Interdisciplinary Research and Information Overload

INFORMATION for all those involved in research but OVERLOADIS A PROBLEM seems especially threatening to interdisciplinary research. Teamwork supplies the remedy, but most research in the social sciences and humanities is done by scholars working alone. That fact limits the scope for interdisciplinary work. In this article, we examine several ways in which actual and potential overload affects research choices for the solo researcher, paying special attention to the creation of ad hoc idiosyncratic specialties. As a matter of policy, should solo interdisciplinary work be encouraged? A strong social preference for interdisciplinarity might discourage solo practice as just another example of the huge disparity between individual and collective capacities. TWEOF OVERLOAD Everyone engaged in research is aware of the problem of information overload. It is always a threat if not a reality. It is perhaps most familiar as a problem of maintaining currency. A basic requirement for the maintenance of expertise, and of a reputation for expertise, is that of staying current-i.e., keeping up with what other research workers are doing that is relevant to one’s own work (Wilson, 1993). One wants to be able to claim intellectual command of a field, and this requires deep and wide knowledge of what has been done and is being done by others in the field. Just how wide and how deep one’s knowledge must be is not something on which there are (or could be) any precise rules, and it is very clear that wide differences in the scope of current knowledge will be