The evolution of library and information science 1965–1985: A content analysis of journal articles

摘要

A content analysis of the research of library and information science (LIS) from 1965 to 1985 is reported. The aim is to find out how international research in LIS is distributed over topics, and what approaches and methods have been used to investigate these topics. The study samples consist of 142, 359, and 449 full-length research articles published in 1965, 1975, and 1985, respectively, in core LIS journals. The proportion of library and information service activities, and information storage and retrieval among the topics of the research articles was each 25% to 30% through the years. There was very little research on methodology (1%–8%), information seeking (6%–8%), and scientific communication (5%–7%). The proportion of empirical research strategies was high (49%–56%) with survey method (20%–23%) as the single most important method. A conceptual research strategy (mainly verbal argumentation) was employed in 23%–29% of the articles and system analysis, description and design in 10%–15%. The most remarkable changes from 1965 to 1985 are the loss of interest in methodology and in the analysis of LIS and the change of interest in information storage and retrieval from classification and indexing (from 22% to 6%) to retrieval (from 4% to 13%). Cross-tabulations of article topics with research strategies and approaches are presented.