Search results

In vol. 6, 1976, of Advances in Librarianship, I published a review about relevance under the same title, without, of course, “Part I” in the title (Saracevic, 1976). [A substantively similar article was published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (Saracevic, 1975)]. I did not plan then to have another related review 30 years later—but things happen. The 1976 work “attempted to trace the evolution of thinking on relevance, a key notion in information science, [and] to provide a framework within which the widely dissonant ideas on relevance might be interpreted and related to one another” (ibid.: 338).

This paper proposes to rethink the concepts of relevance and usefulness and their relation to the theory–practice gap in management research.

On the basis of the cognitive-linguistic relevance theory or inferential pragmatics, supplemented by insights from information science, we define relevance as a general conceptual category, while reserving usefulness for the instrumental application in a particular case.

There is no reason to hold onto the difference between theoretical and practical relevance, nor to distinguish between instrumental and conceptual relevance.

This novel approach will help to clarify the confusion in the field and contribute to a better understanding of the added value of management research.

The honor of editing the 30th volume of Advances in Librarianship posed a challenge of how to acknowledge changes in the profession over three and a half decades, while continuing a tradition of identifying new trends and innovations. The series aims to present a variety of aspects of the field of librarianship through the publication of critical articles and surveys, based on the published literature, research in progress, and current developments, relating to all segments of the profession and related topics. Contributing authors are encouraged to address provocative and stimulating topics that will ensure that trends are identified and research results of interest are made available quickly in a rapidly changing profession. Though authors in the past have been encouraged to add an historical perspective, those contributing to this volume were invited especially to celebrate the history of the past 36 years by reflecting, as appropriate, on advances made in their topic since the first volume of the series was published in 1970.