A multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary or monodisciplinary field?
The Swedish researcher Emin Tengström (1993)described cross-disciplinary research as a process, not a state or structure. He differentiates three levels of ambition regarding cross-disciplinary research:
- The “Pluridisciplinary” or “multidisciplinarity” level
- The genuine cross-disciplinary level: “interdisciplinarity”
- The discipline-forming level “transdisciplinarity“
What is described here is a view of social fields as dynamic and changing. Library and information science is viewed as a field that started as a multidisciplinary field based on literature, psychology, sociology, management, computer science etc., which is developing towards an academic discipline in its own right. However, the following quote seems to indicate that LIS is actually developing in the opposite direction: ISO CERTIFICATION IN INDIA
Chua & Yang (2008)studied papers published in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology in the period 1988-1997 and found, among other things: “Top authors have grown in diversity from those being affiliated predominantly with library/information-related departments to include those from information systems management, information technology, business, and the humanities. Amid heterogeneous clusters of collaboration among top authors, strongly connected crossdisciplinary coauthor pairs have become more prevalent. Correspondingly, the distribution of top keywords’ occurrences that leans heavily on core information science has shifted towards other subdisciplines such as information technology and sociobehavioral science.” ISO CERTIFICATION IN INDIA
A more recent study revealed that 31% of the papers published in 31 LIS journals from 2007 through 2012 were by authors in academic departments of library and information science (i.e., those offering degree programs accredited by the American Library Association or similar professional organizations in other countries). Faculty in departments of computer science (10%), management (10%), communication (3%), the other social sciences (9%), and the other natural sciences (7%) were also represented. Nearly one-quarter of the papers in the 31 journals were by practicing librarians, and 6% were by others in non-academic (e.g., corporate) positions. ISO CERTIFICATION IN INDIA
As a field with its own body of interrelated concepts, techniques, journals, and professional associations, LIS is clearly a discipline. But by the nature of its subject matter and methods LIS is just as clearly an interdiscipline, drawing on many adjacent fields (see below). ISO CERTIFICATION IN INDIA
Scattering of the literature
Meho & Spurgin (2005) found that in a list of 2,625 items published between 1982 and 2002 by 68 faculty members of 18 schools of library and information science, only 10 databases provided significant coverage of the LIS literature. Results also show that restricting the data sources to one, two, or even three databases leads to inaccurate rankings and erroneous conclusions. Because no database provides comprehensive coverage of the LIS literature, researchers must rely on a wide range of disciplinary and multidisciplinary databases for ranking and other research purposes. Even when the nine most comprehensive databases in LIS was searched and combined, 27.0% (or 710 of 2,635) of the publications remain not found.
The study confirms earlier research that LIS literature is highly scattered and is not limited to standard LIS databases. What was not known or verified before, however, is that a significant amount of this literature is indexed in the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary databases of Inside Conferences and INSPEC. Other interdisciplinary databases, such as America: History and Life, were also found to be very useful and complementary to traditional LIS databases, particularly in the areas of archives and library history. (Meho & Spurgin, 2005, p.1329). ISO CERTIFICATION IN INDIA
