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Purpose In this study, we conducted quantitative analysis of 1706 scholarly literature published in Journal of Documentation during the period of 1970 to 2019 (fifty years) using a series of scientometric indicators. Annual scientific production, most local cited sources, the ranking of authors; profiles, contributions, correlation, collaboration and authorship pattern, most contributed countries, most cited articles, frequently used search terms/keywords, and the legend of historiographic mapping were analysed in detail to measure the impact of the source. Design/methodology/approach We used the Scopus database for retrieving the desired sample data. In total, 1,706 numbers of publications records were considered for the literature analysis considering their relevancy. Biblioshiny data visualization tool is used to create the various maps. Findings The present study found that annual scientific production and average citations constantly have had an uptrend. The journal's had tremendous impact with an h-index of 80, with a g-index of 148, total citations of 37,161 within the studied period. Although Bawden D contributed the highest number of research papers (n=78), the work published by Hjørland B received the highest citations. Lotka's Law reveals that about 75.04% of the authors (1319 authors) have one publication, and approximately 12.73% of the authors (225 authors) have two publications. The United Kingdom was the dominant country in terms of number of papers and citation count whereas University of Sheffield topped with 128 publications. The thematic map consists of eleven clusters and 'information retrieval' found to be the largest cluster comprehending 56 subthemes occurring 995 times. Co-citation network identified four clusters with revealing Wilson TD as the most cited authors. The study also indicates the most collaborative authors are from the United Kingdom. Research limitations/implications The study exclusively deals with 1732 published research literature indexed in the Scopus database covering a span of fifty years (from 1970 to 2019). Thus, documents which are not covered in Scopus are excluded from the purview of research. This study is significant in order to measure the impact of Journal of Documentation and useful to identify valuable research patterns from publications and of developments in the field of Information Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]