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This paper aims to investigate upper-undergraduate and graduate students’ perceptions of interdisciplinarity in relation to their information-seeking habits by analyzing their beliefs, rationalizations and preferences around the retrieval, evaluation and use of information sources for interdisciplinary research.

This study made use of focus group interviews with 18 student participants enrolled in different academic programs in the humanities and social sciences at a research university in Toronto. Transcript data were analyzed through use of the constant comparison method.

Students perceive the classification of library collections as both helpful and problematic in their pursuits of interdisciplinary work. Students believe that knowing how to identify appropriate terminology while navigating scholarly and non-scholarly environments is crucial to their success in interdisciplinary research. Librarians can adjust their service philosophies and research tools to better anticipate the needs of students engaged in interdisciplinary research.

This paper adds to the literature by providing library practitioners and other interested parties with a unique view of how undergraduate and graduate students contextualize their information needs when undertaking interdisciplinary research work.

The chapter introduces the reader to select language of human sexuality and the definitions and characteristics of some key terms related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning/queer (LGBTQ+), identifies different theoretical perspectives of human sexuality and sexual orientation, and discusses select LGBTQ+ theories and concepts in a historical context that library and information science (LIS) professionals should consider while performing their roles related to information creation–organization–management–dissemination–research processes. It helps better understand the scope of what is LGBTQ+ information and traces its interdisciplinary connections to reflect on its place within the LIS professions. The chapter discusses these implications with the expectation of the LIS professional to take concrete actions in changing the conditions that lack fairness, equality/equity, justice, and/or human rights for LGBTQ+ people via the use of information. Important considerations in this regard include the need for an integrative interdisciplinary LGBTQ+ information model, growth of a diversified LGBTQ+ knowledge base and experiences, holistic LGBTQ+ information representations, LGBTQ+ activism, and participatory engagement and inclusion of LGBTQ+ users.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for the gradual extinction of reading scholarship in Library and Information Science (LIS) departments and to identify three problematic areas accounting for its dropping prestige: paradigmatic conflicts, the influence of the corporate university and low awareness of the potential of reading research. It also proposes possible solutions to each problem.

Close reading and analysis of an extensive selection of sources with novel conceptualization and critical perspectives.

The information science paradigm, which has dominated LIS, is not sufficient to accommodate reading research. The information science model has a detrimentally restrictive effect on reading scholarship. Library science, which should be considered an autonomous discipline rather than an appendix of information science, is more conducive to the study of reading. Non-specialization-based academic hiring to increase values-based diversity in LIS through a larger influx of reading scholars is advocated.

Reading scholarship, unduly deemed “old-fashioned”, or euphemistically “traditional”, is one of the most potent areas of academic inquiry, to which LIS scholars are perfectly positioned to make a unique contribution. Reading research in LIS has great merit irrespective of its connection to information and technology; a set of evaluative questions to determine the quality of reading scholarship is introduced. Using a case study, the paper illustrates the potential of reading research for interdisciplinary connections, community partnerships and the enrichment of LIS education and professional practices. An honest look at one of the most exciting academic fields, regrettably neglected by LIS.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) coupled with integrative and deep learning can result in learning that is expansive and comprehensive. Integrated learning, in essence, is helping students develop the ability to make connections and see relationships between subjects, themselves, and the world around them. But these student-driven integrative learning experiences should also encourage deep, long lasting learning. Based on the theoretical underpinning of these three areas – student-driven learning, integrative learning, and deep learning – I designed a term-long inquiry-based project for university freshman at the end of a year-long (three terms) Freshman Inquiry class. The primary project associated with the term is an electronic magazine which addresses an overall conflict, each major stakeholder’s perspective of the conflict, statistical data, a joint conflict resolution piece, and other supplemental information the group deems important. This project which is largely student-driven allows students to explore areas of interdisciplinary interest in a variety of ways. Such a multifaceted project challenges students to make connections between themselves and the seemingly disparate fields of science and social science on a local, national, and international level and ultimately allows them “ownership” of their learning.

This paper aims to explore the citation aging pattern of Library and Information Science (LIS) and further investigate the impact of interdisciplinary citation on the aging of scientific literature.

