Measuring the vitality and effectiveness within social sciences and humanities research. an attempt in Italian LIS studies

This study constitutes the beginning of a PhD research in Library and information science at Sapienza University of Rome, aimed at investigating the level of internationalisation, vitality and effectivenessof Italian Library and information studies. The paper describes the methodology of search in international citational database, Web of science and Scopus, and in Google scholar for any scholarly work published by Italian LIS tenured researchers and university professors. The results in WoS and Scopus are illustrated and compared with a first collection of data within Italian similar field of Social sciences and humanities (SSH). The reliability of the data collected in citation database within the areas of Social sciences and humanities and their significance are limited; also the comparison with Italian historical and paleographic fields seems to confirms that a substantial impact of SSH non-Anglophone scientific production within citational database is influenced by a number of factors (number of indexed core journals, language of publication, level of coverage of journals, etc.). On the other hand, Google scholar could be a valuable tool for humanistic fields, but it is necessary to deal with the comple xity of the analysis and the problems of homonyms. Therefore, these first research results made it clear that, in order to investigate the presence and impact of Italian LIS studies, a correct use and organization of quantitative data is essential

Cui prodest libraries authority work?

Eleven years are passed since the International Conference on Authority Control took place in Florence and the today meeting give us the possibility to look at the current state of the traditionally most relevant activity in library life, the authority control. It is known that the functionality of a catalog without syndetic structure is limited, for this reason in the 70Th several authorities archives doing a connection with bibliographic data have been developed. The main authority control standard is UNIMARC Authorities, developed in 1991 from IFLA, and in 2009 at its third edition (with the updates of 2012); it gives the possibility to organise and structure analytically the authority data. But in spite of it analysis capacity this format is not so used in the world’s authority archives. We will examine some examples of authority files local, national and international, based on UNIMARC Authorities to explore the potentiality of the format. In the second part of the speech we will face the downside of authority archives being. They present inadequate advantages for users. It is not possible to do a complex research, for example it is not possible to select an author starting from sex, or languages used in writing or starting from the period they are operative, although if these informations are present and codified with the right etiquette in the database. Therefore, to one side we have authority data well structured in codified fields and we are not able to capitalize on it, on the other side our authority files are not enough competitive in information if we compare with the data sources of Wikipedia or similar. It is time to ask ourselves if it is worth to still invest time and resources in the complex construction and maintenance of the authorities archives. Are we sure that the instrument, as it stands now, is useful in the world of the web 2.0 in continuous evolution? If yes the question is: how can we improve the authorities archives? What is the best way to reshape this instrument? In the last part of the speech we can try to answer together to this questions about the future of the authority control in library field

La visibilità – e l’impatto? – nel Web ai tempi dei social: i principali strumenti di altmetrics

Nel contributo vengono analizzati i principali strumenti per l’applicazione delle web metrics e delle metriche alternative (altmetrics). Dopo una breve introduzione sulle trasformazioni apportate dalla rete al mondo della ricerca e della comunicazione scientifica, ci si sofferma sul significato del termine 'impatto bibliografico' e sul concetto di 'visibilità sociale' in relazione al tema della valutazione della ricerca. Viene quindi fornita una rassegna dei più noti e diffusi tool per le web metrics da una parte, e di fonti e software per altmetrics dall’altra, elencando di ognuno le caratteristiche fondamentali, le finalità e l’ambito di utilizzo. Trattandosi – specie le metriche alternative – di un terreno in continua espansione e ancora ‘instabile’, non è ipotizzabile ad oggi un’applicazione di questi strumenti per fini istituzionali di valutazione della ricerca; è tuttavia auspicabile un loro utilizzo a fianco e come integrazione delle misure tradizionali

Cui prodest libraries authority work?

