The Impact of Gender on Citations: An Analysis of College & Research Libraries, Journal of Academic Librarianship, and Library Quarterly

Abstract

Three scholarly core journals of library and information science (LIS) were analyzed with respect to gender of article authors and gender of authors cited in these articles. The share of female contributors to these journals has certainly increased during the studied period, 1980–2000. However, the results of the quantitative citation analysis show puzzling differences concerning female and male authors’ citation practice. There may be a gender bias in LIS publishing, even though female authors have become more numerous. Further studies are needed to uncover the influence of other variables, such as subject content of the articles.