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Bradford’s Law of Scattering: Ambiguities in the Concept of “Subject”

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Context: Nature, Impact, and Role (CoLIS 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3507))

Abstract

Bradford’s law of scattering is said to be about subject scattering in information sources. However, in spite of a corpus of writings about the meaning of the word “subject” and equivalent terms such as “aboutness” or “topicality”, the meaning of “subject” has never been explicitly addressed in relation to Bradford’s law. This paper introduces a distinction between Lexical scattering, Semantic scattering, and Subject scattering. Neither Bradford himself nor any follower has explicitly considered the differences between these three and the implications for the practical applications of Bradford’s law. Traditionally, Bradford’s law has been seen as a neutral and objective tool for the selection of the most central information sources in a field. However, it is hard to find actual reports that describe how Bradford’s law has been applied in practical library and information services. Theoretical as well as historical evidence suggest that the selection of journals based on Bradford-distributions tend to favorite dominant theories and views while suppressing views other than the mainstream at a given time.

The authors are currently investigating various issues relating to Bradford’s law of scattering. The project is partly sponsored by The Danish Ministry of Culture [A2004 06-026].

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal School of Library and Information Science, Birketinget 6, DK-2300, Copenhagen S., Denmark

    Birger Hjørland & Jeppe Nicolaisen

Authors
  1. Birger Hjørland
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  2. Jeppe Nicolaisen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

    Fabio Crestani

  2. Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, G1 1XH, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

    Ian Ruthven

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Hjørland, B., Nicolaisen, J. (2005). Bradford’s Law of Scattering: Ambiguities in the Concept of “Subject”. In: Crestani, F., Ruthven, I. (eds) Context: Nature, Impact, and Role. CoLIS 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3507. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11495222_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11495222_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26178-0

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