Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1988, 35(1), 26·33

WORLD LITERATURE ON COWPEA(VIGNA UNGUICULATA (L.) WALP)

World literature on cowpea research coveringmainly the two years, 1981-82 was analysed todetermine the yearly distribution of the litera-ture and the extent of the inclusive retrospectiveliterature. The nature of the literature and itsform of publication are identified and discussed.A lso typical journal titles contributing to cow-pea research are catalogued and ranked. Theimplication of journal literature in cowpearesearch is bigbligbted.

INTRODUCTION

International Grain Legume Information Centreof the Library and Documentation Centre,International Institute of Tropical Agriculture,Ibadan, Nigeria compiles abstracts of worldliterature on cowpea published since the year1900. It has earlier issued three volumes.Volume I contains 1932 abstracts of paperspublished during the period, 1950-1973[11.Volume II covers the literature published during1900-1949 and contains 1309 entries [2] .Volume III contains 1850 abstracts publishedduring 1974-1980[31.Entries in the latest volume, Cowpea (Vigna

unguiculata (L.) Walp): Abstracts of WorldLiterature, volume IV: 1981-1982, whichcovers the literature published during this period(1981-82) and others published earlier butomitted from inclusion in the three precedingvolumes constitute the data base for this analy-sis. It contains 497 abstracts of papers andcovers several aspects of the cowpea literature.Abstracts in this volume like the precedingthree volumes are of the informative type andhas author and subject indexes.Cowpeas are of African origin and were

probably domesticated in the millet/sorghumfarming systems of semi-arid West Africa wheremost of the crop is now grown[4]. It is animportant food crop widely used since earlytimes in Africa South of the Sahara, particularlyin West Africa. Its green pods and seeds, pro-

26

KEN M. C. NWEKEDepartment of Library ScienceUniversity of MaiduguriMaiduguriNigeria.

vide food for millions of people and feed forlarge numbers of livestock. Highly palatable,it is rich in protein and minerals and relativelyfree of metabolites and other toxic compounds.With toe increasing significance of grain legumesin agriculture and human nutrition, cowpearesearch has been given serious emphasis in thetropics.The term cowpea is used to denote the

botanical species Vigna unguiculata and its sub-species as described by Verdcourt[5] whoserecommendations seem to have been widelyaccepted. The cultivated subspecies, formerlytreated as separate species are V. unguiculata, V.sinensis, V. catjang, and V. sesquipedalis. Thecowpea has many common names, those mostfrequently encountered in the literature aresouthern pea and blackeye pea (in the USA),lubia or lobia, coupe, frijole, asparagus beans,yard-long beans and sitao (the last three general-ly refer to the sub-species sesquipedalis) [6] .

YEAR OF PUBLICATION

Of the 497 items listed in the abstract, 140items or 28.2 percent of the total literature werepublished in 1982, 218 items or 43.9 percent ofthe total were published in 1981 while therest 139 items or 28.0 percent of the totalwere published during the period, 1900-1980which were omitted from inclusion in the earlierthree volumes (Table 1). This detail is presentedas histogram in figure 1. Larger number ofentries for 1981 than 1982 is interpreted to bedue to the fact that by the time the abstractwas rounded off for printing, many materialsfor 1982 were still in press and not yet availablefor inclusion. It is most unlikely to be due todecrease in the growth of the literature duringthe two years. The abstract is both current andretrospective. Although the 1981·82 volumewas issued in January, 1984 it is current in thesense that it has 1981-82 literature to theextent of 72.0 percent of the total literature.

