The shifting sands of disciplinary development: Analyzing North American Library and Information Science dissertations using latent Dirichlet allocation.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	The shifting sands of disciplinary development: Analyzing North American Library and Information Science dissertations using latent Dirichlet allocation.
Authors:	Sugimoto, Cassidy R.¹ sugimoto@indiana.edu, Li, Daifeng² ldf3824@yahoo.com.cn, Russell, Terrell G.³ unc@terrellrussell.com, Finlay, S. Craig¹ craigfinlay@gmail.com, Ding, Ying¹ dingying@indiana.edu
Source:	Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology. Jan2011, Vol. 62 Issue 1, p185-204. 20p. 1 Diagram, 17 Charts, 2 Graphs.
Subjects:	Library science, Information science, Academic dissertations, Dirichlet principle, Citation analysis, Information-seeking behavior, History of libraries, Information resources management
Geographic Terms:	North America
Abstract:	This work identifies changes in dominant topics in library and information science (LIS) over time, by analyzing the 3,121 doctoral dissertations completed between 1930 and 2009 at North American Library and Information Science programs. The authors utilize latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to identify latent topics diachronically and to identify representative dissertations of those topics. The findings indicate that the main topics in LIS have changed substantially from those in the initial period (1930-1969) to the present (2000-2009). However, some themes occurred in multiple periods, representing core areas of the field: library history occurred in the first two periods; citation analysis in the second and third periods; and information-seeking behavior in the fourth and last period. Two topics occurred in three of the five periods: information retrieval and information use. One of the notable changes in the topics was the diminishing use of the word library (and related terms). This has implications for the provision of doctoral education in LIS. This work is compared to other earlier analyses and provides validation for the use of LDA in topic analysis of a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Engineering Source

Description
Abstract:	This work identifies changes in dominant topics in library and information science (LIS) over time, by analyzing the 3,121 doctoral dissertations completed between 1930 and 2009 at North American Library and Information Science programs. The authors utilize latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to identify latent topics diachronically and to identify representative dissertations of those topics. The findings indicate that the main topics in LIS have changed substantially from those in the initial period (1930-1969) to the present (2000-2009). However, some themes occurred in multiple periods, representing core areas of the field: library history occurred in the first two periods; citation analysis in the second and third periods; and information-seeking behavior in the fourth and last period. Two topics occurred in three of the five periods: information retrieval and information use. One of the notable changes in the topics was the diminishing use of the word library (and related terms). This has implications for the provision of doctoral education in LIS. This work is compared to other earlier analyses and provides validation for the use of LDA in topic analysis of a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	15322882
DOI:	10.1002/asi.21435