Characteristics of Classic Papers of Library and Information Science: A Scientometric Study

Abstract Classic papers are novel facilities of Google scholar. These papers were first developed by Google scholar in May 2017. Classic papers have been considered highly cited papers since last 10 years. Effective authors, institutions, universities, and countries on improving science can be identified by analyzing the papers. Therefore, this study aims to examine characteristics of classic papers of Library and Information Science (LIS). This study will use Scientometrics indicators. The study sample includes LIS classic papers. To gather the data, some databases such as Google scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus are applied. Excel and SPSS applications are used for descriptive and statistical analyses. The study data indicate that Scientometrics journal covers most classic papers on LIS (5 papers). 60% of the papers are written by more than one author. A paper of “Usage Pattern of Collaborating Tagging System” is highly cited paper of LIS with 3051 and 1308 citations on Google scholar and Scopus respectively. Analysis of authors’ affiliation shows that American universities and institutions play considerable role in LIS classic papers. The data of statistical tests indicate that there is a positive significant correlation between citations of classic papers of Google scholar, Scopus and Web of Science.