Abstract
This study provides a comprehensive overview of the publications in Information Sciences (INS) from 1968 to 2016 inclusive, which encompasses the history of this journal from its inception. 7721 articles containing 153,606 references, which are the primary data source were downloaded from the Web of Science. It studies the most prolific authors, most cited authors, most representative articles, top influential institutions and the nationalities of the authors whose papers were published in the journal. The key contributors and INS articles that have made profound impact are highlighted on a basis of bibliometric and customized text mining techniques. CiteSpace, a data visualization software, was used to make the comprehensive analysis of the 153,606 citations and construct the co-citation network maps, which can illustrate salient patterns and emerging trends. This paper not only provides the important reference to future studies by exploring the structures and trends of INS publications, which have evolved over time, but also offers a demonstration of an effective analytical method for evaluating journal citation and co-citation data in the future. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.