خلاصة:
The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a discovery service for open access e-books. It provides a searchable index to peer-reviewed e-books published under an open access business model. The present study aims to assess the scientometric trends of the open access e-books in the field of the Health Sciences available through the Directory of Open Access Books. In order to fulfil the set objectives, the relevant details of the Health Sciences e-books were collected. The results reveal that 916 e-books are available in the field of the Health Sciences through the Directory of Open Access. The highest number of e-books is contributed in General Medicine (40.61%, 372) and in the English language (83.84%, 768). These e-books also contain current information as the majority (88.32%, 809) of these are published from 2011 onwards by the reputed publishers like Frontiers Media, SciELO, Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Oxford University Press etc. The Directory of Open Access Books was selected as a source for data collection whereas the Health Sciences was selected as the field of study. Therefore, the finding can’t be generalised across directories and subjects.
ملخص الجهاز:
The results reveal that 916 e-books are available in the field of the Health Sciences through the Directory of Open Access.
The Directory of Open Access Books was selected as a source for data collection whereas the Health Sciences was selected as the field of study.
The concept of open access e-books started in 197 I when Michael Hart started Project Guttenberg (Connaway & Wicht, 2007) to digitise all the print books printed since the invention of the printing press with the aim to store, retrieve and search information the electronic or digital version of these books at any time from any part of the globe.
The DOAB provides a searchable index to peer- reviewed monographs and edited volumes published under an open access business model and the full-text of these e-books is available on the OAPEN Library or publisher's website or repositories.
The results further reveal that 307 e-books are available on science and technology disciplines through the Directory of Open Access Books dealing with eight major subject areas and 36 sub-fields.
Khanchandani & Kumar (2017) conducted a study on e-books in Science and Technology available in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).
Methodology This study analysed the number of e-books pertaining to the health sciences available through the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).
Limitations The Directory of Open Access Books was selected as a source for data collection whereas the Health Sciences was selected as the field of study.