Eleven years are passed since the International Conference on Authority Control took place in Florence and the today meeting give us the possibility to look at the current state of the traditionally most relevant activity in library life, the authority control. It is known that the functionality of a catalog without syndetic structure is limited, for this reason in the 70Th several authorities archives doing a connection with bibliographic data have been developed. The main authority control standard is UNIMARC Authorities, developed in 1991 from IFLA, and in 2009 at its third edition (with the updates of 2012); it gives the possibility to organise and structure analytically the authority data. But in spite of it analysis capacity this format is not so used in the world’s authority archives. We will examine some examples of authority files local, national and international, based on UNIMARC Authorities to explore the potentiality of the format. In the second part of the speech we will face the downside of authority archives being. They present inadequate advantages for users. It is not possible to do a complex research, for example it is not possible to select an author starting from sex, or languages used in writing or starting from the period they are operative, although if these informations are present and codified with the right etiquette in the database. Therefore, to one side we have authority data well structured in codified fields and we are not able to capitalize on it, on the other side our authority files are not enough competitive in information if we compare with the data sources of Wikipedia or similar. It is time to ask ourselves if it is worth to still invest time and resources in the complex construction and maintenance of the authorities archives. Are we sure that the instrument, as it stands now, is useful in the world of the web 2.0 in continuous evolution? If yes the question is: how can we improve the authorities archives? What is the best way to reshape this instrument? In the last part of the speech we can try to answer together to this questions about the future of the authority control in library field

Measuring the vitality and effectiveness within Social sciences and humanities research: an attempt in Italian LIS studies

This study constitutes the beginning of a PhD research in Library and information science at Sapienza University of Rome, aimed at investigating the level of internationalisation, vitality and effectivenessof Italian Library and information studies. The paper describes the methodology of search in international citational database, Web of science and Scopus, and in Google scholar for any scholarly work published by Italian LIS tenured researchers and university professors. The results in WoS and Scopus are illustrated and compared with a first collection of data within Italian similar field of Social sciences and humanities (SSH). The reliability of the data collected in citation database within the areas of Social sciences and humanities and their significance are limited; also the comparison with Italian historical and paleographic fields seems to confirms that a substantial impact of SSH non-Anglophone scientific production within citational database is influenced by a number of factors (number of indexed core journals, language of publication, level of coverage of journals, etc.). On the other hand, Google scholar could be a valuable tool for humanistic fields, but it is necessary to deal with the comple xity of the analysis and the problems of homonyms. Therefore, these first research results made it clear that, in order to investigate the presence and impact of Italian LIS studies, a correct use and organization of quantitative data is essential

Bibliometria e scienze del libro: internazionalizzazione e vitalità degli studi italiani

The vitality of a scientific field is usually attested by the fallout that research and publications have on the community of scholars who practice it and, therefore, on the development of the discipline itself and of its methodologies. The degree of “health” of a field of study, as well as its ability to get out of its niche of scholars and to see its validity recognised, is assessed by analysing whether and to what extent the works are read, commented on, cited by scholars from other geographical contexts and / or other scientific branches. The volume presents a research focused on the analysis of the level of internationalisation and vitality of Italian studies in the disciplines related to the study of books and documents, conducted through a series of parallel bibliometric investigations (query of citation databases, searches in Google scholar, application alternative metrics, library catalog analysis)

Da Oldenburg all’accesso aperto: quale futuro per le riviste scientifiche?

This paper presents in detail and analyses the book Revistas cientifícas: situación actual y retos de futuro, Ernest Abadal (ed). Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2017. Data and consideration on scientific publishing, its birth, open access, the peer review process, traditional and alternative metrics are presented, in an attempt to outline future trends of academic journals that represent the connection between scholars, readers and the rest of society, an indispensable condition for scholarly communication and the progress of science.Il contributo presenta in dettaglio e analizza gli spunti contenuti nel volume Revistas cientifícas: situación actual y retos de futuro, Ernest Abadal (ed). Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2017. Vengono presentati dati e riflessioni sull’editoria scientifica, la sua nascita, l’accesso aperto, il processo di revisione dei pari, le metriche tradizionali e alternative nel tentativo di delineare le tendenze future delle riviste scientifiche che rappresentano lo snodo tra studiosi, lettori e il resto della società, condizione indispensabile per la comunicazione scientifica e il progredire della scienza.

