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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