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CITATION ANALYSIS OF COWPEA LITERATURE

Table 1

Distribution of the-Cowpea Literatureby Year of Publication

Year No. of items

1900-1980 139

1981 218

1982 140

28.0

43.9

28.2

Total 497 100.1

Distribution of the Cowpealit_all."..Fig.f: or of publication

The four volumes (I-IV), therefore, overlapone another in their coverage of the literature.For example, Spillman, W.J. published anarticle titled, 'The present status of the geneticsproblem' in Science (35 : 757-767) in 1912.A user looking for the abstract of this paperwould normally call for Vol. II: 1900-1949where it is expected to be listed. However,this article was omitted from this volume andwas only listed in Vo1.IV: 1981-82. For maxi-mum benefit, therefore, a user searching for anabstract of a paper published in a particularyear should consult the relevant volume first,then the later volumes and fmally the previousvolumes. Besides overlapping of the items listed,an abstract could also appear in volumes cover-ing years preceding its publication as an un-published document. It is thus best that a

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

serious user of the information tool shouldconsult the four volumes in a search for anabstract of a paper that does not appear in therelevant volume.

NATURE OF COWPEALITERATURE

Subjectwise distribution of the literature isshown in Table 2. In the.data base the literatureis classified into eleven categories. The subjectcategory 'Agronomy' tops the class with 163items or 32.8 percent of the total literature.Of these 41 items were published in 1982and that constitute 29.3 percent of the 1982publications. 72 items were published in 1981and 50 items during the period, 1900-1980.These constitute 33.0 percent and 36.0 percentof the total literature published in 1981 andduring the period, 1900-1980 respectively.There were more entries on 'Agronomy' in1981 (72 items) than in 1982 (41 items).This does not necessarily mean more publica-tions in 1981 than in 1982 on the subject asexplained earlier. The category 'Agronomy'included publications on agricultural metero-logy, climatic influences and crop weatherrelations; cropping systems - rotations and inter-cropping; fertilizers and mineral nutrition;irrigation, water management and plant-waterrelations; soils, soil management and tillage;seed quality, viability and production; nodula-tion and nitrogen fixation; and weeds andweed control.'Diseases, Pests and Control' follows closely

with 157 items or 31.6 percent of the totalliterature. There were 52 items published in1982 and that is 31.7 percent of total entriesfor 1982. Also 78 and 27 items were publishedin 1981 and during the period, 1900-1980respectively. AB in 'Agronomy' there were moreentries in 'Diseases, Pests and Control' in1981 than in 1982. Although total items in'Agronomy' (163 items) was more than that in'Diseases, Pests and Control' (157 items) therewere more entries in·1982 (52 items) and 1981(78 items) in 'Diseases, Pests and Control'than entries in 1982 (41 items) and 1981(72 items) in 'Agronomy'.Thus in the two years, 1981-1982, of cow-

pea research greater attention was paid to thegeneration of literature on 'Diseases, Pestsand Control' than in 'Agronomy' or any othercategory. This is not surprising because diseases

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Table 2

Subject Distribution of the Cowpea Literature

1900-1980 1981 1982 1900-1980 to 1982Subject

No. of Percen- No. of Percen- No. of Percen- No. of Percen-items tage items tage items tage items tage

Agronomy 50 36.0 72 33.0 41 29.3 163 32.8

Diseases, Pests andControl 27 19.4 78 35.8 52 37.1 157 31.6

Psiology, Growthand Development 21 15.1 25 11.5 16 11.4 62 12.5

Breeding and SelectionGeneral 16 11.5 25 11.5 8 5.7 49 9.9

Genetics andCytogenetics 10 7.2 10 4.6 8 5.7 28 5.6

••General (includingDevelopmentalresearch) 3 2.2 1 0.5 6 4.3 10 2.0

Processing' 3 2.2 I 1.4 3 2.1 9 1.8

Human Nutrition andNutrition Studies 5 3.6 0 0.0 1 0.7 6 1.2

Animal Nutrition 1 0.7 2 0.9 2 1.4 5 1.0

History, Origin andEvolution 2 1.4 1 0.5 2 1.4 5 1.0

Production andMarketing 1 0.7 1 0.5 1 0.7 3 0.6

Total 139 100.0 218 100.2 140 99.8 497 100.0

and pests are the major obstacles in cowpeaproduction and storage, hence greater attentionpaid to their study and control. 'Agronomy'topped the class because of retrospective litera-ture, those published during the period, 1900-1980. There were 50 items published duringthe period, 1900-1980, in 'Agronomy' but27 items published during the same period in'Diseases, Pests, and Control'. Literature cate-gorized under 'Diseases, Pests and Control'included physiological diseases as well as thosecaused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodesand their control; insects and storage pestsincluding rodents and birds and their control.

