Visualizing a discipline: An author co‐citation analysis of information science, 1972–1995

Howard D. White and Katherine W. McCain

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1998, vol. 49, issue 4, 327-355

Abstract: This study presents an extensive domain analysis of a discipline—information science—in terms of its authors. Names of those most frequently cited in 12 key journals from 1972 through 1995 were retrieved from Social Scisearch via DIALOG. The top 120 were submitted to author co‐citation analyses, yielding automatic classifications relevant to histories of the field. Tables and graphics reveal: (1) The disciplinary and institutional affiliations of contributors to information science; (2) the specialty structure of the discipline over 24 years; (3) authors' memberships in 1 or more specialties; (4) inertia and change in authors' positions on 2‐dimensional subject maps over 3 8‐year subperiods, 1972–1979, 1980–1987, 1988–1995; (5) the 2 major subdisciplines of information science and their evolving memberships; (6) “canonical” authors who are in the top 100 in all three subperiods; (7) changes in authors' eminence and influence over the subperiods, as shown by mean co‐citation counts; (8) authors with marked changes in their mapped positions over the subperiods; (9) the axes on which authors are mapped, with interpretations; (10) evidence of a paradigm shift in information science in the 1980s; and (11) evidence on the general nature and state of integration of information science. Statistical routines include ALSCAL, INDSCAL, factor analysis, and cluster analysis with SPSS; maps and other graphics were made with DeltaGraph. Theory and methodology are sufficiently detailed to be usable by other researchers. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (63)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(19980401)49:43.0.CO;2-4

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:49:y:1998:i:4:p:327-355

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1097-4571

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().