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1. Introduction
Library Hi Tech is a well-known journal in librarian research field. With a long history of more than 30 years, the journal published up-to-date articles regarding technology-assisted information systems that support libraries and cultural memory, education and the academy, health and medicine, and government and citizenship issues and is the pioneer in the library domain. Important research topics and issues were discussed by author networks of Library Hi Tech, contributing to the development of information technologies in library-relevant research fields.
This paper aimed at presenting the knowledge structure of Library Hi Tech research fronts in last decades. In total, 522 journal articles published in Library Hi Tech covering the time period from 2006 to 2017 were extracted from Web of Science (WOS) and developed as testbeds for evaluation. The Library Hi Tech was first published in 1984, while the data collected in study were restricted to 2006-2017 which covered all the Library Hi Tech articles included in the WOS database. Highly cited keywords were analyzed by CiteSpace which supports visual exploration with knowledge discovery in bibliographic databases. The findings of this study are able to present the overall picture and the major research streams of Library Hi Tech.
2. Literature review
Social network analysis (SNA) is a strategy of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory (Otte and Rousseau, 2002). In recent years, a variety of studies were conducted by using SNA in addressing issues from different area. For example, Luo and Zhong (2015) examined social network structure with SNA based on the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication shared among tourists. The results are helpful for understanding how eWOM disseminates and influences travelers through online interactions. Kim and Hastak (2018) analyzed social media data from the Facebook page to explore connections and patterns during disaster such as 2016 Louisiana flood. The results can be used for emergency agencies to develop their social media operation strategies for a disaster. Some other studies applied SNA on the literature in different disciplines. For example, Haustein et al. (2014) collected data from Twitter in order to understand the journal information disseminate pattern in the biomedical sciences. Popp et al. (2016) analyzed the social network data in the agricultural economics literature during...