Fredrik Åström
Bibliometriker
Library and Information Science in Context: the development of scientific fields, and their relations to professional contexts
Författare
Redaktör
- W. Boyd Rayward
Summary, in English
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how theories of social and intellectual development of scientific fields can be used to analyze LIS, and especially its relationship to other research areas and the library and information
field of practice. Scientific fields can be seen as reputational work organizations, where degrees of task uncertainty and mutual dependency control the coordination and direction of the fields through allocation of rewards.
Through the concepts of reputational autonomy, control over resources, and structure of audiences, four aspects of scientific work have been identified as a basis for an empirical analysis of LIS: definitions of the field, institutional structure, research work, and communication structures. The preliminary analysis shows large mutual dependency between LIS research and the field of practice, while LIS in the context of Academia is dependent on other
fields of research, but is still relatively isolated. The results of the paper indicate that the theories proposed are useful tools for analyzing contextual factors in the development of fields of research.
field of practice. Scientific fields can be seen as reputational work organizations, where degrees of task uncertainty and mutual dependency control the coordination and direction of the fields through allocation of rewards.
Through the concepts of reputational autonomy, control over resources, and structure of audiences, four aspects of scientific work have been identified as a basis for an empirical analysis of LIS: definitions of the field, institutional structure, research work, and communication structures. The preliminary analysis shows large mutual dependency between LIS research and the field of practice, while LIS in the context of Academia is dependent on other
fields of research, but is still relatively isolated. The results of the paper indicate that the theories proposed are useful tools for analyzing contextual factors in the development of fields of research.
Publiceringsår
2004
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
1-27
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Aware and Responsible: Papers of the Nordic-International Colloquium on Social and Cultural Awareness and Responsibility in Library, Information and Documentation Studies (SCARLID)
Fulltext
- Available as PDF - 897 kB
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Dokumenttyp
Konferensbidrag
Förlag
Scarecrow Press
Ämne
- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Nyckelord
- Science studies
- Organization of research fields
- Library and information science
Conference name
The Nordic-International Colloquium on Social and Cultural Awareness and Responsibility in Library, Information and Documentation Studies (SCARLID)
Conference date
2001-12-13 - 2001-12-14
Conference place
University of Oulu, Finland
Status
Published
Forskningsgrupp
- Inforsk
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISBN: 0810849542