LIBRARY SERVICE QUALITY: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

This research articleintends to provide a bibliometric study of the publications on the quality of library services from 1989 to 2021. A total of 2665 publications were searched from the Web of Science database through search String i.e., quality_ (Title) OR _Quality of Services_ (Title) OR _SERVQUAL_ (Title) AND _college library_ (Abstract). These publications are analysed by VOSviewer software and MS Excel. The growth in library service quality publications have been observed from 2007 to 2021.Business Economics subject emerged as a top researchfield with the largest number of research, De, Ona and Juan were observed as the most prolific authors with a contribution of 14 articles during the study period, and the USA has emerged as the top country with highest 664 publications and total 46189(69.56%) citations. "The behavioural consequences of service quality by Zeithaml, VA et al." is observed as the highest cited publication with 4988 citations (184.74 AC/Y). As well as all extracted publications are analysed by co-authorship networks, intercountry co-authorship networks and keyword occurrence networks. Service quality is increasingly being applied as a modern management technique in libraries hence this study will help the researcher to understand the expansion of the subject.

Full text

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JOURNAL OF INDIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, VOL, 59(3), JULY – SEPTEMBER, 2023
LIBRARY SERVICE QUALITY: A BIBLIOMETRIC
ANALYSIS
Mr Dixit Amar Rangnath
Dr Gavali Vandana S.
ABSTRACT -
This research articleintends to provide a bibliometric study of the
publications on the quality of library services from 1989 to 2021.
A total of 2665 publications were searched from the Web of Science
database through search String i.e., quality_ (Title) OR _Quality of
Services_ (Title) OR _SERVQUAL_ (Title) AND _college library_
(Abstract). These publications are analysed by VOSviewer software and
MS Excel.
The growth in library service quality publications have been observed from
2007 to 2021.Business Economics subject emerged as a top researchfield
with the largest number of research, De, Ona and Juan were observed as
the most prolific authors with a contribution of 14 articles during the study
period, and the USA has emerged as the top country with highest 664
publications and total 46189(69.56%) citations. „The behavioural
consequences of service quality by Zeithaml, VA et al.‟ is observed as the
highest cited publication with 4988 citations (184.74 AC/Y). As well as all
extracted publications are analysed by co-authorship networks,
intercountry co-authorship networks and keyword occurrence networks.
Service quality is increasingly being applied as a modern management
technique in libraries hence this study will help the researcher to
understand the expansion of the subject.
Keywords:Service Quality; Library Service Quality; Bibliometric
Analysis; VOSviewer.
INTRODUCTION
Service quality iskeyto success in modern times. Quality of services plays
a major role in any professional development. The library always
incorporates concepts from various other disciplines to improve quality in
its day-to-day operations.
Mr. Dixit Amar Rangnath
Research Scholar,
Library and Information
Science, Faculty of
interdisciplinary studies,
Punyashlok Ahilya Devi
Holkar Solapur University,
Solapur.Maharashtra-
413001(India)
amardixit491@gmail.com
Mob.9850821108
Dr. Gavali Vandana S.
Research Guide,
Library and Information
Science, Faculty of
interdisciplinary studies,
Punyashlok Ahilya Devi
Holkar Solapur University,
Solapur. Maharashtra-
413001(India)
vandanagavali@gmail.com
Mob. -9881553199

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Library and information services provided by the
library have always been popular among readers.
These services can be made more efficient by
using modern management concepts like
SERVQUAL, LIBQUAL etc. Libraries have been
with us for a long time, providing collections and
services of various reading materials. Libraries
have helped people a lot in their pursuit of all
kinds of knowledge. (Curran et al., 2006)
Libraries and information centres have performed
a very responsible role in providing quality
services to India's rapid progress in all fields
since independence and to maintain this
momentum in the future. In India, research has
become an essential component of library and
information science (LIS) in order to address new
problems, identify workable answers, and explore
the unexplored territory. (Rana, 2011). Hence, it
is necessary to review and analyse the published
research at the national and international levels in
library service quality for aspirant researchers.
Service Quality
Assessing the quality of services in higher
education is important for bringing in and
maintaining tuition-based revenues. (Angell et al.,
2008).In simple terms service quality can be
defined as it should be according to the users‟
requirements and satisfy their different needs.
(Edvardsson, 1998). In the manufacturing
industry, service quality is rated higher than
product quality. High service quality is essential
for business success (Ograjenšek, 2008)
Service Quality in the Library
With the changing times, libraries have also
incorporated new techniques and technologies in
its day-to-day operations and services. The
usefulness of libraries depends on the satisfaction
of the users. Users are happy when the library
fulfils their needs and expectations. A quality
service is regarded as one that meets users'
expectations and produces a positive experiences
(Thakuria, 2007) Service quality of libraries is the
difference between readers' expectations and
perceptions of services and the service actually
received by them. Providing services according to
the needs of users is considered excellent service.
(Sahu, 2007)
Bibliometric Analysis
Bibliometric analysis is a widely used technique
to study and analyse vast amounts of scientific
data. It allows to explore the subtleties of a
particular field's evolutionary history while
illuminating its frontiers. (Donthu et al.) The
quantitative analysis of bibliographic data is
known as bibliometric analysis. It gives a broad
overview of a study area that is classified by
articles, authors, and journals.(Merigó & Yang,
2017) . Bibliometric technique reviews the
research output of researchers, journals, research
institutes and countries and measure
collaboration pattern among them (Li & Zhao,
2015).
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Garg et al.(Garg et al., 2020).evaluated the
growth pattern, geographical distribution, and
productivity of the articles; identified the most
productive writers and institutions; and found the
authors who are most frequently cited. Their data
show that the years 2012 to 2015 and then 2016
to 2019 saw the greatest number of publications
published. According to the breakdown of output
by nations, 39 nations including India contributed
1,698 articles. The USA, which had the greatest