Strumenti per l'interoperabilità: qualità dei dati, apertura, interdisciplinarità

The article is focused on the concept of interoperability, whose relevance is also demonstrated by the existence of the Guidelines on technical interoperability of Public Administrations on which the Threeyear plan for IT in Public Administration is based. The essential condition for interoperability is the existence of metadata that exactly describe an object; this is especially important in the digital environment. There are different types of metadata – descriptive, administrative, structural, preservation, usage – and scientific communities have developed different metadata schemes that, if maintained by organisations such as the International Organisation for Standardisation, assume the status of standards. Data quality and openness are fundamental requirements for the exchange of information. Since the Ontario New Universities Library Project - ONULP (1963), libraries have been using metadata for automatic data processing; the article reviews the MARC format, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), the national and international standard (ISO 23950) Z39.50, the Open archival information system (OAIS). Interoperability is a recent field of study and it has not yet been fully achieved; in the digital environment, interdisciplinarity has led to the search for exchange with other contexts

Internazionalizzazione e vitalità degli studi italiani nelle discipline del libro e del documento: analisi critica e sperimentazione di strumenti bibliometrici

La ricerca si propone di analizzare il livello di internazionalizzazione e di vitalità degli studi italiani nelle discipline del libro e del documento. La vitalità di un settore scientifico è normalmente attestata dalla ricaduta che le ricerche e le pubblicazioni hanno sulla comunità degli studiosi che la praticano e, quindi, sullo sviluppo della disciplina stessa e delle sue metodologie. Il grado di ‘salute’ di un campo di studio, nonché la sua capacita di uscire fuori dalla propria nicchia di studiosi e di vedere riconosciuta la propria validità, si misura, infatti, analizzando se e in quale misura i lavori vengano letti, commentati, citati da studiosi di altri contesti geografici e/o di altri rami scientifici. Come noto, esistono settori forti e altamente vitali, i cui risultati influenzano altri campi del sapere ed è di grande interesse individuare le modalità con cui questo fenomeno si produce e tentare di misurarne l’estensione. Nel caso di materie con un elevato contenuto normativo e metodologico – le cosiddette “discipline ombrello” – come la Library and information science (LIS), l’individuazione e l’eventuale misurazione della sua influenza su studiosi e aree esterne al proprio campo specifico sono ancora più interessanti, in quanto segnali di rilevanza e di riconoscimento del terreno di studio. Il focus di questa ricerca consiste nell'esaminare, innanzitutto, in quale misura il settore biblioteconomico italiano sia rappresentato nelle fonti deputate e presente a livello internazionale nei lavori di ambito LIS stranieri. Lo strumento con cui è stata portata avanti questa indagine è offerto da un’area del nostro campo rilevante per gli studiosi di tutte le discipline scientifiche, ossia la bibliometria

“Se alzi un muro, pensa a ciò che resta fuori!”: le discipline del libro e del documento e la cultura digitale in Italia

È stato mostrato da parte di vari studiosi come le scienze del libro e del documento (Library and information science, LIS) e la cultura digitale (o Digital humanities, DH) abbiano alcuni importanti punti di contatto che non si fermano ai vari temi di interesse comune e agli intenti condivisi. Data la loro forte componente ‘pratica’, sia le scienze del libro e del documento sia le digital humanities condividono una condizione, non sempre risolta, a metà tra la disciplina accademica a sé stante e il supporto alla ricerca per altri settori scientifici; partendo dalla teoria del caos delle discipline formulata da Andrew Abbott, in particolare, la natura della LIS è stata definita ‘interstiziale’, tendente cioè a occupare spazi tra altre aree scientifiche, caratteristica da cui deriva la difficoltà di definire con esattezza l’identità del campo di studio. Purtroppo, soprattutto in Italia l’applicazione di schemi talvolta troppo rigidi di definizione dei singoli settori disciplinari nelle procedure valutative per l’assegnazione dei fondi di ricerca e l’avanzamento nella carriera rischiano di penalizzare aree con confini sfumati come la LIS e le DH. I numerosi elementi in comune esistenti e il fatto che molti progetti di Digital humanities avvengono e coinvolgono archivi e biblioteche fanno ipotizzare la possibilità di una maggiore sinergia tra le due discipline da cui attingere nuove forze e nuovi spunti per entrambi i campi