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Data provides high-res picture of scientists’ information retrieval habits

Map of Science

Map of Science

Scientists at DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory have produced the world's first Map of Science—a high-resolution graphic depiction of the virtual trails scientists leave behind when they retrieve information from online services.  Bollen and colleagues from LANL and the Santa Fe Institute collected usage-log data gathered from a variety of publishers, aggregators, and universities from 2006 to 2008, nearly 1 billion online information requests. The maps revealed unexpected relations between scientific domains that point to emerging relationships capturing the collective interest of the scientific community—for instance a connection between ecology and architecture. The study is part of the MESUR (Metrics from Scholarly Usage of Resources) project of which Bollen is the principal investigator. The MESUR usage database is now considered the largest of its kind.

[James Rickman, 505.665.9203,
elvis@lanl.gov]