Interdisciplinarity and Information: Issues of Access

THE PAPERS INCLUDED HERE address one facet of work in integrative studies, the relationship of information and interdisciplinarity, and in particular, the structures of information for integrative scholarship. Many of the papers arose out of presentations at the 1990 meeting of the Association for Integrative Studies, “Knowledge, Value, and Belief: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” and highlight the conditions that affect the organization and labeling of information. The authors present a range of thought, from explanatory to critical, from navigating existing structures to building new ones, from the perspectives of information provider to those of interdisciplinary scholar. Scholarly communication is taking place in a fluid context due to a number of factors, including cross-disciplinary development of work in many fields (Klein, 1990) and the explosion of publishing. Although the traditional patterns of communication and outlets continue among members of what Diana Crane (1972) has called the “invisible college,” alternative avenues are opening up through electronic networks. Although the wealth of publications and the diversity of communication channels provide opportunities for those interested in teaching and research across disciplines, they also present some of their own problems, not the least of which is learning computer systems. Additionally, the questions of language and context which often hinder interdisciplinary access may be exacerbated by the ease of online systems. For instance, large electronic databases may offer too much information to sort through—and much of that irrelevant. In spite of these problems, greater numbers of scholars and students are taking advantage of alternate communication channels; thus, the boundaries of invisible colleges or communication groups have the potential for opening up, providing the opportunity for numerous alliances and for easier access to a greater variety of information resources. Using the Internet network, one can send electronic mail to another individual, send files of text or data to other researchers, participate in interest groups such as the recently opened discussion group, INTERD1S1, and subscribe to and receive refereed electronic journals. For example, an historian who reads messages in an electronic discussion group concerned with communications theory may discover a direction for a problem she is working on. She may then decide to send a message to the theorist to get some advice on directions for her own reading. Perhaps she will browse the online catalogs of other university libraries at some distance from herself to find works related to her interest. One current running through both the familiar and the developing patterns of scholarly communication is the question of how the scholar and teacher of integrative work identifies the literature of research questions, theories, methods, or data across disciplines needed to develop knowledge and to teach students. Academic libraries develop collections and provide services, both within their own institutions and in cooperation with other libraries, to help answer that question. Yet scholars and students working across disciplines have realized the limitations of these structures, as have the library personnel working with them.