Notes

"the first section of the chapter deals with what a sociologist might find lacking in one area of bibliometric research (citation analysis). The second section discusses ways in which interdisciplinary research may be affected by barriers to communication across disciplinary boundaries. The final section briefly describes some recent sociological work dealing with the place of research literatures in scientific communication that might contribute to new theoretical perspectives in bibliometric research" (47).

"The assumptions made in citation analysis have been summarized by Smith (1981; and Garfield, 1979a) as (a) citation implies use; (b) citation is based on merit; and (c) citation reflects similarity of content. A fourth assumption, that all citations are equal, is more easily criticized but is less problematic to a sociologist..."(48)

"citation patterns are affected by more factors than are normally taken into account in bibliometric studies" (49)

patterns differ from genre to genre, specialty to specialty

def'n of discipline (50-51): "To work in bibliometrics from a disciplinary perspective means one's work is in some way (through the problems addressed, the previous work acknowledged, the publication channels used) connected to that of others in the relevant discipline."

Merton: "Merton's normative view of science describes scientists as freely disseminating (communism), testing (organized skepticism) and using research results, evaluating them on the basis of their intrinsic merit (disinterestedness) rather than their origin (universalism). Such an approach to science makes it possible to measure scientific productivity through numbers of publications and to measure the influence of published work through numbers of citations" (54).

Departures from Merton: Gilbert & Mulkay "conclude that the reception given to scientific work is too complicated and too unstable to be subject to bibliometric measurement. They suggest that the best approach to understanding it is to study the presentational strategies controlling the interpretation and use of scientific content, instead of seeking to gather evidence on the reception of specific papers" (55).

Bazerman, Latour & Woolgar, Latour (55-57)

"The other contribution [of sociology] may lie in research on disciplinary formation processes and disciplinary functions, important both because of the role disciplines play in scientific communications and because greater theoretical understanding of disciplines may ultimately give us better understanding ofthe role and function of the interdisciplinary area" (58).

Thoughts

More background. A decent, fairly short discussion of bibliometrics, citation analysis, and disciplinarity. Not a lot to ultimately sink my quotes into, since the balance between disciplines and interdisciplines isn't a chief concern, but a fair introductory sort of piece.