Mapping Library and Information Science Research in Sri Lanka: A Bibliometric Study of the Sri Lanka Library Review (2020–2025)

Abstract

Bibliometric studies play an important role in evaluating the growth, structure and scholarly output of academic journals. The present study is a bibliometric survey of the Sri Lanka Library Review (SLLR), a journal published by the Sri Lanka Library Association, between 2020 and 2025. The study analysed 55 full research articles and two abstracts published in twelve issues. The main indicators examined were annual publication output, authorship and collaboration patterns, article length, reference use, language of publication, institutional affiliation and readership on the Sri Lanka Journals Online (SLJOL) platform. The findings show that SLLR maintained a regular publication record during the study period, with an average of approximately nine research articles per year. Single-authored publications accounted for 52.63% of the total output, while multi-authored publications accounted for 47.37%, resulting in a Degree of Collaboration of 0.47. Most articles were between 16 and 20 pages in length, and the majority cited between 11 and 30 references. English was the dominant language of publication (68.42%), followed by Sinhala (19.30%) and Tamil (12.28%). Article view data indicated measurable readership through SLJOL, with most articles receiving between 200 and 399 views during the data collection period. The University of Colombo was the highest contributing institution. The findings demonstrate that SLLR is an important national journal for Library and Information Science research in Sri Lanka and has the potential to further strengthen its scholarly visibility, research collaboration and multilingual contribution.