TY - JOUR

T1 - The framing of scientific domains

T2 - About UNISIST, domain analysis and art history

AU - Dam Christensen, Hans

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Purpose: By using the UNISIST models this article argues for the necessity of domain analysis in order to qualify scientific information seeking. The models better understanding of communication processes in a scientific domain and embraces the point that domains are always both unstable over time and changeable according to the specific perspective. This understanding is even more important today as numerous digitally generated information tools as well as collaborative and interdisciplinary research are blurring the domain borders. Nevertheless, researchers navigate “intuitively” in “their” specific domains, and UNISIST helps understanding this navigation.Design/methodology/approachThe UNISIST models are tentatively applied to the domain of art history at three stages, respectively two modern, partially overlapping domains, as well as an outline of an art historical domain anno c1820. The juxtapositions are discussed against the backdrop of, among others, poststructuralist concepts such as “power” and “anti-essentialism”FindingsThe juxtapositions affirm the point already surfacing in the different versions of the UNISIST model, that is, structures of communication change over time as well as according to the agents that are charting them. As such, power in a Foucauldian sense is unavoidable in outlining a domain.Originality/value1. The UNISIST models are applied to the domain of art history; and 2. the article discusses the instability of a scientific domain as well as, at the same time, the significance of framing a domain; an implication which is often neglected in scientific information seeking.

AB - Purpose: By using the UNISIST models this article argues for the necessity of domain analysis in order to qualify scientific information seeking. The models better understanding of communication processes in a scientific domain and embraces the point that domains are always both unstable over time and changeable according to the specific perspective. This understanding is even more important today as numerous digitally generated information tools as well as collaborative and interdisciplinary research are blurring the domain borders. Nevertheless, researchers navigate “intuitively” in “their” specific domains, and UNISIST helps understanding this navigation.Design/methodology/approachThe UNISIST models are tentatively applied to the domain of art history at three stages, respectively two modern, partially overlapping domains, as well as an outline of an art historical domain anno c1820. The juxtapositions are discussed against the backdrop of, among others, poststructuralist concepts such as “power” and “anti-essentialism”FindingsThe juxtapositions affirm the point already surfacing in the different versions of the UNISIST model, that is, structures of communication change over time as well as according to the agents that are charting them. As such, power in a Foucauldian sense is unavoidable in outlining a domain.Originality/value1. The UNISIST models are applied to the domain of art history; and 2. the article discusses the instability of a scientific domain as well as, at the same time, the significance of framing a domain; an implication which is often neglected in scientific information seeking.

KW - kunsthistorie

KW - Domæneanalyse

KW - UNISIST

KW - Foucault, Michel

KW - N.L. Høyen

U2 - 10.1108/JD-03-2013-0038

DO - 10.1108/JD-03-2013-0038

M3 - Journal article

VL - 70

SP - 261

EP - 281

JO - Journal of Documentation

JF - Journal of Documentation

SN - 0022-0418

IS - 2

ER -