Dept. of Library & Information Science Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamil Literature Output in National Bibliography of Indian Languages: A bibliometric analysis P.Clara Jeyaseeli Ph.D. Research Scholar Dept. of Library & Information Science Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. Tamilnadu. INDIA Tamil Internet Conference, 17-19 June’2011, UPenn

Introduction Tamil is one of the most classical and an ancient South Indian Languages. In ancient times, the assembly or academy of most learned men of Tamil land was called “Sangam” and the literature produced from these assemblies is known as the “Sangam literature”. Sangam age also renowned as “Golden Age”. The bibliometric study is a budding area of research in Library and Information Science which quantifies and qualifies the scholarly output of any literature. The bibliometric study projects the strong and weak areas of any research or documentation of bibliographical databases. Tamil is one of the most classical and an ancient South Indian Languages. In ancient times, the assembly or academy of most learned men of Tamil land was called “Sangam” and the literature produced from these assemblies is known as the “Sangam literature

Introduction NBIL selective bibliography compilation of works "of literary merit, and important and significant books Philosophy, Religion, History and the other aspects of the Humanities". Bibliography -1901 to1953.

Bibliometrics ? Egghe bibliometrics - quantitative study of any literature as they are reflected in bibliographies. bibliometrics - study of the quantitative analysis characteristics, behavior and Productivity of written communications.

Objective To apply bibliometric techniques available Tamil literature Digital South Asia Library’s NBIL, freely available bibliography in the internet. used by Tamil scholars and researchers This study exploits the characteristics of Tamil literature output in NBIL.

Significance of the study NBIL - bibliographic database freely available 56,000 titles with imprints prior to 1954 22 Indian languages. To study Tamil literature output in NBIL Prediction of literature growth, author pattern, language dispersion & descriptor pattern.

Methodology Database : NBIL Search Term : “tamil” (not case sensitive) Hits : 1218 S/w : MS-Word and MS-Excel.

1. Literature Growth Study One of the important aspects in bibliometric study is the prediction of the pattern of growth of literature. Figure 1. Actual Growth of Tamil Literature (1886 to 1958)

Literature Growth Study… Top 8 years productivity - 698 publications (57.31%) 1886 to 1958 - 520 publications (42.69%) Most productive years -1946 to 1953 Most productive year - 1953 (127 publications). The linear trend calculates to 0.852x - 8.684.

2. Authorship Pattern Authorship study - kind of authors, nature and degree of collaboration .

Authorship Pattern… 13 authors - 10 to 50 publications. 71 hits - no statement of responsibility. Most productive author - Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu (4.36%) The productivity difference among others - not quite high 13 authors - 277 publications (24.15%) Others - 1 to 7 contribution(s) 13 authors’ output < rest (75.85 % - high)

3. Language dispersion Language (document) -important factor- bibliometric studies References cited – depend - language of the documents. Non familiarity of a language – less citations. Translated works – cited by many.

Pie diagram - rest of 119 hits language distribution. Language dispersion… Tamil ranks - 90.23% (First) Bilingual works - 9.77%. Sanskrit - II Sanskrit and Tamil - III English language - IV Pie diagram - rest of 119 hits language distribution.

4. Document Type Microforms - films or papers containing micro reproductions (reduced to about 25 times of size) of documents storage, retrieval, transmission, and printing. NBIL microfilms the Indian publications – Microfilming of Indian Publications Project (MIPP). Govt. of India - approved a project by the National Library, Calcutta Preservation Early 20th-Century South Asian Books. MIPP - preserving and making books accessible in the NBIL list together with the pre-1954 titles in the NBIL supplement. In this analysis, out of 1218 documents, 944 documents are microfilmed which accounts to 77.50%. This is an appreciable mode of digital preservation for reference.

5. Subject Dispersion Study Subject dispersion study - bibliometric study concentration of subject areas of documents; funding agencies to disburse the grant based on the strong subject areas; enhance research in the needy and weaker areas. The retrieved 1218 documents are categorized under 615 subject headings.

Subject Dispersion Study…

Subject Dispersion Study… The top 15 ranking subject areas are tabulated. Usually, number of subject areas >number of documents (Because one document may belong >1 subject area) Philosophy and Religion - 5.61% (First) History, biography and travel - 4.07% (Second) Literary Criticism & General Anthology – 3.01% (Third) The priority of subject areas as per NBIL is highlighted.

Conclusion As per the bibliographical database, The literature growth pattern analysis predicts that productivity reached its peak during 1946 to 1953. ups and down during the growth. The authorship pattern study shows that Kotaiyammai, Vai, Mu –most productive author Collaborative authorship pattern cannot be predicted only single author contribution. Of course, there exist translators and editors.

Conclusion… The language dispersion analysis yields that “Tamil” is the most predominant language (90.23%) Others are bilingual The document type analysis yields that 77.50% microfilmed documents Subject Dispersion analysis shows that “Philosophy and religion” subject areas - first preference “History, biography and travel” - follows

Suggestions: The National Bibliography of Indian Literature database focuses from 1901 to 1954 and holds about 56,000 imprints prior to 1954; policies may be framed to include the scholarly output in Tamil prior to this period, since Tamil is a classical and an ancient language. Apart from preservation in any format, the bibliographic databases dedicated for scholarly output in Tamil may be created and launched freely over the internet. The creation of online bibliographic databases of scholarly output in Tamil spreads the richness of the scholars and researchers who publish their output in Tamil.

Suggestions… 4) Citations may be made by the scholars and researchers from these databases, which in turn raise the impact factor of Indian journals and Indian authors. 5) The creation of databases results in reducing the unemployment crisis and provides a wealthy literature output for the future generation. Uniformity in transliteration and subject term specification through subject experts may be preferred to increase precision in databases. Literacy programmes on the usage of these bibliographical databases may influence the researchers, scholars and authors to publish their findings in the journals indexed in these databases.

Reference: http://www.culturopedia.com/Literature/tamil_literature.html [accessed on 05-03-2011] http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/nbil.py [accessed on 06-03-2011] Jeyaseeli, P. Clara. Growth Pattern Analysis no Ascidians Literature: A Scientometric Study (1998 to 2008). Journal of Library, Information and CommunicationTechnology, 2(1-4):51-59 (2010). Mahapatra, Gayatri, Bibliometric Studies: in the internet era, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Indiana Publishing House, 2009), 78. http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/nbil/aboutmipp.html [accessed on 01-03-2011]

Thanks to the efforts taken by The Digital South Asia Library which is a project of the Center for Research Libraries and the University of Chicago . The Digital South Asia Library’s effort is a global collaborative effort to make important and rare resources available to the international community, which is most appreciable and significant. THANK U