Individuality in information use

Individual differences in the use of information may be studied with different kinds of methods. We shall here look at a study based on citation analysis, which provide insight to general aspects concerning individuality.

White (2001) examined the individual use of references of eight authors all from information science: Marcia J. Bates, Christine L. Borgman, William S. Cooper, Michael H. MacRoberts, Henry Small, Karen Sparck Jones, Don R. Swanson, and Patrick Wilson. For each author was a citation identity exhibited, a construct to be distinguished from an author's citation image. A citation identity being the set of authors that an author cites, whereas the citation image is the set of all authors with whom one has been co-cited.

Among the findings was that

"1. All eight exhibit ordered, intelligible identities. Quantitatively, these take the familiar form of Bradfordian core-and-scatter distributions. None is all scatter in the sense of being a long list of authors cited only once. None is all core in the sense of being only self-citations or only recitations of a small, select group. Qualitatively, the identities are interpretable by anyone familiar with contemporary information science. For example, it is plain from their citees that Bates and Borgman are retrievalists interested in on-line searching in general (as implied by citations to Fenichel and Meadow) and on-line public access catalogs in particular (as implied by citations to Hildreth and Matthews). It is plain that Small and MacRoberts are interested in citation analysis (as implied by citations to Garfield, Price, Chubin, and Gilbert).

2. All eight have identities that are highly individualized. If the eight were uniformly in thrall to a small group of intellectual leaders, much the same citees would turn up on every list, differing only in their rankings. We do not see that kind of conformity at all - the dominant impression is one of great variety. Nor is anyone high on every list. Even when these citers belong to the same information science specialties (e.g., information retrieval or citation analysis), they choose relatively few overlapping names, and these have different recitation counts and ranks. Bates and Borgman have the greatest overlap." (White, 2001, )

"To sum up, I see three main citing styles. Cooper and Sparck Jones, along with Small and MacRoberts, often exemplify a scientific paper style of citing. This style tends to reinforce the core of the identity (relatively few authors; much recitation). Wilson exemplifies what might be called a bibliographic essay style. This style tends to increase the scatter of the identity (relatively many authors; little recitation). Borgman and Bates, and to some degree Swanson, bring a literature review style to their work. This style simultaneously reinforces core and adds to scatter (relatively many authors; much recitation)." (White, 2001, )

That individual patterns in information use exist have thus been demonstrated. Such individual patterns may, however, be more or less constrained in different cultures, domains and traditions. For example, in the sciences, it is normal behavior to publish only for narrow scientific specialties, whereas in the humanities there is often a much broader involvement with "the public sphere". The degree of scientific consensus varies from discipline to disciplines and affects the degree of individuality in different ways. Hyland (2000) presents citation variations across disciplines. Hjørland (2002) explained psychologists citation behavior as mainly determined by their theoretical-epistemological commitment. Such domain-specific patterns are probably more relevant for Library and Information Science (LIS) theory.

Cognitive views in LIS are not based on the study of individual differences or personality traits in information use. They are mainly based on abstracted, general human attributes that they try to model (e.g. that all human beings have a short term memory and a long term memory, that there exist basic color terms across cultures etc.). In other words: Cognitive science and cognitive views are based on general psychology, not on the field of differential or personality psychology. This distinction between "general psychology" and "differential/personality psychology" reflects the difference between studying abstracted, general human attributes versus studying individual differences.

Literature:

Hjørland, B. (2002), Epistemology and the Socio-Cognitive Perspective in Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(4), 257-270.

Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing, Longman, Harlow.

White, H. D. (2000). Toward ego-centered citation analysis. In Blaise Cronin & Helen B. Atkins (Eds.), The web of knowledge: A festschrift in honor of Eugene Garfield. Information Today/ASIS.

 
White, H. D. (2001). Authors as citers over time. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 52(2), 87-108.

See also: Consensus; Personality and information use;  Scattering

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 26-02-2006

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