Data set for: Thema and world needs

In essence, bibliodiversity describes how different communities handle knowledge creation and dissemination. Consequently, the information needs of these communities will also vary. In this article, we will investigate if evidence for this can be found by looking at much downloaded open access books in 100 countries. The subjects of these books are described by the Thema classification, which aims to be global in scope. A clustering algorithm is deployed to find patterns in the combination of classification codes and countries. This will allow us to determine whether the residents of the same region also share an interest in the same topics.

When looking at global information needs and open access books, it is obvious that these titles will not just be written in English. The set of books used in this investigation contains text in twenty different languages. The subject classification is however language independent, which allows us to group all of them based on shared subjects. In the next section, we will further explore the Thema classification and bibliodiversity.