Scatter of library and information science topics among bibliographic databases

Abstract

Researchers and educators in library and information science borrow heavily from other disciplines and other disciplines make use of LIS concepts in organizing their own literatures. Materials relevant to LIS are scattered in the journals of many fields, and a search of one or two databases may miss relevant items. The purpose of this research was to begin to gather data to construct a mapping of LIS topics in non-LIS databases. Subject terms were taken at random from LISA, categorized, and put into BRS's CROSS database. A cluster analysis was conducted on the resulting 10.8 million postings to discover possible subject relationships among the databases. A search strategy was then developed using words which describe libraries, librarianship, and information science, and real searches conducted. A total of 168,673 hits were obtained and 2655 abstracts analyzed as to relevance. Precision estimates for each database tended to verify the clustering and gave further clues as to possibly fruitful search paths. The results showed that the clustering process is a useful starting point to characterize databases, and that there are many documents relevant to LIS in non-LIS databases. © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.