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Second thoughts:

Second thoughts:. document redistribution and knowledge export – a question of relevance? joakim.philipson@nb.no National Library of Norway. Outline:. Introduction: relevance and document use Document redistribution Document age, subject and document use

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Second thoughts:

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  1. Second thoughts: document redistribution and knowledge export – a question of relevance? joakim.philipson@nb.no National Library of Norway

  2. Outline: • Introduction: relevance and document use • Document redistribution • Document age, subject and document use • Citation analysis and citation functions • Indexing for ”knowledge export” – the relevance of document usage studies.

  3. Relevance: A source and a destination involved in the communication of knowledge both have, as one of the elements, a file (or files) where subject knowledge and/or its representations are stored in an organized manner (structured, associated, etc.). Examples of such files are: memory, library collection, catalog, computer file, data bank and store of sentences. Communication of knowledge is effective when and if information transmitted from one file results in changes in another. Relevance is the measure of these changes. [Saracevic, Tefko (1976), Relevance : a review of the literature and a framework for thinking on the notion in information science. // Advances in librarianship. - Vol. 6 (1976)]

  4. What is the impact of our work? • Usage statististics (e.g. from document redistribution) • Understanding mechanisms of knowledge creation • Citation analysis

  5. Document redistribution: • Transfer of documents from one library to another • Purpose: making documents more readily accessible to users who need them • Assumption: documents with low frequency of use in one library may be more in demand elsewhere

  6. Document redistribution methods: • online bibliographical database • donations • customer on-site-selection

  7. Document redistribution – choice of method : • Cost • Time • Precision (in meeting user demands)

  8. The Document Redistribution Database (DRD) at www.nb.no/gjenbruk/DRD.html:

  9. DRD requests – subject dispersion:

  10. DRD requests – fiction: P= Public libraries in Norway U=University and college libraries in Norway I= Institutions, museums, professional associations, industrial & commercial libraries in Norway S= School libraries in Norway A=Requests from all types of libraries and institutions abroad (outside Norway)E= Private individuals ?=Unknown

  11. DRD requests – childrens literature & poetry:

  12. DRD requests – language & serials:

  13. DRD requests – age dispersion: • comparing median py of requested docs (=1977) with that of docs still in the DRD (=1972) • oldest docs from geography/history – median py 1961/1960, technology(!) – 1965.5/1971 and biography/genealogy – 1964.5/1966 • newest docs from agriculture/household – 1989.5/1973, poetry(!) – 1986/1986 and medicine 1984/1976.5

  14. Age, subject and document use: • Variations in citation patterns between disciplines (quickness, peak, continuity); social sciences docs cited for a longer period of time than docs from natural sciences • Long-lived documents from the natural sciences: Einstein, Albert (1906), Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen. // Annalen der Physik. – Bd. 19 (1906); cit. from accoustics, ceramics, dairy sciences, sedimentology etc., > 544 cit. 1987-2001 in SCI Molina, M.J.& Rowland, F.S. (1974), Stratospheric sink for chlorofluoromethanes: chlorine atom catalysed destruction of ozone. // Nature. - Vol. 249 (1974): no. 5460 ; cit. from botany, computer science, law, management, optics etc., > 811 cit. 1987-2001 in SCI

  15. Why was it cited? • How did the non-experts outside the original field of research first find their way to the information in the cited paper? Accessibility, communication of knowledge, retrieval, selection • What was it, more specifically, in the cited document that made the citing author find it useful for her/his own work, by means of citation? Functions of citations.

  16. Citation analysis and citation functions: • Science Citation Index (SCI) 1963, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) 1973, Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) 1978 Citation analysis – examples of use: • identification of core literature within a scientific discipline • research in modern history of science • mapping the structure of a scientific discipline • most studies are quantitative – ”citation counts”

  17. Citation analysis -qualitative: • investigating strength or nature of relationship between citing document and cited reference • examples: Moravscik 1975, Hodges 1978, Duncan 1981 etc., many listed in Liu 1993 • ”…there are no absolute and exclusive categories which fully describe the relationship of a citing publication to the cited publication. Relationship categories, like subject descriptions, may be multiplied, modified, qualified, or subdivided to infinity ” (Lipetz 1965)

