research in the two cultures
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Research in the Two CulturesJohn M. Budd aa Graduate School Library, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ,85719Published online: 18 Oct 2008.
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Research in the Two Cultures: The Nature of Scholarship
in Science and the ~uman i i i e s John M. Budd
ABSTRACT. C. P. Snow coined the term "Two Cultures" in 1959 and set in motion a debate on science and the humanities that has refused to die. Other writers have noticed differences between the disciplines, particularly in the areas of research literature and the behavior of scholars. That differences exist seems clear; this is re- flected in the characteristics of written research and scholarship. The ways in which the disciplines differ are important to examination of the literatures. The behavior and products of scholars also have im- plications for collection management.
INTRODUCTION
In 1959 C. P. Snow described what he identified as the "two cultures.'" The two cultures Snow referred to were the world of literature and science. Discussion of the two cultures, especially their implications for information, has largely eluded the pages of library literature. What Snow started, whether he wanted to or not, was an avalanche of polemical diatribes and a modicum of reasoned discussion on the differences between two broad disciplines and the problems of communication they experience. Regardless of the emotion that has charged arguments for nearly thirty years, the ba- sic issue of distinctions between the disciplines is one that is of interest to library and information science and one that research in
John M. Budd is with the Graduate Library School, University of Arizona, 1515 E. First Street, Tucson, AZ 85719.
Collection Management, Vol. 11(3/4) 1989 O 1989 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
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2 COLLECTION IU~NAGEMENT
library and information science reinforces. This paper examines a number of aspects of research and scholarship in science and the humanities, including background on the identification of differ- ences between the two. In addition to some of the writings sur- rounding the two cultures, physical variance in methods and materi- als and researchers' behavior are explored as they relate to the research process.
THE TWO CULTURES
Each of the cultures possesses its own body of knowledge, its own methods for approaching its discipline, its own world. In the course of his lecture (delivered at Cambridge University), Snow critically assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each culture, although he focused primarily on the shortcomings. Some of his statements, however, were offered as fact without the refinement of argument for which he praised science. In fact, many of his claims were "more tendentious than explicit," as Yudkin said.' F. R. Leavis was an even more vocal and personal critic of Snow.' While Leavis tended to attack Snow, the man, rather than Snow, the au- thor of The Two Cultures, he did make the point that Snow did not adequately define what he meant by "culture."
The Snow-Leavis controversy had some antecedents which serve to give the conflict a historical perspective and which add other voices to both sides of the argument. For instance, Snow and Leavis echo a debate of the last century on the same subject engaged in by Matthew Arnold4 on the side of culture (and Arnold does not refer to "culture" in the anthropological or sociological sense) and Thomas Henry Huxley5 on the side of science. Arnold and H u l e y managed to argue without malice and to retain a great deal of respect for each other. As with Snow and Leavis, though, neither succeeded in changing the mind of the other.
Snow's defense of science and its importance in the life of the educated person was preceded by the comments of Jacob Bronowski. Bronowski had the foresight to observe that "Our soci- ety is indeed divided between the past and the future, and it will not reach a balanced and unified culture until the specialists in one field learn to share their language with those in an~ther ."~ He then ar-
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John M. Budd 3
gued the cause of science as an integral part of culture and the place of science in the school or university curriculum, stating that "sci- ence is not a set of facts but is a way of giving order, and therefore of giving unity and intelligibility, to the facts of nature" and that science should be taught as "an evaluation of knowledge."'
Amid post-two cultures discussion Lionel Trilling offered one of the more reasonable and less sanguine comments on the dichotomy observed by Snow. Trilling posited that the major occurrences of science cannot fail to be noted by "culture" and vice versa. He also recognized that there is a problem of communication between scien- tists and litterateurs. He was astute enough to observe that the lec- ture of Snow and the response of Leavis illustrated the various modes of thought and expression which contribute to less than per- fectly open channels of communication.
J. Robert 0ppenheimer9 called for the preservation of mastery, of expertise in the separate professions. From this mastery should come communication and acceptance, without contempt (as, he ob- serves, some hold for science), of other worlds. Martin Greed0 rec- ognized the gap between science and the humanities, but stated that the gap can be bridged so that communication can be opened up. Northrop Frye disputed the notion of bridging gaps. He wrote:
Again, the intellectual separation of the "two cultures" is said to be a problem of our time, but this separation is inevitable; it is going steadily to increase, not decrease, and it cannot possi- bly be cured by having humanists read more popular science or scientists read more poetry. The real problem is not the humanist's ignorance of science or vice verse, but the igno- rance of both humanist and scientist about the society of which they are both citizens."
One of the more exhaustive examinations of the two cultures di- chotomy was that of Aldous Huxley, whose grandfather had been an early combatant in the debate. Huxley focused his attention on the different methods, purposes, and natures of communication in- herent in science and in literature. He noted that ". . . the way in which the literary artist treats his subject matter is very different from the way in which the same subject matter is treated by the man
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of science."" One of the most important differences between sci- ence and literature is the language used by each. The physical sci- ences, according to Huxley, use "nomothetic" language; that is, "they seek to establish explanatory laws" which "deal with the relationships between the invisibles and intangibles underlying ap- pearances."13 On the other hand, the language of literature is "idio- graphic"; "its concern is not with regularities and explanatory laws, but with descriptions of appearances and with the discerned qualities of objects perceived as wholes, with judgments, compari- sons and discriminations."14 The distinctions of the languages of the two cultures point not only to the use of language in communi- cation but also to the importance of language itself in the process of communication. Because of this, the writingof the literary man is quite different from that of the man of science; for the one, the wording is essential to the expression of ideas; for the other, elo- quence is not as vital as clarity.
