Uncovering Historical Roots of IFLA Policy Document Indexed in Overton
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24252/kah.v14i2a2Keywords:
Bibliometrics, International Federation of Library Association and Institution (IFLA), Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS), Policy documentsAbstract
Background: The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is a global organization in the field of libraries and information sciences that publishes worldwide policies and regulations to guide library service practices, with the policy document itself serving as a practical output for decision-making.
Purpose: The study uncovers the historical roots in the development of IFLA policy documents.
Methods: Data were collected through the Overton database and analyzed using the Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) method, with stages including data collection, filtering, processing, and analysis. References from IFLA policy documents were processed as CSV data adjusted for compatibility and readability in CRExplorer software.
Findings: IFLA policy documents cited references spanning 1992–2019, with a peak year of 2016. The most cited institutions were Libraries Unlimited and IFLA itself, reflecting a combination of internal frameworks and external knowledge development. Geographically, Europe dominates at the continental level, while the United States is the most-cited country at the national level.
Originality/Value: This study offers a novel application of RPYS to trace the intellectual and historical foundations underlying IFLA's policy documents, revealing how internal institutional knowledge and external scholarly sources jointly shape global library policy development.
Downloads
References
Albertone, M. (2025). Context, history and interdiciplinarity. Revue de Synthese, 146(1–2), 7–24. https://doi.org/10.1163/19552343-14234067
Atapour, H., Maddahi, R., & Zavaraqi, R. (2024). Policy citations of scientometric articles: an altmetric study. Scientometrics, 129(7), 4423–4436. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05091-3
Axonidi, S., Colombati, C., & Gamboni, V. (2020). From vision to action: librarians as change agents. Digital Library Perspectives, 36(1), 4–7. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-11-2019-0042
Ballandonne, M. (2019). The historical roots (1880–1950) of recent contributions (2000–2017) to ecological economics: insights from reference publication year spectroscopy. Journal of Economic Methodology, 26(4), 307–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2018.1554227
Bornmann, L., Haunschild, R., & Marx, W. (2025). Revolutions in science: The proposal of an approach for the identification of most important researchers, institutions and countries based on co-citation reference publication year spectroscopy exemplified at research on physical modelling of Earth’s clim. Journal of Information Science, 51(4), 957–968. https://doi.org/10.1177/01655515231161134
Bradley, F. (2016). ‘A world with universal literacy’: The role of libraries and access to information in the UN 2030 Agenda. IFLA Journal, 42(2), 118–125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035216647393
Brandts-Longtin, O., Lalu, M. M., Adie, E. A., Albert, M. A., Almoli, E., Almoli, F., Bryson, G. L., Dony, C., Dunleavy, D., Grudniewicz, A., Lehmann, C., Lhoest, R., Moher, D., Montroy, J., Pitts, M., Ricketts, A., Thirion, P., & Cobey, K. D. (2022). Assessing the impact of predatory journals on policy and guidance documents: a cross-sectional study protocol. BMJ Open, 12(4). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-059445
D’Este, P., & Robinson-García, N. (2023). Interdisciplinary research and the societal visibility of science: The advantages of spanning multiple and distant scientific fields. Research Policy, 52(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104609
Dai, C., Chen, Q., Wan, T., Liu, F., Gong, Y., & Wang, Q. (2021). Literary runaway: Increasingly more references cited per academic research article from 1980 to 2019. PLoS ONE, 16(8 August). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255849
Delsey, T. (2024). Authority Control in an International Context. In Authority Control in the Online Environment: Considerations and Practices (pp. 13–28). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003575375-2
Dike, V. W., Margaret N., N., & Wisdom O., A. (2020). Progress and Pitfalls: Attaining Best Practices in Nigerian School Libraries Through Policy Formulation and Implementation, 1977-2015. Library Philosophy and Practice, 2020. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85098122507&partnerID=40&md5=80b1efa39f04cfd6cd7438fe2743d558
Hall-Mathews, D. (2020). Commentary: Can historians assist development policy-making, or just highlight its faults? In History, historians and development policy: A necessary dialogue (pp. 169–174). https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526151612.00018
Harmsen, R., & Braband, G. (2021). The OECD and Higher Education Policy: Agenda-Setting, Organizational Dynamics and the Construction of Convening Authority. Higher Education Policy, 34(3), 582–602. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-019-00153-1
Haunschild, R., Williams, K., & Bornmann, L. (2025). The influence of public policy and administration expertise on policy: an empirical study. Evidence and Policy, 21(4), 485–506. https://doi.org/10.1332/17442648Y2024D000000042
Heneghan, M., & Orenstein, M. A. (2019). Organizing for impact: International organizations and global pension policy. Global Social Policy, 19(1–2), 65–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468018119834730
Hinchliffe, L. J., Dwyer, K., & Rose, J. (2022). Copyright education and the role of library associations: current practices and needed support. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.14455
Ibrahim, C. (2024). Academic roots: the most prolific authors of bibliometrics. Jurnal Literasi Perpustakaan Dan Informasi: Jurnal Penelitian Kajian Perpustakaan Dan Informasi, Vol 4, No 2 (2024): Edisi May. http://ojs.uho.ac.id/index.php/pustakainf/article/view/110-122/pdf
