CLIR Reports 1994 - 2017: A Nano-Bibliometric Analysis

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) publishes varying types of publications such as technical reports, issues and newsletters, annual reports, and others. The purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of the Council’s reports, which are not represented in the major bibliographic indices and as such, might be overlooked by scholars or considered “grey literature.” A bibliometric analysis was conducted to examine 100 reports published in a span of twenty-three years (1994-2017), each classified into six categories derivative of the Council’s editorial description: The Changing Role of the Library; Digital Libraries; Trends in Information Use; Preservation; Economics of Information; and International Development. The results indicate the extent to which the CLIR reports are cited by others outside the organization; identify the Council’s major authors; and track trends in publication. Findings suggest that, although unindexed in traditional bibliographic databases, CLIR reports have made significant contributions in the field of library and information science, both in terms of cited references and advancements in scholarship; and posits that this kind of publication can add value to traditional peer-reviewed research and scholarship. The study concludes that CLIR reports produced in the years 1994-2017 are highly cited by scholars outside the organization and that the rate of publication has also increased during this time.