Big data adoption in academic libraries: a literature review

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the publication of big data in the library from Scopus database by looking at the writing time period of the papers, author's country, the most frequently occurring keywords, the article theme, the journal publisher and the group of keywords in the big data article. The methodology used in this study is a quantitative approach by extracting data from Scopus database publications with the keywords “big data” and “library” in May 2019. The collected data was analysed using Voxviewer software to show the keywords or terms. The results of the study stated that articles on big data have appeared since 2012 and are increasing in number every year. The big data authors are mostly from China and America. Keywords that often appear are based on the results of terminology visualization are including, “big data”, “libraries”, “library”, “data handling”, “data mining”, “university libraries”, “digital libraries”, “academic libraries”, “big data applications” and “data management”. It can be concluded that the number of publications related to big data in the library is still small; there are still many gaps that need to be researched on the topic. The results of the research can be used by libraries in using big data for the development of library innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

The Scopus database was accessed on 24 May 2019 by using the keyword “big data” and “library” in the search box. The authors only include papers, which title contain of big data in library. There were 74 papers, however, 1 article was dropped because of it not meeting the criteria (affiliation and abstract were not available). The papers consist of journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, editorial and review. Then the data were extracted into excel and analysed as follows (by the year, by the author/s’s country, by the theme and by the publisher). Following that the collected data were analysed using VOX viewer software to see the relationship between big data terminology and library, terminology clustering, keywords that often appear, countries that publish big data, number of big data authors, year of publication and name of journals that publish big data and library articles (Alagu and Thanuskodi, 2019).

Findings

It can be concluded that the implementation of big data in libraries is still in an early stage, it is shown from the limited number of practical implementation of big data analytics in library. Not many libraries that use big data to support innovation and services since there were lack of librarian skills of big data analytics. The library manager’s view of big data is still not necessary to do. It is suggested for academic libraries to start their adoption of big data analytics to support library services especially research data. To do so, librarians can enhance their skills and knowledge by following some training in big data analytics or research data management. The information technology infrastructure also needs to be upgraded since big data need big IT capacity. Finally, the big data management policy should be made to ensure the implementation goes well.

Originality/value

This paper discovers the adoption and implementation of big data in library, many papers talk big data in business and technology context. This is offering new idea for many libraries especially academic library about the adoption of big data to support their services. They can adopt the big data analytics technology and technique that suitable for their library.

Citation

Anna, N.E.V. and Mannan, E.F. (2020), "Big data adoption in academic libraries: a literature review", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-11-2019-0079