The Landscapes of Sustainability in Library and Information Science: Diachronous Citation Perspective

Sustainability issues constitute a distinct subdiscipline of librarianship and information science, with its own areas of study, methods, and areas of application. Despite being nearly 30 years old, there are still divergent opinions on its current phase of development and its links to other scientific disciplines. The authors aim to clarify and summarize the ongoing discussion through citation analysis, shedding light on the lifecycle of research papers in sustainability-oriented library and information science, the current research subjects of focus, the influence of subdomains within the discipline on other scientific areas, and the overall quantitative and qualitative landscape of the discipline. A detailed elucidation of the inquiry’s results is intended to outline the discipline’s cognitive structure and its impact on sustainability science. The lifecycle of disciplinary papers indicates the dynamic development of the field. Sustainability-oriented library and information science is well-established, and its research focus has already been consolidated. The optimal citation window for measuring the impact strength in this discipline is a period of 3 to 4 years. “Culture” and “Education” have been identified as the most forward-looking subdisciplines, whereas “Buildings” and “Collections” exhibit less dynamic growth. The social sustainability pillar is the dominant one, while the environmental pillar is slightly less prominent. The economic pillar is the least represented. Although the majority of information exchange occurs within the discipline, it maintains strong and numerous links with several other fields, including both technical and social sciences, as well as the humanities.