Knowledge Maps and the Work of Academic Librarians in an Interdisciplinary Environment

Abstract

This article describes a method that academic librarians can use to help established scholars and doctoral students become more cognizant of interdisciplinary approaches to their academic fields and areas. This method centers around the creation of knowledge maps: visually oriented aids tracing intellectual connections and linkages between and among various fields and areas that allow students and professors to get a good sense of emerging trends in a given academic specialty. Many professors want librarians to be proactive when it comes to suggesting new perspectives and new ways of seeing their research questions. Knowledge maps can be used by librarians as information-literacy tools in the facilitation of interdisciplinary knowledge among academic researchers. In addition, the creation of knowledge maps by librarians can be seen as a component of the changing nature of reference librarianship—a job that is becoming more intellectualized through one-on-one consultations between students, professors, and librarians.

Keywords:

• information literacy
• academic libraries
• philosophy of reference service
• research partnerships

Acknowledgments

An early version of this article was presented as a poster at the 2010 Toronto Ryerson York Library Staff Conference under the title “Knowledge Maps as an Innovative Tool for Traditional Tasks.”

Notes

© Juris Dilevko and Lana Soglasnova