Fifty Years of LIS Education in Australia: Research Productivity and Visibility of LIS Educators in Higher Education Institutions

This paper surveys aspects of the research productivity and visibility of Australian LIS educators as reflected in publications retrieved from eight relevant databases. Searching was restricted to educators serving for at least two years in Australian LIS programs from 1959 to 2008; the records obtained were downloaded and checked for accuracy. The results show that fewer than five percent of educators, generally with long service, produced over one-quarter of all journal articles, while nearly one-third of educators authored no articles. About three-quarters of all journal articles were single-authored; however, multiple authorship has increased over time, especially since 2000. Nearly one-half of all articles were published in Australian national journals. As these journals were indexed only in national and LIS-specific databases, such databases must be included to obtain a reliable picture of Australian LIS research productivity.