Evidence Summary
UK Library and Information Science Research is Having a Significant
Influence on Research in Other Subject Disciplines
A Review of:
Hessey, R., & Willett, P. (2013). Quantifying the value of knowledge
exports from librarianship and information science research. Journal
of Information Science, 39(1), 141-150. doi:10.1177/0165551512442476
Reviewed by:
Mathew Stone
Assistant Librarian
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Bradford, United Kingdom
Email: mathew.stone@bthft.nhs.uk
Received: 30 May 2013 Accepted: 10 Jan. 2014
2014 Stone.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
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Abstract
Objective – To quantify the value of librarianship and
information science (LIS) exports knowledge to other subject disciplines.
Design – Bibliometric
study.
Setting – LIS departments in U.K. universities.
Subjects – 232 LIS research articles published
between 2001 and 2007.
Methods – Data from the 2008 U.K. Research
Assessment Exercise were checked to identify 405 research articles submitted by
10 selected university departments (out of a total of 21), which submitted
research in the LIS category. The Web of Science database was then searched to
see how many of these articles had been cited in other articles (n=232). If the
citing article was published in a non-LIS journal it was considered a knowledge
export. Journals were defined as non-LIS if they had not been assigned the
subject category of Information Science & Library Science by the Journal of
Citation Reports. The journal Impact Factors (IFs) of citing
journals were then normalized to measure the value of individual
knowledge exports to their respective subject disciplines. This was done by
comparing a citing journal’s IF with the median journal IF within that subject
category. If the citing journal’s IF was above this median it was considered to
be a valuable knowledge export.
Main Results – The sample of LIS research articles
produced a total of 1,061 knowledge exports in 444 unique non-LIS journals.
These non-LIS journals covered 146 unique subject categories of which those
related to computer science and chemistry/pharmacology cited LIS research with
the greatest frequency. Just over three-quarters (n=798) of these citations
were considered to be valuable knowledge exports. A sub-analysis showed that
LIS articles published in non-LIS journals were significantly more valuable
than the knowledge exports published in LIS journals.
Conclusion – The validity of bibliometric
studies can be improved by adopting the two methodological innovations
presented in this study. The first innovation is to avoid over-estimating the
number of knowledge exports by discounting “part exports” (i.e., where the
citing journal is assigned to multiple subject categories, one of which
includes the same as that of the cited reference). The second innovation
introduced by this study is to add an extra dimension to the analysis by
measuring the value of each knowledge export by taking into account the
“normalized” impact factor of citing journals.
Commentary
Previous studies have shown
that knowledge transfers between subject disciplines are not simply reciprocal in
nature but are instead part of a hierarchical structure with certain subjects
exerting more influence than others (Urata, 1990). Since the 1980s knowledge
transfers have been increasing across all subject areas with LIS reporting the
largest increase of all (Levitt, Thelwall, &
Oppenheim, 2011). The bibliometric import-export
study used here is well established in the literature as a means of quantifying
such knowledge transfers. Using terms borrowed from economics, a knowledge
export is defined as when published research from one subject area is cited by
research from another subject area.
Defining LIS research is
less straightforward than one might think. Other studies have defined LIS
research as that which is published in LIS journals (defined as such by a
journal classification system such as Journal Citation Reports). The authors
reject this definition as too narrow arguing that, because of the inherently
inter-disciplinary character of LIS research and those who produce it, we would
expect a good deal of it to be published in non-LIS journals (as is confirmed
by this study). Hence a potential source of selection bias is avoided in this
study by collecting a set of articles from recognized LIS researchers
regardless of where they will eventually be published. The advantage of
collecting the articles by this method is that we can be confident that this
study is truly quantifying the value of LIS research rather than research from
other disciplines which may have been published in journals over-sensitively
classified as belonging to the LIS discipline.
The study sample was
adequate in size to produce statistically significant results when comparing
the value of knowledge exports published in LIS journals with those published
in non-LIS journals. Another aspect of the study sample is that it only
included LIS research published by academics and so the findings may not be
applicable to research published by practising librarians.
A major finding of this
study is the association of LIS research published in non-LIS journals with a
higher value of knowledge exports. However, the observational study method
employed here by Hessey and Willett cannot prove that
publishing in non-LIS journals causes
these improved outcomes, even if it is plausible.
The LIS community can take
encouragement from the news that knowledge exports from their specialist
subject area have been shown to be of high value to those areas to which they
have been exported. LIS researchers who wish to attract the interest of
researchers from other subject fields will be more specifically encouraged to
publish their work in non-LIS journals as this has been associated with a
greater value of knowledge export.