This paper examines co-authorship of research articles in Thomson Reuters citation indexes in order to assess knowledge co-production in selected sub-Saharan African countries. Two indicators, namely publications and citations, were analysed to establish the patterns of knowledge co-production and its scientific impact, respectively. The study found that knowledge production through collaborative research among subSaharan African countries is minimal and contributes only a small percentage when compared to collaboration between sub-Saharan African countries and their foreign counterparts. Similarly, the scientific impact of international collaboration was higher than that of continental collaboration. Countries belonging to the same geographic region contributed to each other's knowledge production more frequently than they did to the countries outside their region. It is recommended that, for knowledge co-production in subSaharan Africa to improve, various measures such as encouraging student and staff exchange, hosting more regional conferences and encouraging research networks need to be put in place.

This article examines the evolution of information literacy over 43 years (from 1975 to 2018), using knowledge visualization and mapping of its literature, as indexed in the Scopus database. Results reveal that information literacy has evolved from being a library- and/or librarianship-oriented concept to a multidisciplinary field and is no longer restricted to social sciences but is spread across 27 disciplines in Scopus’ subject classification. New literacies have emerged after 2000 to include digital literacy, media literacy, health literacy, business information literacy, metaliteracy, content literacy, workplace information literacy, scientific literacy and science literacy. Library instruction remains a prominent method of information literacy delivery in academic libraries. We conclude that information literacy is dynamic and spread across many disciplines and would, therefore, require interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches for its effective delivery in what is turning out to be diverse and complex information and learning environments.

PurposeThis study seeks to establish and compare the research and publication patterns and output of academic librarians in Eastern Africa from 2000 to 2009 using informetric techniques.Design/methodology/approachThe study confined its scope to publications produced between 2000 and 2009. The informetric technique (through content analysis) was used as a research method. The documents that were sourced for content analysis were obtained from the LISA database, which is one of the largest abstract databases in the field of library and information science (LIS). Data were extracted using the names of the librarians obtained from various sources, including: the libraries' web sites, Europa World of Learning and Wikipedia.FindingsThe results reveal that the research visibility of academic librarians was insignificant; that publication of research findings over the period was minimal; that publications from university librarians and directors were also minimal; that most academic librarians preferred publishing individually; and that the most published authors come from Tanzania.Originality/valueFew informetric studies focus on research output of academic librarians in Africa, and also on LIS research in the continent. Furthermore, the library profession is not well understood by many (including the academic community) because people do not appreciate how qualified librarians are, or that their promotion can be linked to research. This study raises issues that relate to the research output and research visibility of university librarians.

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Academic librarians in sub-Saharan Africa, just like their counterparts in the rest of the world, are under pressure to provide relevant information services to satisfy varied client needs. Research administrators, grant offices, researchers, students and university managers, among others, are increasingly turning to academic librarians for information to meet their myriad research-related information and metrics needs. Sub-Saharan African countries' emphasis on strengthening science, technology and innovation has exerted further pressure on information professionals and other stakeholders to develop and appropriately apply bibliometrics and altmetrics to inform decision-making and policy-formulation processes. Research output and impact metrics are not only quickly evolving but their volume has been unprecedented. This paper's focus is the application of bibliometrics and altmetrics by academic librarians to support researchers in their respective universities. The paper argues that there is need for up-skilling or re-skilling the 21 st-century sub-Saharan African academic librarian to select and apply appropriate metrics, tools and strategies to support researchers as they execute their responsibilities. The paper offers possible areas of training for academic librarians.

The purpose of the study was to explore the status of research data sharing among researchers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and internationally. Relevant data was extracted from the Data Citation Index (DCI) using an advanced search strategy, which was limited to the publication years between 2009 and 2014. Data was analysed to obtain the number of data records by country, institution, subject category, year of publication, and document type as well as the number of citations. A Spearman's correlation analysis was conducted to gauge the relationship between the data records and research articles. Findings indicate that only 20 (out of 50) countries in sub-Saharan Africa produced at least one data record in the DCI, with South Africa leading the pack with 539 (61.39 %) records followed by Kenya, Cameroon and Ghana. SSA contributes a mere 0.03 % of the world's research data as compared to 1.4 % of the world's research articles. Research institutions and universities are the major contributors of research data, which largely focuses on Genetics and Heredity (61.3 %), Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (61.3 %), Agriculture (29.2 %) and Forestry (27.3 %). Citation-wise, the research data has attracted fewer average citations than the articles. A correlational analysis of the data reveals that there is a significant correlation between the publication of data and research articles.

This study sought to assess the extent of research collaboration in Library and Information Science (LIS) schools in South Africa between 1991 and 2012. Informetric research techniques were used to obtain relevant data for the study. The data was extracted from two EBSCO-hosted databases, namely, Library and Information Science Source (LISS) and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA). The search was limited to scholarly peer reviewed articles published between 1991 and 2012. The data was analysed using Microsoft Excel ©2010 and UCINET for Windows ©2002 software packages. The findings revealed that research collaboration in LIS schools in South Africa has increased over the past two decades and mainly occurred between colleagues from the same department and institution; there were also collaborative activities at other levels, such as inter-institutional and inter-country, although to a limited extent; differences were noticeable when ranking authors according to different computations of their collaborative contributions; and educator-practitioner collaboration was rare. Several conclusions and recommendations based on the findings are offered in the article.

Information literacy (IL) is increasingly becoming one of the core subjects in many LIS