The study examines LIS journal articles published between 2016 and 2020. Articles were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) and were organized using Scopus's discipline classification system. Citation aging patterns within LIS are described using literature aging indicators. The study examines the effect of interdisciplinary citations on the literature aging pattern by comparing the half-life of LIS literature and the median age of interdisciplinary citations.

The study results show that the citation aging rate of LIS in the last five years has been slow, and the rate of slowing down is decreasing. Interdisciplinary citations are sourced from various disciplines, focusing on computer science, social sciences and business. The proportion of self-citations is declining. The Reference Diversity Index (RDI) increases from 0.690 to 0.724 between 2016 and 2020. Currently, the median age of interdisciplinary citations is higher than the LIS's half-life. It has a diminishing effect on the citation aging rate. But the median age of interdisciplinary citations is decreasing. The interdisciplinary citation may contribute to the literature aging rate in the future. The effect of interdisciplinary citation on literature aging needs to be judged dialectically.

This study still has some limitations. Due to the wide variety of citation journals in LIS, there is no database to cover all journals, so it is impossible to match all citation journals with disciplines. Therefore, it is still feasible to analyze interdisciplinary citations based on the two-eight principle for large-scale data. This approach necessarily sacrifices some of the precision of the study. However, the results of this paper can still be helpful for the development of the discipline. In addition, LIS is a discipline with solid cross-cutting properties, and this paper concludes only with this interdisciplinary discipline in mind. It is necessary to test the applicability of the findings to other disciplines.

The study explores the impact of interdisciplinary citation on literature aging from a professional communication perspective. The results reveal underlying reasons for the aging of scientific literature. These findings further enrich the study of the effect of interdisciplinary communication.

Using the lens of social physics, this study aims to examine how, if at all, one graduate training program fostered collisions or meaningful interactions, between students and faculty from different disciplinary backgrounds.

Qualitative, ethnographic case study methods.

The University of Maryland’s National Research Traineeship program fostered collisions between students and faculty from different disciplinary backgrounds by facilitating exploration, idea flow and engagement within an interdisciplinary scholarly community. These collisions generated productive opportunities for student learning, development and collaborations, but at times also produced non-generative outcomes.

This study names specific, strategic activities (e.g. regular research talks, physical space) that graduate programs can use to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations among students and faculty and considers the extent to which such activities contribute to organizational change.

This paper applies new theories (collisions and social physics) to understanding interdisciplinary collaboration and identifies aspects of graduate training programs that may be replicable in other institutional settings.

Undiscovered public knowledge is a relatively unstudied phenomenon, and the few extended examples that have been published are intradisciplinary. This paper presents the concept of ‘facet’ as an example of interdisciplinary undiscovered public knowledge. ‘Facets’ were central to the bibliographic classification theory of S.R. Ranganathan in India and to the behavioural research of L. Guttman in Israel. The term had the same meaning in both fields, and the concept was developed and exploited at about the same time in both, but two separate, unconnected literatures grew up around the term and its associated concepts. This paper examines the origins and parallel uses of the concept and the term in both fields as a case study of interdisciplinary knowledge that could have been, but was apparently not, discovered any time between the early 1950s and the present using simple, readily available information retrieval techniques.

Interdisciplinary higher education is becoming more important in learning across subject boundaries. This is occurring in global, national and institutional contexts. In Malaysia, interdisciplinarity is clear in the country's National Higher Education Strategic Plan (2007). While varying interpretations of interdisciplinary learning and teaching exist, there are also commonalities. These common elements address complex problems and focus questions by drawing on the disciplines. They also integrate insights and produce new understandings of complex problems. In this chapter, 21 senior administrators (deans, deputy deans and program chairs) from three public universities in Malaysia were surveyed, and 10 respondents were interviewed to determine their views on their use of the interdisciplinary approach: that is, their level of awareness, their perceptions of interdisciplinarity, and their self-reported level of knowledge of what interdisciplinarity means. The findings showed that 76% of the respondents were aware of interdisciplinarity, and that most respondents had a ‘moderately sufficient’ level of self-reported knowledge about the application of interdisciplinarity in current courses. The interview sessions also revealed that respondents interpreted the interdisciplinary approach in different ways. The implications of the results from this exploratory study suggest that public universities in Malaysia have various obstacles to deal with before effective interdisciplinary learning and teaching can be implemented.