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CPP and RCI values, and India both are at top
position with 86.1% of publications. Delhi-based
authors made the largest contributions of 30.7%
and the authors from Karnataka (13.1%) and
Maharashtra contributed 13.1% and 10.5%. The
top two organisations were DRDO-DESIDOC
and CSIR-NISTADS. B.M. Gupta from CSIR-
NISTADS ,is one of the 26 most prolific writers,
published the most works. (Chen & Naga,
2020).Number of publications, their keywords,
authors, institutions, publishers are five factors
Chen and Naga used to study the skills of library
professional of Mainland China. The findings
indicated that throughout the previous ten years,
the number of papers in this sector has been
gradually rising. In this research area, the author
noticed that there is a major lack of collaboration
between writers and institutions. Furthermore, the
primary authors' cooperative groupings are only
mentioned to a relatively limited extent.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following objectives have been set for the
present research
Q1. To Study the publication graph of research in
library service quality.
Q2. Which subject area has more research on
service quality?
Q3. Who are the most prominent authors?
Q5. Which are the top 10 prominent countries?
Q4. Which are the most cited papers?
Q6. Which author has collaborated with the
greatest number of other authors?
Q7. Which country's author has collaborated the
greatest number of times with other country's
authors?
Q8. To find the Which keywords appears the
most frequently?
METHODOLOGY
To conduct this bibliometric analysis, journal
articles and review papers that are indexed in the
Web of Science were chosen. The time frame for
this study was 1989 to 2021. Service quality_
(Title) OR _Quality of Services_ (Title) OR
_SERVQUAL_ (Title) AND _college library_
(Abstract) were the search terms used to find the
items. Meetings abstract, proceedings, review
articles and early access are among the records
used for this study. Articles published in 2022
and the articles other than in English language are
excluded in this study. For the present research
Excel office 2019 and VOSviewer, 1.6.18
software is used for the database analysis.
The following types of analysis has performed.
DATA ANALYSIS
Performance Analysis
Publication by year
Through the search string, it was discovered that
2,665 research articles (figure 1) on the subject of
the quality of college library services had been
published from 1989 to 2021 in the Web of
Science. The oldest entries in this collection on
service quality date from 1989 with 11
publications. Since 2007, there has been observed
growth in the number of publications, reflecting
how widely accepted the idea of college library
service quality is. It might be as a consequence of
the invention of SERVQUAL by Parasuraman,

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Zeithaml, and Berry, a widely used measuring
model of service quality. The majority of 252
research articles were published in the year 2020;
this trend will continue to rise in the future. These
articles have affiliations with 2522 institutions
and are from 112 different countries published in
837 research journals.
Fig. 1.Year wise publications on the quality of college library services in the Web of Science
database.
Publications by subjects
the following chart shows how research in several
fields is increasingly focused on service quality.
The figure no.2 shows the top ten main subjects
out of it. A 43.71% of research is concerned with
business economics,10.65 % of research is
concerned with engineering 10.46% and 10.24%
of research concern with social science and
computer science respectively.
Fig. 2.Top ten popular subject fields of research.
Most prolific authors
It is observed that total of 6784 authors
contributed to the library service quality extracted
from the database. below fig no.3 lists top ten
prolific authors whose research articles have been
cited the most. 2665 research articles have
received a total of 99257 citations among them
Zeithamal, Parasuraman and Berry are pioneer
1165
284 279 273 237 146 141 140 120 119
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Publications
Research Areas
11 6 9 7 11 28 24 20 34 30 30 39 47 36 30 48 41 37 49
78
117
116
154
136
113
108
149
183
135
152
201
252
234
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Publications
Years

