The impact of non-accessible library and information science journals on research productivity in Pakistan

The purpose of this paper is to identify: (a) Non-accessible library and information science journals from HEC National Digital Library (DL) Subscribed databases, (b) Approaches adopted by the LIS researchers to acquire non-accessible articles, and (c) The impact of non-accessible articles on their research endeavor. A sequential exploratory strategy of mixed method research was applied to identify the impact of non-accessible LIS journals on research. This study was completed in two phases. In the first phase, an online surfing of all HEC subscribed databases was conducted and a list of openly accessible, partially accessible and non-accessible LIS journals was prepared. Impact factor of journals was checked from the list of Journal Citation Report by Thomson Reuter, 2013. In the second phase, a structured questionnaire was prepared to identify the approaches adopted by the researchers to acquire non-accessible articles and their impact on research productivity. Findings of the study show that (a) Emerald, (b) Science Direct, (c) JSTOR, (d) Project Muse, (e) Taylor & Francis, (f) Wiley-Blackwell Journals, and (g) University of Chicago Press, are the HEC subscribed databases which have LIS journals. Study reveals that there are 18 % non-accessible and 37 % partially accessible LIS journals on the HEC subscribed databases. Researchers tried to acquire non-accessible articles through friends, social networking sites (SNS) Groups, BDD and by requesting to authors etc. Respondents agreed that non-accessible journals do impact on research productivity. As a result, citations of non-accessible articles decreases, which negatively impact the quality and quantity of both authors and researchers' work. The outcomes of this study are significant for LIS researchers to become aware of the current situation of non-accessible journals and its impact on their research endeavors. It will also guide the HEC and research institutions to redesign their policy for the subscription of relevant databases that will enable complete access to journals on LIS discipline. It will also help to increase the quality of researchers' work and citation rate of authors' articles. This study may then be replicated in other fields and countries also. There is not enough work analyzing the impact of non-accessible journals on research productivity.