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64.4 percent of the literature listed in theabstracts was generated from the two categories,'Diseases, Pests and Control' and 'Agronomy'.The next three categories, 'Physiology, Growthand Development', 'Breeding and Selection-General', and 'Genetics and Cytogenetics'accounted for 12.5, 9.9 and 5.6 percents res-pectively of the literature. In other words,92.4 percent of the literature listed in the ab-stract is in the area of 'Diseases, Pests andControl'; 'Agronomy'; Physiology, Growth andDeveloptnent'; 'Breeding and Selection-General';and 'Genetics and Cytogenetics'. Only 7.7percent of the total literature is in the area of

Ann Lib Sci uoc

CITATION ANALYSIS OF COWPEA LITERATURE

'General treatment of the subject (includingDevelopmental Research)'; 'Precessing'; 'HumanNutrition, and Nutritional Studies'; 'AnimalNutrition'; 'History, Origin, and Evolution';and 'Production and Marketing', of cowpea.

Non-Serial Sources of Cowpea Literature

Of the 497 items listed in the abstract, 32 items(6.4%) were non-serial literature (Table 3).These included: books; theses and dissertations;manuals; pamphlets; and unpublished seminarpapers.

Table 3

Types of Non-Serial Literature Sources

Type of Source No. of Items

Parts of books 23

Theses and dissertations 4

Manuals (including training andtechnical manuals like manual oncowpea harvester) 3

Pamphlets 1

Unpublished seminar papers 1

Total 32

Non-Journal Serial Sources of Cowpea Litera-ture465 items (93.6%) of the total was serialliterature of which 412 items (82.9%) weretypical journal literature (see Table 5 and theAppendix).Because of the high proportion of journal

literature compared to both non-serial type andother serial literature, it is discussed underseparate section below. Other serial literatureput together constitute 53 items (10.7%) (Table4). They included: regular reports; proceedingsof international workshops, conferences, sym-posia, and colloquia of professional associationsand learned societies; abstracts of unseen itemsmainly of papers presented at or reports of themeetings of professional associations; andarticles in International Institute of TropicalAgriculture Research Highlights.Thus as stated above 93.6 percent of the

total literature was serial literature while non·

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

Table 4

Non.Journal Serial Literature by Type

Type No. ofitems

Articles in the proceedings ofinternational workshops 12

Reports (including annual reports,technical reports and researchreports) 11

Articles in the proceedings ofinternational conferences 10

Abstracts of unseen materials(mainly papers presented at or reports ofmeetings of professional associations) 8

Articles in the proceedings ofinternational symposia 7

Articles in the international instituteof tropical Agriculture ResearchHighlights 4

Articles in the proceedings ofinternational colloquia 1

Total 53

serial literature constitutes the rest, 6.4 percent.Lawani and Seriki[8] have reported that 95percent of the world literature of rice publishedduring 1966-1970 and listed in the InternationalBibliography of Rice Research, was serial itemswhile books, non-serial reports and pamphletsas well as theses and dissertations constitutedonly five percent. They have also noted thatcomparable figures for the broad field of scienceand technology is of the order of 80 percentperiodical publications and 20 percent forother categories. In general, they concluded,the narrower a subject is, the lower the propor-tion of books to articles written on the subject.The above result for the world literature oncowpea research substantiate their findings.