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researchers whose research articles have received the most citations.
Fig.3. Most prolific authors
Publications by Country.
Out of 112 countries publishing research on the
topic of library service quality, 66 countries haves
at least 5 publications and 5 citations for it, which
is the minimum threshold. The top 10 countries
with the most citations are shown in the table
below. The USA occupied top position with
maximum 664 publications. The total 2665
publications are cited 99257 times. The average
citations per publication was 37.24, and the H-
Index was 123.
Table 1: The top 10 countries with the most citations.
#
Country
Documents
TC
AC/Y
1
USA
664
46189
69.56
2
Peoples R China
375
7974
21.26
3
Taiwan
349
11557
33.11
4
England
181
5110
28.23
5
South Korea
161
3496
21.71
6
Australia
157
5842
37.21
7
Spain
131
3475
26.53
8
India
97
2492
25.69
9
Turkey
93
2688
28.90
10
Canada
73
3398
46.55
Most Cited Publications
The number of citations is better measurement for
identifying the articles that have had the greatest
impact on researchers in domains relevant to
library service quality (Merigo et al., 2015).
9 9 7
13 13 14 12
5
10
6 6
12136 10043 7288
1037 1037 811 773 559 441 433 418 0
5000
10000
15000
0
5
10
15
Citations
Documents
Authors
documents citations

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Table 2 lists the top 10 documents from the
studied dataset that had the most impact. The
yearly average of citations received (TC/Y) and
the total number of citations received that may be
searched in the Web of Science are shown
Table 2: Top 10 documents which have received most citations (TC).
#
Title
Authors
Source Title
Year
TC
AC /
Y
1
The behavioural consequences of service
quality
Zeithaml,
VA et al.
Journal of
Marketing
1996
4988
184.7
4
2
Measuring Service Quality- A Re-
examination and Extension
Cronin, JJ et
al.
Journal of
Marketing
1992
3888
125.4
2
3
E-S-QUAL - A multiple-item scale for
assessing electronic service quality
Parasurama
n, A et al.
Journal of
Service
Research
2005
1638
91.00
4
A Dynamic Process Model of Service
Quality - From Expectation to
Behavioural Intention.
Boulding,
W et al.
Journal of
Marketing
Research
1993
1488
49.60
5
Some new thoughts on conceptualizing
perceived service quality: A hierarchical
approach
Brady, MK
et al.
Journal of
Marketing
2001
1471
66.86
6
A Multistage Model of Customers
Assessments of Service Quality and
Value.
Bolton, RN
et al.
Journal of
Consumer
Research
1991
1332
41.63
7
Reassessment of Expectations as a
Comparison Standard in Measuring
Service Quality – Implication for further
Research.
Parasurama
n, A et al.
Journal of
Marketing
1994
1206
41.59
8
SERVPERF Versus` SERVQUAL –
Reconciling Performance-Based and
Perceptions-Minus-Expectation
Measurement of Service Quality.
Cronin, JJ
et.al
Journal of
Marketing
1994
1139
39.28
9
Consumer Perception of SERVICE
QUALITY - An Assessment of the
SERVQUAL Dimensions.
Carman, JM
Journal of
Retailing
1990
1125
34.09
10
Service quality delivery through Web
sites: A critical review of extant
knowledge
Zeithaml,
VA et al.
Journal of the
Academy of
Marketing
Science.
2002
1117
53.19
Source: Authors‟ elaboration.
Science Mapping
Co-authorship network analysis
The VOSviewer software is used to analyse the
co-authorship network. The co-authorship
network analysis visualise the co-authorship

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linkage among the various researchers which
shows the co-operation between the authors in the
dataset. The data set for the current study
contained a total of 6784 authors. The threshold
was three documents and three citations for each
document the researcher selected to produce a
network map. A total of 226 authors meets this
condition. The image below is composed of large
and small circles connected by links. The bigger
circle indicates authors who have co-authored
with a greater number of authors. The names of
the top 10 authors with the maximum number of
co-authors in the data set are listed in Table II.
"Eboli, Laura." have contributed with highest no
of co-authors.
Figure 4.Co-Authorship network map.
Table 3: The top ten authors who collaborated with other Co-authors.
#
Author
Documents
N.C.
1
Eboli, Laura
13
28
2
Mazzulla, Gabriella
13
28
3
De Ona, Juan
14
25
4
De Ona, Rocio
12
25
5
Gupta, Digant
10
24
6
Lis, Christopher g.
10
24
7
Rodeghier, mark
8
20
8
Cook, c
10
14
9
De man, s
5
14
10
Gemmel, p
5
14
Analysis of the international co-authorship
network
This analysis shows which authors have
collaborated with the most authors of other
nations. Figure 5 displays international co-
authorships network map. The data set included a
total of 112 nations. Out of these numerous
nations, the VOSviewer program discovered that
76 have connections with one another as a co-

