Relevance of Library Collections for Doctoral Research:A Citation Analysis of Theses in the Field of Education and Physical Education at University of Mysore

The present study has been undertaken to examine the relevance of Mysore University Library collections for doctoral research in the Faculty of Educatin. The study evaluated 1865 references found in the 20 theses submitted to the University during the period from 1964 to 2013. The study includes the analysis of various variables of the citation such as type, authorship, age and library holdings to meet objectivities of the study. The findings of the study reveals that the overall average number of citations per doctoral thesis in the faculty of Education was 154.24. The researchers cited 43.97% Journals and 41.34% Textbooks in the theses. The result clearly shows that the majority of cited resources (69.44%) were Single author works found in theses. The researchers cited the majority of resources that belong to age group of less than 1 year to 10 years that constituting 733 (39.91%). The Mysore University Library owned 49.78% of 1836 resources cited in the theses. The library ownership of cited resources is varied from one type to another type of resources. The library owned 612(74.63%) of 820 cited Journals and owned 265(34.77%) of 771 cited Textbooks.The age wise availability of cited materials is varying from one decade to another decade. The cited resources that belong to age group of ‘less than 1 year’ and ‘41 to 50 years’ were available more than 65 % each in the library.