A bibliometric analysis of research on academic libraries in Africa (2002–2024)

The main objective of this study is to examine how research on academic libraries in African higher education has evolved over time by analyzing publication trends, citation impact, influential sources, author productivity, and emerging themes between 2002 and 2024. A total of 529 publications have been analyzed based on the data retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. It dives into the publication trend, citation impact, source impact, and thematic trend of the literature in the field. The findings of the paper show that the subject has witnessed consistent growth in terms of publications, with a surge after 2015 and a peak in 2023. The average citations per year per article increased to 0.90 in 2014, and this trend continued to reach its peak of 1.37 in 2020. The three-field diagram shows the major contributors including Onyancha, Ngulube, Tella, and Ocholla, who often research on academic libraries, information literacy, and Africa, showing how these themes continue to lead research in the area. The Journal of Academic Librarianship has the highest number of citations count (402), while the Electronic Library has the highest h-index (14). Author productivity follows a similar pattern to Lotka's Law, implying that most authors contributed only once, while a few were prolific. Bradford's Law is also applied in identifying the core journals in the field. The use of keyword co-occurrence and thematic mapping shows a shift in the field from traditional library work to digital literacy, open access, and institutional repositories. Conceptual structure analysis identifies clusters of interconnected topics in information services, scholarly communication, and user engagement.