The impact of knowledge exports from librarianship and

information science (LIS)

Investigating cross-disciplinary citations

Rachel Hessey

What is the external influence of the interdisciplinary field of LIS?

Identifying exports to other subject areas

Rank Subject categoryCitation count

% of exports

1 Computer Science, Interdisciplinary 216 20.42 Chemistry, Multidisciplinary 164 15.53 Computer Science, Information Systems 159 15.04 Chemistry, Medicinal 105 9.95 Pharmacology & Pharmacy 102 9.66 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology 72 6.87 Public, Environ. & Occup. Health 57 5.48 Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence 55 5.29 Educational & Educational Research 39 3.7

10 Biochemical Research Methods 38 3.611 Health Care Sciences & Services 37 3.5

12Biophysics 34 3.2Computer Sci., Software Engineering 34 3.2

13 Communication 33 3.1

• Dominance of science subject areas

• Bulk exports from single articles, authors or institutions

• Single citations from very high impact journals Genuine impact =

High citation count x impact factor

Citations to a range of LIS research

Patterns in the results – citing journals

Patterns in the results – cited journalsLIS journals v. non-LIS journals•Non-LIS = higher citation counts•Non-LIS = higher % above average impact factors•Differing subject destinations for exports

Publication of LIS research in non-LIS

journals leads to higher impact exports

Implications

• Exported knowledge achieving significant influence

• Pre-publication export to maximise impact?

• Impact factors, once normalised, are an effective means of quantifying export value

• Using author to assign disciplinarity can be misleading

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