Kallo, J. (2021). The epistemic culture of the OECD and its agenda for higher education. Journal of Education Policy, 36(6), 779–800. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1745897
Lor, P. J. (2024). Published sources and themes for the historiography of IFLA. IFLA Journal, 50(4), 714–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352241236731
Malhotra, B. (2018). References and bibliographic software. In Reporting and Publishing Research in the Biomedical Sciences (pp. 77–89). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7062-4_9
Marx, W., Bornmann, L., Barth, A., & Leydesdorff, L. (2014). Detecting the historical roots of research fields by reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS). Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(4), 751–764. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23089
Marx, W., Haunschild, R., Thor, A., & Bornmann, L. (2017). Which early works are cited most frequently in climate change research literature? A bibliometric approach based on Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy. Scientometrics, 110(1), 335–353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2177-x
Nasyrov, T., Safarov, K. S., Mamatkulov, A., Nimatov, K., & Matchonov, O. (2025). Inter-Subject Relations of Physics and Energy Disciplines, as a Didactic Condition for Increasing the Quality of Students’ Knowledge. AIP Conference Proceedings, 3331(1). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0306366
Noh, Y. (2021). Study on the perception of south korean librarians of the un sustainable development goals (Sdgs) and the strategy to support libraries. Profesional de La Informacion, 30(4). https://doi.org/10.3145/EPI.2021.JUL.04
Otike, F., & Barátné Hajdu, Á. H. (2023). IFLA’s role in the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty. IFLA Journal, 49(2), 452–466. https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352221141465
Pilerot, O., & Lindberg, J. (2011). The concept of information literacy in policy-making texts: An imperialistic project? Library Trends, 60(2), 338–360. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2011.0040
Pinheiro, H., Vignola-Gagné, E., & Campbell, D. (2021). A large-scale validation of the relationship between cross-disciplinary research and its uptake in policy-related documents, using the novel overton altmetrics database. Quantitative Science Studies, 2(2), 616–642. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00137
Prado, J. M. K. D. (2024). Representation of countries in IFLA. IFLA Journal, 50(4), 838–850. https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352241259480
Repiso, R., Moreno-Delgado, A., & Aguaded, I. (2021). Factors affecting the frequency of citation of an article. Iberoamerican Journal of Science Measurement and Communication, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.47909/ijsmc.08
Saberi, M. K., & Pazooki, F. (2020). Applying IFLA Standards to Compile National Standards: Standardization Activities in Iran. Library Philosophy and Practice, 2020, 1–16. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85098220940&partnerID=40&md5=2aa6214be953f08de1903a2215a69888
Sanabria, A., & Kowalski, L. P. (2025). Historical roots of parotid pleomorphic adenoma surgery—a bibliometric analysis using a new method. Egyptian Journal of Otolaryngology, 41(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43163-024-00738-7
Setubal, R. B., da Silva Farias, D., Nova, C. C., Aguiar, A. C. F., da Silva Santa Rosa Rodrigues, T. A., Lira, R. T. S., Ferreira, A. L. V, de Oliveira, M. R. A., da Costa, L. O., de Lima, S. K. A. F., & Bozelli, R. L. (2022). Microwave effect: analyzing citations from classic theories and their reinventions—a case study from a classic paper in aquatic ecology—Brooks & Dodson, 1965. Scientometrics, 127(8), 4751–4767. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04459-7
Szomszor, M., & Adie, E. (2022). Overton: A bibliometric database of policy document citations. Quantitative Science Studies, 3(3), 624–650. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00204
Tammaro, A. M., Manfredi, A., Berloco, A., de Castro, G., & Distilo, M. (2020). Educating professionals for a global vision: no past, no future. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 61(3), 332–341. https://doi.org/10.3138/JELIS.61.3.2020-0020
Trübswasser, U., Candel, J., Genye, T., Bossuyt, A., Holdsworth, M., Baye, K., & Talsma, E. (2022). Benchmarking policy goals and actions for healthy food environments in Ethiopia to prevent malnutrition in all its forms using document analysis. BMJ Open, 12(8). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058480
Udatny, B., & Ašperger, I. A. (2024). Participation of Croatian librarians in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions World Library and Information Congress (IFLA WLIC) from 2004 to 2021. Vjesnik Bibliotekara Hrvatske, 67(3), 371–388. https://doi.org/10.30754/vbh.67.3.1037
Wray, K. B., Paludan, S. R., Bornmann, L., & Haunschild, R. (2024). Using Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) to analyze the research and publication culture in immunology. Scientometrics, 129(6), 3271–3283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05001-7
Zeng, M. L., Lee, J., & Hayes, A. F. (2009). Metadata decisions for digital libraries: A survey report. Journal of Library Metadata, 9(3–4), 173–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/19386380903405074
Zhang, Y., & Wang, P. (2022). Detecting the historical roots of education for sustainable development (ESD): a bibliometric analysis. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23(3), 478–502. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-11-2020-0462
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Cecep Ibrahim
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
By submitting your manuscript to our journal, you are following Copyright and License
