An Investigation in the Interdisciplinary Nature of Digital Humanities

Abstract

The disciplinary structure and dimensions of digital humanities is evolving for many years. Even though several journals focus solely on digital humanities, the interdisciplinary nature of digital humanities remains a fact. The current study is an endeavor to understand the linkage of the digital humanities with other disciplines in the universe of knowledge so that researchers from multiple subject backgrounds can carry out research on digital humanities in a more vivid manner. The present research will prove valuable for researchers, authors, and decision-makers of research and development organisations and other institutions to carry out collaborative research activities on individual and organisational levels. The research results and discussions of this research publication will enlighten the researchers from the digital humanities subject field to take a decision in a better way regarding the evolution and interdisciplinary research activities in digital humanities and the incorporation of methods and techniques from library and information science and computer science to expand the horizons of the subject field (digital humanities). The author conducted a bibliometric analysis focusing on the objectives to discover linkages and an interdisciplinary approach to digital humanities. The results infer that the highest number of authors active in research activities in the digital humanities belong to computer science followed by art and humanities and library and information science disciplines. The journals preferred for publication of research on digital humanities are also analysed, and it is found that the highest number of journals are from the literature discipline, followed by art & humanities, computer science, history, and library and information science. The publication productivity of journals is also studied, and it is found that “Digital Scholarship in the Humanities” is the most productive journal and that it belongs to the humanities discipline. In the list of the top ten most productive journals, five belong to the discipline of Library and information science. The study of citation and bibliographic coupling displays that the journals “Journal of Documentation” and “Digital Scholarship in the Humanities” are the most cited journals. During this research endeavor, emphasis is given to the subject affiliation of authors, journals and publications. It’s been found that digital humanities research is actively related to the disciplines of library and information science and computer science.