Surveying the Use of Theory in Library and Information Science Research: A Disciplinary Perspective

A content analysis of 1,160 Library and Information Science (LIS) articles published in six LIS journals between 1993 and 1998 was conducted to examine the use of theory in LIS research. Overall, 34.2 percent of articles incorporated theory in either the title, abstract, or text for a total of 1,083 theory incidents or an average of .93 incidents per article. Articles dealing with topics from the humanities (e.g., information policy, history) had the highest rate of theory use with 1.81 incidents per article, followed by social science papers (e.g., information behavior, management) with .98 incidents per article and science articles (e.g., bibliometrics, information retrieval) with .75 theory incidents per article. These findings imply that differences exist in the use of theory in LIS that are associated with the broad disciplinary content of the research. These differences may arise from variant conceptions of and approaches to the use of theory in the research traditions of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. It is suggested that the multidisciplinary background of LIS researchers provides a rich but still underutilized opportunity for the use and development of theory within LIS.