This volume addresses an emerging yet largely unexamined strategic priority for academic and research libraries: interdisciplinarity in the academy. As colleges and universities chart new areas for knowledge creation, teaching, learning, outreach and service, libraries face challenges in developing their response to these transformational changes in higher education. The global networked society, the convergence of multiple areas of study, and the need to address major challenges that transcend any particular discipline are framing issues for twenty-first century institutions of higher education. Library leaders must seize this exciting opportunity to place the library at the center of the emerging interdisciplinary academy by creating and delivering a transformative suite of programs, services and collections. Libraries can lift their institutions to a higher plane of interdisciplinary activity by levering their place in higher education to become the hub of interdisciplinary activity, where librarians foster innovative models of teaching, learning, research, conversation, reflection, and engagement. This book offers multiple perspectives on transforming academic library programs, collections, and services to meet transformational challenges for higher education. Experienced librarians bring an interdisciplinary perspective to collection development, information literacy, digital projects, knowledge organization, services for research centers, and other timely and relevant topics.

This volume addresses an emerging yet largely unexamined strategic priority for academic and research libraries: interdisciplinarity in the academy. As colleges and universities chart new areas for knowledge creation, teaching, learning, outreach and service, libraries face challenges in developing their response to these transformational changes in higher education. The global networked society, the convergence of multiple areas of study, and the need to address major challenges that transcend any particular discipline are framing issues for twenty-first century institutions of higher education. Library leaders must seize this exciting opportunity to place the library at the center of the emerging interdisciplinary academy by creating and delivering a transformative suite of programs, services and collections. Libraries can lift their institutions to a higher plane of interdisciplinary activity by levering their place in higher education to become the hub of interdisciplinary activity, where librarians foster innovative models of teaching, learning, research, conversation, reflection, and engagement. This book offers multiple perspectives on transforming academic library programs, collections, and services to meet transformational challenges for higher education. Experienced librarians bring an interdisciplinary perspective to collection development, information literacy, digital projects, knowledge organization, services for research centers, and other timely and relevant topics.

Calls for closer connections among disciplines can be heard throughout the world of scholarly research, from major universities to the National Institutes of Health. In Defense of Disciplines presents a fresh and daring analysis of the argument surrounding interdisciplinarity. Challenging the belief that blurring the boundaries between traditional academic fields promotes more integrated research and effective teaching, Jerry Jacobs contends that the promise of interdisciplinarity is illusory and that critiques of established disciplines are often overstated and misplaced. Drawing on diverse sources of data, Jacobs offers a new theory of liberal arts disciplines such as biology, economics, and history that identifies the organizational sources of their dynamism and breadth. Illustrating his thesis with a wide range of case studies including the diffusion of ideas between fields, the creation of interdisciplinary scholarly journals, and the rise of new fields that spin off from existing ones, Jacobs turns many of the criticisms of disciplines on their heads to mount a powerful defense of the enduring value of liberal arts disciplines. This will become one of the anchors of the case against interdisciplinarity for years to come.

This book highlights the importance of interdisciplinarity in the academic landscape, and examines how it is understood in the context of the modern university. While interdisciplinarity is encouraged by research funders, academics themselves receive mixed messages about how, when and whether to follow this route. Building upon a series of career history interviews with established interdisciplinary researchers, the author reveals fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge, how this is shared, and the skills these researchers bring. The book addresses these issues on both a personal and systemic level, identifying how a resilient researcher can craft their own research trajectory to view interdisciplinarity as a truly embedded approach.

Interdisciplinarity has become as important outside academia as within. Academics, policy makers, and the general public seek insights to help organize the vast amounts of knowledge being produced, both within research and at all levels of education. The second edition of The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity offers a thorough update of this major reference work, summarizing the latest advances within the field of inter- and transdisciplinarity. The collection is distinguished by its breadth of coverage, with chapters written by leading experts from multiple networks and organizations. The volume is edited by respected interdisciplinary scholars and supported by a prestigious advisory board to ensure the highest quality and breadth of coverage. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity provides a synoptic overview of the current state of interdisciplinary research, education, administration and management, and of problem solving-knowledge that spans the disciplines and interdisciplinary fields. The volume negotiates the space between the academic community and society at large. Offering the most broad-based account of inter- and transdisciplinarity to date, its 47 chapters provide a snapshot of the state of knowledge integration as interdisciplinarity approaches its century mark. This second edition expands its coverage to discuss the emergence of new fields, the increase of interdisciplinary approaches within traditional disciplines and professions, new integrative approaches to education and training, the widening international presence of interdisciplinarity, its increased support in funding agencies and science-policy bodies, and the formation of several new international associations associated with interdisciplinarity. This reference book will be a valuable addition to academic libraries worldwide, important reading for members of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities engaged in interdisciplinary research and education, and helpful for administrators and policy makers seeking to improve the use of knowledge in society.

Interdisciplinarity has become as important outside academia as within. Academics, policy makers, and the general public seek insights to help organize the vast amounts of knowledge being produced, both within research and at all levels of education. The second edition of The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity offers a thorough update of this major reference work, summarizing the latest advances within the field of inter- and transdisciplinarity. The collection is distinguished by its breadth of coverage, with chapters written by leading experts from multiple networks and organizations. The volume is edited by respected interdisciplinary scholars and supported by a prestigious advisory board to ensure the highest quality and breadth of coverage. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity provides a synoptic overview of the current state of interdisciplinary research, education, administration and management, and of problem solving-knowledge that spans the disciplines and interdisciplinary fields. The volume negotiates the space between the academic community and society at large. Offering the most broad-based account of inter- and transdisciplinarity to date, its 47 chapters provide a snapshot of the state of knowledge integration as interdisciplinarity approaches its century mark. This second edition expands its coverage to discuss the emergence of new fields, the increase of interdisciplinary approaches within traditional disciplines and professions, new integrative approaches to education and training, the widening international presence of interdisciplinarity, its increased support in funding agencies and science-policy bodies, and the formation of several new international associations associated with interdisciplinarity. This reference book will be a valuable addition to academic libraries worldwide, important reading for members of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities engaged in interdisciplinary research and education, and helpful for administrators and policy makers seeking to improve the use of knowledge in society.

This Open Access book builds upon Science and Technology Studies (STS) and provides a detailed examination of how large-scale energy research projects have been conceived, and with what consequences for those involved in interdisciplinary research, which has been advocated as the zenith of research practice for many years, quite often in direct response to questions that cannot be answered (or even preliminarily investigated) by disciplines working separately. It produces fresh insights into the lived experiences and actual contents of interdisciplinarity, rather than simply commentating on how it is being explicitly advocated. We present empirical studies on large-scale energy research projects from the United Kingdom, Norway, and Finland. The book presents a new framework, the Sociology of Interdisciplinarity, which unpacks interdisciplinary research in practice. This book will be of interest to all those interested in well-functioning interdisciplinary research systems and the dynamics of doing interdisciplinarity, including real ground-level experiences and institutional interdependencies.