The analysis of journals topics and trend: text mining and word cloud

Abstract

The objective of this study is to identify the major topics over time of 4 selected journals in the field of Information Science and Library Science by analyzing word usage and the frequency with which certain words are used in the journal. A further objective is to determine the future direction of research in related subject areas. The basis of the study uses the program R to collect, text mine, and analyze a published article’s word usage and concepts that are represented in a word cloud. Four journals were selected and collected from Web of Science (Thomson Reuters). The journal selection considered the 5-Year Impact Factor, the journal’s aims and scope, and subject uniqueness. The journals that were selected are: Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Journal of Documentation, and Scientometrics. A total 8,148 articles were collected and analyzed.