Resumen

GORBEA PORTAL, Salvador. Foremost Latin American journals in library and information science: their subject and geographic dissemination and concentration. Investig. bibl [online]. 2007, vol.21, n.42, pp.79-108. ISSN 2448-8321.

A study is presented on the principal Latin American scientific journals in library and information science processed by the INFOBILA System. Starting from the most productive publication nucleus, the level of dissemination attained by these journals in the main commercial data bases and specialized services (ULRICH,LISA, ISA, LL and others) is determined, and their subject and geographic concentration, through the application of Pratt's Index, is also shown. Application of this indicator in these disciplines in the Latin American region reveals a high subject dispersion and a high geographic concentration among the 25 "key" journals studied, while the correspondence analysis between the subject and the country of edition of the journals corroborates these patterns of behavior, as indicated by the spatial distribution between these two variables.

Palabras llave : Library and information science periodicals; Subject concentration; Geographic concentration; Pratt's Index; Latin American region; Bibliometric survey.