Journal Literature of the Cowpea Research

The high proportion of journal literature(82.9%) to other sources (17.1%) of worldliterature on cowpea research naturally attractsspecial attention. Table 5 and the Appendixshow distribution of publications among journal

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Table 5

Distribution of the Cowpea Literature amongJournal Titles

--- ._-----------------...-----------oc0"'_.- E co'tV,:!:;._ XEni<::::S()UJU •.•_

"'-E<:CIl_•...- CIl-:;::;0'-•..o ....z~

cCO.2<:...-"' '"- Ql:::s-E~:::s_Uo

-o0-ze

23 1 1 23 5.614 2 3 51 12.413 1 4 64 15.512 1 5 76 18.410 1 6 86 20.97 7 13 135 32.86 3 16 153 37.15 5 21 178 43.24 7 28 206 50.03 18 46 260 63.12 23 69 306 74.31 106 175 412 100.0

- ------------------titles. A total of 175 titles published papers oncowpea listed in the abstract. The Appendixalso shows the ranks assigned to each title.

Phytopathology was the highest-rankingjournal and published 23 papers included inthe abstract. Hortscience and Plant and Soil(Netherlands) published 14 papers each andranked second. These were followed by theIndian Journal of Agricultural Sciences with13 publications and ranked third; TropicalAgriculture with 12 publications ranked fourth;while Indian Phytopathology published 10papers and had ranked fifth. 23 journal titlescontributed 2 times each while 106 titles hadone item each.In the graph (Figure 2) cumulative num-

bers of journal titles arranged in rank order wasplotted against percentage of cumulative num-bers of entries published in them. It showsthat high-ranking titles produced a large pro-portion of the total journal literature whereasa large number of low-ranking titles produced asmall proportion of the literature. Thus 50%of the total journal literature was produced by28 highest-ranking titles while the rest 147lowest-ranking titles produced the other 50%of the total publications. 69 out of the 175journal titles published 74.3~ of the total

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literature while 106 titles which publishedone paper each contributed the remaining25.7%.

Distributionof th4I Cowpea literature~.~~~~·~~~:~~n~~·~~r~~I-t~it~le~--------~

o~o~-----~~~~~~~~~~~~~-~~~~~~~o,rnu&alion of ,,",rift

In a study of world literature on rice Lawaniand Seriki[8] showed that 50% of all the serialliterature listed in the, International Biblio-graphy of Rice Research, for the years 1966-1970 was published by the 50 highest-rankingtitles (out of a total of 958). And that 90%of all the serial literature was published byabout 360 of the highest-ranking serial titleswhile as many as 600 titles contributed only10% of the total serial literature. In general,this type of study shows that a high coverage ofthe journal or serial literature of a subject canbe achieved if a few highest-ranking titles arechosen. The larger the size of the literatureunder study and longer the period it coveredthe more is the literature by a few highest-ranking titles. 100% coverage would necessitatean extensive search of the serial or journal litera-ture. In the case of cowpea, first 69 titles(Table 5) constitute this highest-ranking titlesor the core journal titles.

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CITATION ANALYSIS OF COWPEALITERATURE

SUMMARY

The analysis shows that 43.9% of the totalliterature was published in 1981,28.2% in 1982while the rest was retrospective literature,published during the period, 1900-1980. Moreentries for 1981 than 1982 were probably dueto the fact that by the time the abstract wasrounded off for publishing many 1982 materialswere still in press and not available for inclusion.The literature was classified into eleven cate-gories. 94.4 percent of the total literature wasin four categories while the rest, seven categoriescontributed the remaining 7.6 percent. Moreliterature was generated, in the category,'Diseases, Pests and Control', than in any otherin 1981 and 1982.

175 journal titles contributed 82.9 percentof the total literature. Phytopathology was thehighest-ranking journal and contributed 23 out 5.of 412 journal articles. 69 journal titles consti-tute the highest-ranking titles or the core journaltitles. Other serial literature put together contri-buted 10.7% whereas non-serial literature 6.contributed the rest, 6.4%. Thus, althoughcowpea literature is published in a variety offormats, journal is by far the most importantformat in which it is published. Also large num-ber of journal literature is covered by fewhighest-ranking titles while 100% of the litera- 7.ture is covered by a large number of periodicaltitles.