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author. This analysis shows that, the authors from
the United States of America, Peoples R China,
Taiwan, and England have collaborated with
authors from other countries the most. The circle
labelled "united states" in Figure 5 has the
greatest number of lines connecting to it. The
lines are thicker for the nations that have worked
on more papers. The Top 10 countries, whose
authors collaborated most with authors from other
countries, are listed in Table 4.
Figure 5.Countrywise co-authorship network map of authors, who researched Library Service
Quality.
Table.4: Inter-country co-authorship.
#
Country
Documents
oNo. of Countries
1
USA
664
306
2
Peoples r China
375
202
3
Taiwan
349
85
4
England
181
217
5
South Korea
161
95
6
Australia
157
110
7
Spain
131
80
8
India
97
38
9
Turkey
93
72
10
Canada
73
63
Network of co-occurrence of keyword analysis
This network helps to identify frequently used
keywords in extracted research documents. These
keywords help to identify the topics and themes
focused by the authors. Text-mining technique of
VOSviewer generates a map, in which the
separation among multiple terms is regarded as a
sign of the connection between the different
keywords (Laudano et al., 2017). If the

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relationship is strong between two terms, the
appearance of distance between them is greater.
The co-occurrences in the articles were examined
to ascertain how closely connected the terms were
to one another. (van Eck & Waltman, 2010) The
data collection had 38418 keywords in total. Only
those 681 keywords that popups more than 10
times were chosen to create a network map. The
map displays multiple lines connecting various
terms.
Fig.6.Keyword Co-occurrence Network.
The top 50 keywords that appeared the most
frequently are listed in Table IV. In the data
collection, the terms "Customer Satisfaction"
appeared a total of 351 times. The data set also
contained numerous other keywords like loyalty,
Service quality dimensions etc.
Table 5:Top 50 Keywords appeared frequently in the VOSviewer dataset.
Sr. No.
Term
Occurrences
1
Customer satisfaction
351
2
Originality value
262
3
Design methodology approach
250
4
Problem
249
5
Loyalty
207
6
Practical implication
202
7
Patient
198
8
Employee
185
9
Intention
181
10
Service quality dimension
162
11
Year
160
12
Responsiveness
156
13
Care
153

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14
Decision
148
15
ServQUAL
138
16
Empathy
131
17
Network
126
18
Hospital
122
19
Score
122
20
Student
122
21
Hypothesis
120
22
Assurance
118
23
Criterium
117
24
Passenger
117
25
Customer loyalty
116
26
Research limitations implication
114
27
Trust
113
28
Advantage
111
29
Rate
107
30
Provision
101
31
Structural equation modelling
99
32
Bank
95
33
Demand
94
34
Confirmatory factor analysis
91
35
Turn
90
36
Antecedent
88
37
Requirement
88
38
Operator
87
39
Tangible
87
40
Implementation
85
41
Hotel
84
42
Program
83
43
Training
82
44
Challenge
80
45
Preference
80
46
University
80
47
Airline
77
48
Behavioural intention
76
49
Image
74
50
Parameter
74
CONCLUSION
This study was carried out by Web of Science,
the most popular and largest database used
worldwide which is considered from the year
1989 to 2021.Total of 2665 articles was extracted
as the outcome of the search. The different
parameters are considered for the analysis of this

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database. It has been observed that publications
have grown between 2007 and 2021 as a result of
the development of SERVQUAL, a widely used
measuring model of service quality, by
Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry. Research in
several subject fields is increasingly focused on
service quality especially in business economics,
engineering and social science. Zeithaml va,
Parasuraman and berry are the most prolific
authors. USA, Peoples R. China and Taiwan are
the countries whose publications are most cited.
The behavioural consequences of service quality,
Measuring Service Quality- A Re-examination
and Extension, E-S-QUAL - A multiple-item
scale for assessing electronic service quality is the
publication which has received the highest
number of citations. Eboli, Laura has co-authored
the highest 28 times with 13 documents. The
United States has 664 number of publications co-
authored by 306 authors from other countries.
Out of the top 100 keywords Customer
Satisfaction, Loyalty and Responsiveness
emerged as the highest frequently appeared
keywords.
This study has certain limitations also, the
researchers extracted data from the Web of
Science, and further research can be conducted
with the data from Scopus and other popular
databases. The published research can be
analysed with the Co-occurrence of keywords
Co-citations, Bibliographic etc. which is
uncovered in this study.
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