ALISE Research Taxonomy

The ALISE Research Taxonomy provides an overview of research areas of interest to ALISE members. The taxonomy was created by examining research areas of ALA-accredited programs in North America to find patterns and was last updated in 2016 by Louise Spiteri, with the ALISE Board of Directors' approval. The taxonomy is used by ALISE members to select their areas of research and teaching interests as well as to provide keywords for ALISE conference proposals.

Revised 10/12/2016

Area: Data management 

Scope Note: The development and execution of architectures, policies, practices, and procedures to manage the information lifecycle needs of an organization in an effective manner. Topics include: 
  • Copyright
  • Data curation
  • Information governance
  • Information policy
  • Information privacy
  • Information security
  • Intellectual property
  • Knowledge management
  • Records and information management
  • Risk management

Area: Data science

Scope Note: Processes and systems to extract knowledge, social, and economic value in various forms, either structured or unstructured. Topics include:

  • Altmetrics
  • Bibliometrics
  • Big Data
  • Cloud computing
  • Data mining
  • Data visualization
  • Data warehousing
  • Informetrics
  • Machine learning
  • Natural language processing
  • Webometrics

Area: Human-computer interaction & design

Scope Note: The relationship between people, groups, and societies and computing and information systems. Topics include:

  • Artificial intelligence
  • Computer-supported collaborative work
  • Machine learning
  • Mobile systems
  • Social computing
  • User interfaces
  • Augmented reality
  • Ubiquitous computing

Area: Information organization and retrieval

Scope Note: Processes and systems to effectively represent and organize, and retrieve information. Topics include:

  • Abstracting
  • Archival arrangement and description
  • Classification
  • Cataloging
  • Cross-language information retrieval
  • Indexing
  • Interactive information retrieval
  • Linked data
  • Metadata
  • Multimedia information retrieval 
  • Taxonomies
  • Ontologies
  • Semantic Web
  • Social tagging

Area: Information practices

Scope Note: Processes and systems that examine the dissemination and use of information. Topics include:

  • Censorship
  • Education
  • Information ethics
  • Information literacy
  • Information needs
  • Information seeking 
  • Information use
  • Intellectual freedom
  • Print culture
  • Reading and reading practices
  • Reference transactions
  • Scholarly communications
  • Specific populations

Area: Education of information professionals

Scope Note: Methods and strategies to provide learning opportunities to information professionals. Topics include:

  • Accreditation 
  • Administration
  • Continuing education
  • Curriculum
  • Education programs/schools
  • Online learning
  • Pedagogy
  • Research methods
  • Standards
  • Students
  • Teaching faculty

Area: Information services

Scope Note: Specific contexts in which information sources are collected for, and disseminated to, target populations. Topics include:

  • Academic libraries
  • Archives
  • Children’s services
  • Collections development
  • Community and civic organizations
  • Community engagement
  • Community-led services
  • Digital Humanities
  • Libraries in the developing world
  • Museums
  • Public libraries 
  • Publishing
  • Readers’ advisory services 
  • School libraries
  • Special libraries
  • Young adult services

Area: Information technologies

Scope Note: The design, application, and evaluation of computers, storage, networks, and other devices to create, process, store, secure, and exchange all forms of electronic data. Topics include:

  • Database systems
  • Discovery systems
  • Information system design
  • Library technology systems
  • Open source software
  • Social software
  • Social media

Area: Sociocultural perspectives

Scope Note: How individual behaviors are affected specifically by their surroundings, and social and cultural factors. Topics include:

  • Critical librarianship
  • Information rights
  • Political economy of the information society 
  • Social justice
  • Sociology of information 

 

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