Citation Pattern of the Nigerian Journal of Horticultural Science from 1990-2005

Introduction The essence of academic journal publishing is to report research findings and to contribute to the field of knowledge. Journals are the most current channel of dissemination of new ideas, knowledge and breakthroughs in scientific development. Academic journals play a significant role in academic scholarship (Xiao and Smith, 2006). The present study therefore is undertaken on one of the renowned subject specialized academic journals, with the aim of analyzing citations cited in the various articles published therein. Citation analysis examines bibliographic data from journal articles, monographs, published bibliographies, theses and electronic indexes in order to understand researchers' specific information needs and explain trends in library use. Citations appearing in journals of particular disciplines provide an objective measure of the contributions of other knowledge systems to the development and progress of that particular discipline (Chandy and Williams, 1994). According to Gao, Yu, and Luo ( 2009) librarians have used several different quantitative methods to identify patrons' needs, including circulation and shelving data, the analysis of interlibrary loan requests, as well as citation analysis. Edward (1999) asserts that citation analysis can be used to determine a core collection of journals critical to local users and representative of the research needs of the collection. Gooden (2001) opines that citation analysis has been used by librarians in various disciplines to eliminate costly, low used/unused journals, purchase needed materials and ascertain core journals needed for patron use, and to reveal the most active research in a particular field. Ching and Chennupati (2002) opines that citation analysis is a form of checklist approach, and basically compares a library's holdings to an authoritative list for the purpose of assessing the quality of all or part of the collection. Furthermore, Gao et al, (2009) asserts that citation analysis has advantages over the other methods in a number of ways. Firstly, citing a publication may be the best indication of its importance since the citation implies that researchers read the publication and considered it important enough to include as a reference. Secondly, managing a citation study is relatively simple -- it can be conducted by a single person. Thirdly, citation studies are reliable, valid, rapid, and economical and the data may be obtained unobtrusively. Fourthly, and perhaps most valuable for an academic librarian is the fact that a citation is a component of the most important product of the academic enterprise. The Nigerian Journal of Horticultural Science was first published in May, 1990. It is published by the Horticultural Society of Nigeria. The Journal is the primary source for inquiry on horticultural crop production and sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa; it is the key source of information that is consulted by researchers and scholars in horticultural research. Literature Review Zhang (2007) analyzed research behavior of US international relations scholars by selecting peerreviewed journals' citations appearing in articles from the three leading international relations journals published from 2000 to 2005. His findings revealed that books and journals are the overwhelmingly dominant reference sources (86.6%), while the other formats are relatively less utilized in international relations research (13.5%). Kelsey and Diamond (2003) analyzed core journals in the interdisciplinary field of Forestry. Similarly, Das and Sen (2001) analyzed 1049 citations appended to 34 research articles of Journal of Biosciences; 2000. It was found that out of the total citations, journal articles comprises 85.89% and monographs 10.1%. The report of Koley and Sen (2003) which covered 457 citations from 26 research articles published in the four issues of the quarterly Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences, also revealed that 76. …