theorywatch

Finally got around to reading the recent issue of the Journal of Education for Library & Information Science which had a thought-provoking study that tracked “mentoring” relationships, using the MPACT database (a database which lists LIS doctoral dissertations, along with the advisors and committee members for each doctoral graduate). It’s an interesting but somewhat misleading article, at least as far as I’m concerned (and I’m in the MPACT data!) The reason I say this is that my listed dissertation advisor is someone who very kindly “came to my rescue” after my original advisor left Syracuse for a distinguished professorship elsewhere. (He remained on my committee, but University rules were such that I had to find a new dissertation advisor within my school in order to continue the process of preparing to defend the dissertation.) So the idea that my dissertation was strongly influenced by my titular advisor is actually wrong (though she did a wonderful job in supporting me through the remainder of the writing and helping to insure that the methodology was as rigorous as we could make it). Interestingly enough, however, the related MPACT idea that I’m in the intellectual “lineage” of William Goffman is right, though not through my titular advisor: my original advisor was a student of the late Everett Rogers, so the (very strong) connection is actually through his knowledge of and expertise in the diffusion of innovation literature.

Which brings me back to my original motive for posting: the reason that I’m somewhat fascinated by all this is similar to the reason that I’m fascinated by citation analysis and indicator theories in general. But I was far, far more influenced by the writings of say, Derek de Solla Price, Blaise Cronin, and Henry Small than by anyone I actually studied under at Syracuse in the doctoral program, as bibliometrics was not a particular strength on the faculty while I was there. In fact, I would say that now I am more influenced by Ray von Dran, with whom I never took a class, but who was such an enthusiastic advocate of Donald Schön’s work on reflective practice that I became very interested in it while I was his graduate teaching assistant during one semester. And since I am now working on the idea of practice-in-theories ( a corollary to Schön’s concept of theories-in-use), I would say that Ray’s MPACT on me was very significant, but is the type that will never appear in an MPACT analysis. A useful reminder for me of the limitations of this kind of very objective but not always informative data!

bibliometrics