Medical Librarianship in Information-Seeking and Evidence-Based Practice Research: A Scopus-Based Bibliometric Mapping (1975–2025)
This study maps publication patterns, collaborative networks, and thematic relationships in a Scopus-indexed corpus retrieved at the intersection of medical librarianship and information-seeking research in health and evidence-based practice. A bibliometric performance and science-mapping analysis was applied to 422 records published between 1975 and 2025, using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny. The retrieved literature spans research on the information needs of health-information users, evidence-based clinical applications, librarian-supported searching and evidence synthesis, and library services. Publication activity increased markedly in the more recent period, while keyword co-occurrence analysis identified five thematic clusters. The findings describe the structure of an interdisciplinary retrieval set; they should not be interpreted as direct evidence of medical librarians’ individual information behavior or as proof of changes in professional practice. Because the corpus also contains clinical and user-centered publications, further record-level relevance and metadata validation is required before strong profession-specific claims can be drawn. The analysis offers a preliminary map to inform more focused investigations of medical librarians’ search practices, evidence-synthesis roles, and emerging digital competencies.
Authors
- Derek Long (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8887-0815)
- Thu Nguyen Thi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0659-7866)
Institutions
- VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities (VN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Hospital Librarianship
- Published
- 2026-10-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/15323269.2026.2752505
- Primary Topic
- scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00