Theoretical proximities and intellectual structure of the bibliographies of disciplines related to Metric Studies of Information in undergraduate Library Science programs in Brazil

Abstract

The study analyzes, through bibliographic coupling and author co-citation, the theoretical proximities and intellectual structure of disciplines related to Metric Studies of Information, based on the references found in the course documents of undergraduate Library Science programs in Brazil. A total of 28 disciplines from 23 higher education institutions were identified, constituting the corpus of analysis. The investigation process comprised three stages: (1) accessing the Open Data Portal of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, searching for course documents, and sending emails or public information requests through the Access to Information Law; (2) searching for the term “METRI” in the documents; and (3) extracting the references contained in the retrieved documents. The analyses were carried out using The Coupler and VOSviewer software. Theoretical proximities among disciplines were most evident in the courses “Scientific Information Consumption” (Federal University of Rondonopolis), “Metric Studies of Information” (Federal University of Santa Catarina), and “Metric Studies of Information” (Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas), as well as between “Bibliometrics” (University of Sao Paulo) and “Bibliometrics” (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul). The co-citation analysis revealed 265 distinct authors, 55 of whom were referenced in at least two course documents. The intellectual structure corresponds to the works of 11 authors: Araujo, Macias-Chapula, Fonseca, Leta, Noronha, Kobashi, Vanz, Mugnaini, Meadows, M. Hayashi, and C. Hayashi. The findings indicate that the main theoretical proximities occur among five disciplines from five different universities, and the intellectual structure is represented by 11 authors and their works.