Information science and scientists: JASIS, 1972–1990

This research reports the results of a bibliometric study of nine volumes of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS): 1972–1974, 1982–1984, and 1988–1990. For each full‐length article, values of six variables were recorded: the year the article was published, the number of citations to the article, the funding status of the work (funded or not funded), the funding agency (if funded), the subject of the paper, and the institutional affiliation of the first author, and several hypotheses were tested. No relationship was found between whether an article was funded and the quality or utility of the article, as measured by the number of subsequent citations to the work. Funding for information science research has declined, especially at the federal levels. JASIS authors who are affiliated with schools of library and information science have the most difficulty in having their work funded, although the work produced by this group of authors is the most highly cited. While the emphasis on theoretical work has remained essentially constant over the past 20 years, the number of articles related to professional issues and related fields has increased, and the number of articles classified as applied has decreased. More JASIS authors are coming from academic departments in universities; fewer are information practitioners. Information science is developing as a discipline and moving away from its practice‐oriented roots. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.