Proving the Value of Library Collections Part II: An Interdisciplinary Study Using Citation Analysis

Abstract

At the 2012 Charleston Conference, University of Kansas (KU) librarians presented the results of a citation analysis project conducted using faculty publications in the sciences. Library administrators were excited by the findings reported from this analysis and compelled the librarians to proceed with more citation analysis research by supporting them with student assistants who helped gather the initial data that were used in the study. During the subsequent year, KU librarians took the collection assessment project two steps further by gathering citation data from faculty publications in the humanities and social sciences to conduct an extensive citation analysis.

Using a random sampling of faculty publications from three departments in the humanities: philosophy, art history, and English—and three departments in the social sciences—psychology, political science, and economics—the presenters conducted a citation analysis of the resources cited in faculty journal publications. The librarians used this new data to compare the two broad disciplinary areas with the sciences, but even more importantly, they collected data that would influence collection development decisions in the individual subject areas. The authors tested their assumptions, expecting to find that science faculty use more journals than books and humanities faculty use more books than journals, but in some cases, the results were unexpected.