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

REFERENCES

1. International Grain Legume. Information Centre:Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata (L.) WaIp): Abstractsof World Literature, Vol.' I, 1950-1973,lbadan,International Institute of Tropical Agricul't'-ure,1977.343.

2. International Grain Legume Information Centre:Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp): Abstractsof World Literature, Vol. II, 1900-1949, Ibadan,International Institute of Tropical Agriculture,1979. 194.

3. International Grain Legume Information Centre:Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp): Abstractsof World Literature, Vol. III, 1974-1980, Ibadan,International Institute of Tropical Agriculture,1981. 435.

4. Steele, W.M: Cowpeas in Africa, ph.D. thesis,University of Reading, 1972.258.

Verdcourt, B: Studies in the Leguminosae-papi-lioniaceae for the flora of tropical East Africa.Kew Bulletin 1970,24(3),507-509.

Lawani, S M: Grain legume documentation andinformation: the contributions of the Internation-al Institute of Tropical Agriculture., QuarterlyBulletin of the International Association ofAgricultural Librarians and Documentalists 1982,27(2),47-53.

Lawani, S M, Seriki, TAB: Some characteristicsof the world literature on rice. International RiceCommission Newsletter 1974, 23(1), 1·:15.

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APPENDIX

Journal Titles Contributing to the Cowpea Literature

S.No. Rank Journal Titles No. of articles

l. 1 Phytopathology 232. 2 Hortscience 143. 2 Plant and Soil (Netherlands) 144. 3 Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 135. 4 Tropical Agriculture 126. 5 Indian Phytopathology 10

7. 6 Current Science 78. 6 Fitopatologia Brasileira (Brazil) 79. 6 Madras Agricultural Journal 710. 6 Pesquisa Agropecuria Brasileira (Brazil) 711. 6 Plant Disease 712. 6 Tropical Grain Legume Bulletin 713. 6 Virology

14. '7 Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Cambridge) 615. 7 Journal of Economic Entomology 616. 7 Journal of General Virology 6

17. 8 Agronomy Journal 518. 8 Annals of Botany (London) 519. 8 Dissertation Abstracts International B 520. 8 Phytopathologische Zeitschrift: Journal of

Phytopathology 52l. 8 Plant Physiology (Bethesda) 5

22. 9 Agricultural Research Review (Cairo) 423. 9 Biologia Plantarum (Praha) 424. 9 Indian Farming 425. 9 Insect Science and Applications 426. 9 Journal of Nematology 427. 9 Plant Science Letters (Netherlands) 428. 9 Turrialba 4

29. 10 Annals of Applied Biology (England) 330. 10 Annals of the Entomological Society of America 33l. 10 Applied and Environmental Microbiology (US) 3

32 Ann Lib Sci Doe

CITATION ANALYSIS OF COWPEA LITERATURE

S.No. Rank Journal Titles No. of articles

32. 10 Arquivos De Biologia e Technologia (Curitiba) 333. 10 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 334. 10 Cereal Chemistry 335. 10 Ecole Superieure d' Agriculture de la Suede

Annales (Sweden) 336 10 Indian Journal of Agronomy 337. 10 Indian Journal of Nematology 3.38. 10 Journal of Food Science 339. 10 Journal of the Georgia Entomological Society (US) 3 ..40. 10 Journal of the Indian Society of Soil Science 341. 10 Journal of Virology 342. 10 Phillippine Agriculturist (Philippine) 343. 10 Physiological Plant Pathology (England) 344. 10 Samaru Journal of Agricultural Research 345. 10 Tropical Pest Management 346. 10 Zeitschrift for Pflanzenemahrung and

Bodenkunde 3

23 . Journal titles contributed 2 articles each106 Journal titles contributed 1 articles each

Vol 35 No 1 Marcb 1988 33