The Digital Frontier: Exploring the Impact of Digital Marketing on Libraries using Bibliometric Values

Abstract

Purpose: The current study is an attempt to quantify the global scientific literature on digital marketing in libraries. Further, the study analysed the research productivity in terms of growth and impact of digital marketing research in the context of library and information centres.
Design/Methodology/Approach: To adequately cover the scientific output on library digital marketing research, Web of Science (WoS) was used to extract the bibliographic data using 345 keywords. A total of 344 documents from 79 sources were retrieved from 1989 to 2021. R-bibliomterix software and MS Excelwere used for data analysis and cleaning.
Findings: The findings indicate a gradual increasing shift in research output from 2011 to 2015, followed by a decline after 2016. Citation impact varied across years, with 2007 achieving the highest citations per article and per year. The United States emerged as themost productive,most cited, andmost collaborative country, followed by China. Network analysis showcased the prominence of the keyword social media.Author Joo S, and the Journal of Academic Librarianship emerged as central contributing author and Source respectively.
Practical Implications: The study traces trends in digital marketing research in libraries and underlines how digital marketing tools enhances library visibility, user engagement, and service outreach.
Originality/value: The study offers comprehensive bibliometric analysis for librarians and policymakers to adopt data-driven marketing strategies that improve resource utilization and institutional impact.