Seeing through the network: A focus on interdisciplinary student research and information discovery

This paper aims to investigate upper-undergraduate and graduate students’ perceptions of interdisciplinarity in relation to their information-seeking habits by analyzing their beliefs, rationalizations and preferences around the retrieval, evaluation and use of information sources for interdisciplinary research.

This study made use of focus group interviews with 18 student participants enrolled in different academic programs in the humanities and social sciences at a research university in Toronto. Transcript data were analyzed through use of the constant comparison method.

Students perceive the classification of library collections as both helpful and problematic in their pursuits of interdisciplinary work. Students believe that knowing how to identify appropriate terminology while navigating scholarly and non-scholarly environments is crucial to their success in interdisciplinary research. Librarians can adjust their service philosophies and research tools to better anticipate the needs of students engaged in interdisciplinary research.

This paper adds to the literature by providing library practitioners and other interested parties with a unique view of how undergraduate and graduate students contextualize their information needs when undertaking interdisciplinary research work.