Recent Research in Religion

This paper reports the results of a study of the citations accompanying research published over ten years in the fields of theology, religious studies, and biblical studies. The purpose of the citation analysis project was to determine patterns of material usage by scholars in the discipline of Rel...

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Main Author: Martha Adkins
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Theological Library Association 2018-10-01
Series:Theological Librarianship
Subjects:
Online Access:https://serials.atla.com/theolib/article/view/2600
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author Martha Adkins
author_facet Martha Adkins
author_sort Martha Adkins
collection DOAJ
description This paper reports the results of a study of the citations accompanying research published over ten years in the fields of theology, religious studies, and biblical studies. The purpose of the citation analysis project was to determine patterns of material usage by scholars in the discipline of Religion. The project proposed to seek answers to questions that frequently cross the minds of theological librarians, including, among others, the types of sources used by researchers in our fields, the prominence of primary sources, the currency of sources cited, dominant languages of publication and research, and most frequently used journals.  A sample of peer-reviewed articles from these fields, chosen from journals indexed by the ATLA Religion Database, was examined from a variety of angles. 4107 cited references from 96 articles were analyzed for source type, publication language, dating, and authorship; articles were further examined for the peer review status of the publishing journal and the subject area covered.  The cited references of the 96 articles analyzed were primarily monographs, published in English, published and created within the decades before the publication of the citing articles, and most had a single author. The 14 most frequently cited journals covered topics in religion and the social sciences. The results reported here are expected to be informative to theological librarians in making collection development decisions and building subject liaison relationships. Librarians may choose monograph acquisitions over other types, or consider promoting other types of resources differently to encourage use. Theological librarians might consider subscribing to journal titles which overlap in subject coverage with the social sciences. Librarians and discipline faculty will likely find many conversation points among the data presented here.
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spelling doaj.art-a54beeddf0d84becb5b1c2a026e8279c2023-12-05T22:27:24ZengAmerican Theological Library AssociationTheological Librarianship1937-89042018-10-0111210.31046/tl.v11i2.507Recent Research in ReligionMartha Adkins This paper reports the results of a study of the citations accompanying research published over ten years in the fields of theology, religious studies, and biblical studies. The purpose of the citation analysis project was to determine patterns of material usage by scholars in the discipline of Religion. The project proposed to seek answers to questions that frequently cross the minds of theological librarians, including, among others, the types of sources used by researchers in our fields, the prominence of primary sources, the currency of sources cited, dominant languages of publication and research, and most frequently used journals.  A sample of peer-reviewed articles from these fields, chosen from journals indexed by the ATLA Religion Database, was examined from a variety of angles. 4107 cited references from 96 articles were analyzed for source type, publication language, dating, and authorship; articles were further examined for the peer review status of the publishing journal and the subject area covered.  The cited references of the 96 articles analyzed were primarily monographs, published in English, published and created within the decades before the publication of the citing articles, and most had a single author. The 14 most frequently cited journals covered topics in religion and the social sciences. The results reported here are expected to be informative to theological librarians in making collection development decisions and building subject liaison relationships. Librarians may choose monograph acquisitions over other types, or consider promoting other types of resources differently to encourage use. Theological librarians might consider subscribing to journal titles which overlap in subject coverage with the social sciences. Librarians and discipline faculty will likely find many conversation points among the data presented here. https://serials.atla.com/theolib/article/view/2600citation analysisreligious studieslibrarianshiplibrary liaisonscollection developmentprimary sources
spellingShingle Martha Adkins
Recent Research in Religion
Theological Librarianship
citation analysis
religious studies
librarianship
library liaisons
collection development
primary sources
title Recent Research in Religion
title_full Recent Research in Religion
title_fullStr Recent Research in Religion
title_full_unstemmed Recent Research in Religion
title_short Recent Research in Religion
title_sort recent research in religion
topic citation analysis
religious studies
librarianship
library liaisons
collection development
primary sources
url https://serials.atla.com/theolib/article/view/2600
work_keys_str_mv AT marthaadkins recentresearchinreligion