Mapping knowledge domains of Chinese digital library research output, 1994–2010

The aim of this paper is to identify the research paradigms on digital libraries in China while compared with that of international digital libraries research via scientometric analysis. Co-word network constructed by keywords in documents and their co-occurrence relationships is a kind of mapping knowledge domains, which represents the cognitive and intellectual structure of science. A total of 6068 and 1250 papers published between 1994 and 2010 were, respectively retrieved from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and ScienceDirect databases with a topic search of digital libraries or digital library in abstracts of papers. This paper uses methods of co-word analysis, social network analysis and mapping knowledge domains as theory basis, with assistance of softwares of UCINET and Netdraw, to construct the co-word network of digital libraries/library research in China, present the study status quo and evolution on digital libraries/library in China and analyze the research paradigm structure of digital libraries/library in China.