Author Productivity Patterns: Geoscientific Literature of Nigeria for the Period, 1904-1979

A bibliography of geoscientific literature of Nigeria for the period 1904-1979 containing a total of 1,005 items was analysed to test the applicability of Lotka’s law and the negative binomial distribution model to author productivity distribution patterns. Four different files were created out of data on author productivity: First for the total period, 1904 1979; second for the period, 1904-1959, third for the period, 1960-1969, and fourth for the period 1970-1979, a decade considered as oil boom period. Lotka’s law could apply in its original form as inverse square law in all the eases but a better fit was found in two eases with different values of a. Both chi-square and K-S statistical tests were applied to all four data sets and were found satisfactory at 0.05 and 0.01 levels of significance respectively. Negative binomial distribution was found fitting better than Lotka’s distribution.