 NL (84), AMR
(34)
Degree of LSC Posts Contribution &
Contributor
Months Extent of Scholarly Communications
Extent of LSC Posts
Top Contributor
January 235 60 AMR (18)
February 230 46 AMR (15)
March 163 74 PJ (25)
April 214 48 AMR (17)
May 192 38 NL (12)
June 232 27 PJ (11)
July 227 49 NL (14)
August 165 30 PJ (13)
September 232 46 PJ (19)
October 148 45 AMR (24)
November 159 38 PJ (16)
December 206 59 PJ (22)
Total 2403 560 PJ (107), AMR
(74), NL (26)
FINDINGS OF STUDY
• In one year duration, NMLIS group has 2403 scholarly communications. On an average 200 scholarly communications takes place per month.
• Scholarly communications have been grouped into 8 identified categories. These categories are: Conference Communications (CON), Faculty Development Communications (FDM), Job Posts Communications (JOB), General Information Communications (GIC), Library Science Communications (LSC), Greetings Communications (GRC), Obituary Communications (OBI), and Other Communications (OTH).
• General Information Communications (GIC) category is highly focused in the group posts followed by Library Science Communications (LSC), Conference Communications (CON), Other Communications (OTH) and Job Posts Communications (JOB).
• Pralhad Jadhav is the most prolific contributor.
• As per frequency of contribution, Naglaxman, Prof. N. Laxman Rao and Pralhad Jadhav contributed every month in a year.
• Pralhad Jadhav has contributed 789 (32.83%) scholarly communications alone.
• There are 387 scholarly communications having file attachments
• Total 599 files were found attached in 387 scholarly communications.
• There are 10 file types identified for categorization of 599 files found as attachment.
• Image and PDF files found as most communicated file types.
• 234 Job posts were communicated in the group during the study period which is 9.74% of total scholarly communications.
• Naglaxman is the highest contributor of Job posts communications and contributed 35.89% of total Job posts.
• 560 Library Science Communications were communicated in the group during the study period which is 23.3% of total scholarly communications.
• Pralhad Jadhav is the highest contributor of LSC posts in terms of frequency and in terms of number of posts also.
CONCLUSION
• Since start of the LIS profession, it was the primary work of library professionals to disseminate and share knowledge and information among users’ group.
• The advent of Internet and World Wide Web has increased the work beyond the boundary of library. For the development of LIS profession and self development, library professionals’ have their own circle for discussion.
• Nowadays, many Web based platforms are available through which they are making larger group of professionals and sharing scholarly communications amongst them.
• The library specific discussion group contains all kinds of latest information of LIS profession from all over the world. Such kind of specific groups should be run by LIS professionals to boost up their caliber by enhancing the field specific knowledge and technical know-how of the field.