Electronic books A scientometric assessment of global literature during 1993 2018

Purpose - This paper provides a quantitative and qualitative description of global research output in the “electronic books” published during 1993-18” based on select bibliometric indicators. Design/Methodology/Approach - The study sourced sample data (2116 publications) from Scopus database covering period 1993-2018. The study analyzed data on a series of bibliometric measures (like average annual growth, citations per paper, international collaborative papers, relative citation index, activity index, top productive countries, organizations, authors, journals, and highly cited papers). Findings - ‘E-books’ is fast emerging as a research topic in the domain of library and information science. Top 10 most productive countries in the subject account for 73.25% of global literature. The USA leads with 38.42% global publications share whereas other 9 of top 10 top productive countries are distant cousins contributing 1.61% to 8.74% share. United Kingdom registered the highest citation impact per paper and relative citation index (12.08 and 1.61). Bar-Ilan University, Israel was the most productive organization and H. Falk was the most productive author. Publishing Research Quarterly is the most popular journal in e-books. Originality/value – This is the one of the comprehensive studies of its kind that provides a quantitative and qualitative description of research studies on the ‘e-books’.