Books are the most important medium of communication in the humanities, a major medium in the social sciences, and a central component of academic library collections. This study examined humanities and social sciences books that won prizes from ten leading United States disciplinary associations between 2000 and 2009. The study extends earlier…

Explores differences in precision of terms used in subject access in the humanities, differentiating by the exactness with which the phenomena designated can be located in space and time. Samples of 200 terms from seven indexes in the humanities are classified according to five categories of terms. Six tables present results of data analyses. (22…

Investigates vocabulary of the humanities by analyzing terms used as entry points in leading encyclopedias and dictionaries in humanities. Categories that distinguish entry terms by precision and potential for effectiveness in subject access are proposed and a sample of entry terms is classified into these categories. Thirty-five sources are…

Examines data on prize-winning books during the 1990s from the American Historical Association, American Musicological Society, the College Art Association, and the Modern Language Association. Suggests that studying awards from the leading humanities scholarly associations can tell much about the disciplines, publishing industry, and library…

Outlines a methodological approach to developing bibliometric models of the sources used in different types of humanities scholarship. Identifies five types of scholarship: description of primary sources, editing of primary sources, historical studies, criticism, and theory. Illustrates the approach through an analysis of sources used in 54…

Describes an examination of the information seeking behavior of humanists in a small, interdisciplinary group. The findings include when and how these scholars employ online databases, reference librarians, archivists, special collections librarians, formal bibliographies, and other information sources. Further research is suggested and the…

Reviews studies of humanists' use of information and discusses three characteristics of the behavior of humanists in relation to trends in the application of new information technologies to the humanities: (1) reluctance to ask questions of reference librarians; (2) regard for influential peers; and (3) concentration on research specializations.…

Reports on a longitudinal study of the adoption of technology by 11 humanists. The study corroborates the tendency of humanists to adopt technology more slowly and provides insight into why. The distinctiveness of the primary evidence used by humanists--i.e., the documents and artifacts created by others--is emphasized. (32 references) (KRN)