  18. Citation functions: • examples of citations to Molina (1974) and a few related papers in atmospheric chemistry, from articles in disciplines outside the original research field (Philipson 1996) • examples introduced by explanatory description of identified citation function

  19. Citation functions – evidence: • ”prove”/support/corroborate a main point in citing article • reference to an apparent agreement between measurement data and predictions of a theory/model • mostly ”internal” citations • example of structural (syntagmatic) external citation as evidence; from Botanical magazine (Tokyo) 1975: Good estimates of the present stratospheric distribution of ozone and subsequent UV radiation are known (Koller, 1952; Dütsch, 1969; Cutchis, 1974). The total amount of ozone in the northern hemisphere is maximal in spring and minimal in fall. ... It is suggested that among flowering plants of the northern hemisphere, many of which have white or yellow flowers (Table 2), there has been convergent evolution in floral UV absorption. Yellow and white flowers are high in flavonoid pigments which strongly absorb UV light. The seasonality of UV radiation may be one major selective pressure. Yellow and white flowers comprise as much as 85% of an arctic flora (Kevan, 1972) ... (Utech 1975)

  20. Citation functions – method: • refer to method employed in cited work • relatively long-lived citation type • paper cited for theoretical reasons (e.g. evidence, force) may later be cited for method (study on collagen by Small 1977) • mostly ”internal” citations • not necessarily advocating or employing the same method itself; example of ”external” citation from American statistician 1983: Total ozone data were previously analyzed by a number of authors including Angell and Korshover (1973), London and Kelly [sic!] (1974), and Komhyr et. al. (1971), with particular interest in quantifying long-term trends. The statistical procedure commonly used in these studies is linear regression analysis (i.e. fitting a straight line) applied to adjusted total ozone values (e.g. deviations from monthly means ...). However, problems arise in the interpretation of results from these linear regression models since these models fail to take account of the positive autocorrelation that is present in the ozone data. Hence, we consider time series analysis that accounts for autocorrelation in a quantitative trend assessment of ozone data. (Tiao 1983)

  21. Citation functions – result: • used for relation of implication, viz. "if information C0 contained in cited document is true, and if furthermore conditions C1, C2, ... Cn hold good, then the consequences will be such and such" • no necessary claim of truth for the cited information, only for the potential result, given the conditions described by the antecedent of the implication • often ”external” citation; example from Environmental and experimental botany 1980: Recent studies by … Molina and Rowland (7) state that increased use of fluorocarbons in aerosols and refrigerants could severely deplete the protective layer of ozone in the stratosphere. This would increase the level of UV-B radiation reaching the earth's surface. However, depletion of the ozone layer to the degree postulated (8) would not allow penetration of irradiation below 290 nm in nature, i.e. irradiation in the UV-C spectrum. The effect of UV-B (280-320) nm irradiation on plant virus interactions has not been examined. The object of this study was to determine the effects of UV-B irradiation on local lesion development of Chenopodium quinoa Willd. 'Valdivia' plants inoculated with potato virus S (PVS). (Semeniuk 1980; ref. (7) is to Molina 1974)

  22. Indexing for ”knowledge export”? • citation functions – translateable into index terms (descriptors)? - further studies needed, from different disciplines, wider age gap between cited and citing document • example: ref. to Edda Snorra Sturlussonar 1325 in Sarsia : a Nordic journal of marine biology 1994 (!) • relevance relationships: subject indexing (topic matching) / structural (syntagmatic) relationships – pieces of information that “fit” together • example: Utech (1975) – evidence • promoting knowledge export (multidisciplinary use of documents) by combination of subject analysis with ref. to earlier use, expressed e.g. by citation functions • example: Semeniuk (1980) > Molina (1974) indexed with descriptors like result AND experimental botany

  23. Conclusion: relevance and usage studies: • relevance as measure of change produced by effective communication of knowledge • document used in new context > new meaning > new relevance • contribute to effective communication of knowledge by recording various types of use of especially older documents from different disciplines • gathering quantitative data (e.g. usage statistics from document redistribution) and qualitative analysis (e.g. citation functions) • giving documents yet another chance to produce “second thoughts”

  24. THANK YOU! joakim.philipson@nb.no National Library of Norway

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