Expert systems in library and information services: publication trends, authorship patterns and expressiveness of published titles

CD-ROM databases LISAPlus, ERIC, INSPEC, COMPENDEX, Dissertations and Abstracts Online, Library Literature, and bibliographies appended in review articles were searched on the subject of expert system applications in library and information services. The search retrieved a total of 679 references, comprising 53.3% (362) journal articles, 26.5% (180) conference proceedings, 9.3% (63) book articles, 4.1% (28) dissertations and 6.8% (46) monographs. The growth of literature peaked between 1989 and 1990 and subsequently declined after 1992. More than one-third of the total titles were on intelligent front-ends and interfaces for online search and retrieval systems (287: 42.3%), followed by applications in reference services (113: 16.6%), classification, indexing and abstracting (86: 12.7%) and cataloguing (7: 11.3%). The highest contributing journals comprised six titles, of which Information Processing and Management topped the list. Forty-three authors were found to contribute between five to 35 articles each, hence constituting over onethird (32.19%) of total contributors. Over 57% (382) of the publications were single-authored works, 25% (172) were by two authors, 11% (72) by three authors and 7% (49) were by four or more authors. Only 161 (23.7%) titles were expressive enough to reveal both the name and function of systems being developed.