Structures and Strategies of Interdisciplinary Science

This study explores the information processes and work situations of interdisciplinary scientists. The analysis focuses on structural and strategic elements of information exchange between intellectual domains. Interview data reveal that scientists undertake individual and cooperative boundary-crossing research. Four research modes are identified and associated with different approaches to seeking information and knowledge base development. Probing for information, consultation, and learning are among the scientists’ central interdisciplinary research practices. In spite of these work strategies, research progress is complicated by the tension between researchers’ efforts to maintain a broad perspective and a high level of productivity. Information initiatives can provide “leeway” to help researchers shift their efforts away from their core specialization to the peripheral domains that infuse their interdisciplinary work.

[1]  H. Small.  A Co-Citation Model of a Scientific Specialty: A Longitudinal Study of Collagen Research , 1977 .

[2]  Robert S. Taylor,et al.  Information use environments. , 1991 .

[3]  J. Klein,et al.  Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. , 1991 .

[4]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[5]  Marcia J. Bates,et al.  Learning About the Information Seeking of Interdisciplinary Scholars and Students , 1996, Libr. Trends.

[6]  John Whittaker,et al.  Creativity and Conformity in Science: Titles, Keywords and Co-word Analysis , 1989 .

[7]  J. Harwood.  Styles of Scientific Thought: the German Genetics Community, 1900-1933 , 1993 .

[8]  Judith Palmer,et al.  Scientists and Information: I. Using Cluster Analysis to identify Information Style , 1991, J. Documentation.

[9]  T. Gieryn,et al.  Boundaries of Science , 1995 .

[10]  Hugh G. Petrie.  Do You See What I See? The Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Inquiry1 , 1976 .

[11]  C. Palmer.  Practices and conditions of boundary crossing research work : a study of scientists at an interdisciplinary institute , 1996 .

[12]  M. Patton.  Qualitative evaluation and research methods, 2nd ed. , 1990 .

[13]  M. Callon,et al.  Mapping the dynamics of science and technology : sociology of science in the real world , 1988 .

[14]  Howard D. White,et al.  Literature Retrieval for Interdisciplinary Syntheses , 1996, Libr. Trends.

[15]  S. Shapin.  Laboratory life. The social construction of scientific facts , 1981, Medical History.

[16]  Joan H. Fujimura,et al.  The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences , 1992 .

[17]  Henry G. Small,et al.  Co‐citation Context Analysis and the Structure of Paradigms , 1980, J. Documentation.

[18]  J. M. Choi,et al.  Citation Analysis of Intra- and Interdisciplinary Communication Patterns of Anthropology in the U.S.A. , 1988 .

[19]  J. Ravetz.  Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems , 2020 .

[20]  Joan H. Fujimura,et al.  Constructing `Do-able' Problems in Cancer Research: Articulating Alignment , 1987 .

[21]  T. Oko.  Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences. , 1992 .

[22]  Marcia J. Bates,et al.  The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface , 1989 .

[23]  M. Callon,et al.  From translations to problematic networks: An introduction to co-word analysis , 1983 .

[24]  Julie M. Hurd,et al.  Interdisciplinary Research in the Sciences: Implications for Library Organization , 1992 .

[25]  Julie Thompson Klein,et al.  Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities, and Interdisciplinarities , 1996 .

[26]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39 , 1989 .

[27]  Katherine W. McCain,et al.  Citation patterns in the history of technology , 1987 .

[28]  D. Ellis.  Modeling the Information-Seeking Patterns of Academic Researchers: A Grounded Theory Approach , 1993, The Library Quarterly.

[29]  T. Gieryn.  Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional , 1983 .

[30]  Susan E. Searing.  Meeting the Information Needs of Interdisciplinary Scholars: Issues for Administrators of Large University Libraries , 1996, Libr. Trends.

[31]  K. Knorr-Cetina.  The Manufacture of Knowledge , 1981 .

[32]  Carole L. Palmer,et al.  Information Work at the Boundaries of Science: Linking Library Services to Research Practices , 1996, Libr. Trends.

[33]  D. Chubin.  State of the Field The Conceptualization of Scientific Specialties , 1976 .

[34]  J. Law,et al.  A Co-Word Study of Artificial Intelligence , 1989 .

[35]  M. Dogan,et al.  Creative Marginality: Innovation at the Intersections of Social Sciences. , 1992 .

[36]  Hsinchun Chen,et al.  A concept space approach to addressing the vocabulary problem in scientific information retrieval: an experiment on the worm community system , 1997 .