FURTHER DIEFERENCES BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES
.There are inherent differences between the scientist and the hu- manist primarily because the two conduct their business in different realms. The purposes of inquiry are seldom identical; the humanist usually focuses on the less tangible, the less concrete. In terms of what is generally included among references to previous work, hu- manities scholars rely less on the empiricism of the laboratory study and more on informed opinion. The humanist seldom deals with that which can be measured as a quantifiable entity. Butler noted this less-than-objective aspect of humanities study.
Science deals with realities; the humanities deal with specific personal entities at a particular time and under particular con- ditions. Humanistic phenomena, we may therefore say, are essentially only actualities in which specific objectivities and subjectivities intermingle temporarily. The phenomena of sci- ence can be counted, weighed, and measured. For this reason we call them quantitative; they are amenable to mathematical investigation. Humanistic phenomena, on the other hand, are
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John M. Budd 5
only partially of this nature. The realities involved in them may be studied quantitatively but not the total humanistic actu- ality. The more subjective any experience is, the closer it ap- proaches pure qualitivity."
6.
Thomas Kuhn points to further distinctions between science and the humanities by focusing on the progress of scientific achieve- ment. Sciences, according to Kuhn, are distinguished by their para- digmatic nature. Paradigm "stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community" and "denotes one sort of element in that con- stellation, the concrete puzzle-solution which, employed as models or examples can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science."I6 Paradigms are aids to research because they are successful at solving problems defined by a group of practitioners as acute. Kuhn goes so far as to describe that time preceding the ascent of a paradigm, that point in the life of a discipline when problem solving is in an imprecise state. This pre- paradigmatic period "is regularly marked by frequent and deep de- bates over legitimate methods, problems, and standards of solution, though these serve rather to define schools than to produce agree- ment.""
While paradigmatic periods may be observable in the sciences, the same is not necessarily true of the humanities. In fact, the disci- plines of the humanities may be non-paradigmatic. Houser has notedthat "At no point in Kuhn's work is there reason to think he could be talking about history and the humanities, let alone refer- ring to them as fields of low paradigm development or as soft sci- ence."I8 The matter of study in the humanities is not static physical or chemical properties which can be subjected to verification and replication. While it is true that debates in the humanities have re- sulted in rather definite schools of thought, these debates hold little likelihood of leading to a "constellation of beliefs" to be shared by any sort of widespread community. The problems in question center on the products of man's imagination, on ideas, on those matters for which no explicit rules exist. So, there are likely to be very few, if any, operable paradigms in the humanities to aid research.
Before progressing further with the discussion of the nature and
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practice of research and scholarship in the humanities it is necessary to examine what constitutes "the humanities." It is an elusive term, and one that is misleading in the sense that many branches of knowledge and inquiry that are concerned with human matters (such as the social and medical sciences) are not counted among the humanities. As Crane noted, the humanities should not be consid- ered in terms of subject matters or ends, but of "the distinctively humanistic values that inhere in the subject matters to which we apply them."19 In short, the humanities deal with the thoughts, ac- tivities, and creative efforts of man. In describing the study of such endeavors both in terms of concept and of artifact, those areas that can be defined as contemplative, creative, or historical can serve as a basis for further discussion of the humanities, particularly in con- trast to the sciences.
The nature of the humanities, as described above, leads to obser- vations of some basic differences between research in the humani- ties and that in the sciences. Urquhart claimed that "the literature of science is cumulative in the sense that the important ideas and ob- servations of the past are included in the current l i te ra t~re ."~~ By way of example Urquhart stated that if all scientific literature more than thirty years old were suddenly destroyed, the vast majority of information would still exist in the literature produced in recent years.
Urquhart went on to state that, compared to the sciences, the humanities are noncumulative. One reason for this is the fact that humanities research is not normally linear; one discovery is not nec- essarily the result of a prior one and will not necessarily lead to a later one. In agreement with Urquhart's description, Snow reiter- ated the cumulative-noncumulative distinctions between the two cultures.
One [science] is cumulative, incorporative, collective, con- ~ensual, so designed that it must progress through time. The other [humanities] is non-cumulative, non-incorporative, un- able to abandon its past but also unable to embody it. The second culture has to be represented by negatives, because it is not a collectivity but is inherent in individual human beings. That means it possesses qualities which the scientific culture
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does not and never can; and, on the other hand, since there is a principle of mutual exclusion, it loses by its nature the dia- chronic progress which is science's greatest gift to the mind of man.2'
Garfield offered an illustration of the difference between the sci- ences and the humanities.
If you were a scientist trying to discover the structure of DNA when Watson and Crick published their article on the double helix, there was nothing you could do but pick up your mar- bles and go home. The structure had been discovered; nothing more need be said; and scientists moved on from there. But if you are a music scholar preparing a monograph on Bach and a book on the composer comes out, you are of course interested, but you do not burn your manuscript. You know that no one (including yourself) will ever be able to say the last word about Bach and his music.22
The characteristic of humanities research observed by Garfield can have a positive aspect, as Frye pointed out.
(1111 general, in literary criticism, nothing can ever be done in a definite way, except very specific projects, such as editing texts. I have supervised a good many doctoral theses on Joyce, Yeats, Stevens, and much-processed writers, and have been well aware that all these theses were saying very similar things. But each represented an individual point of view, and this kind of individuality has to be taken account of in the humanities when we speak of a contribution to k n o ~ l e d g e . ~
Thus, contribution to knowledge in the humanities can consist of different perspectives or different understandings (which may be intensely personal) of the same work and might not present any new "facts." This kind of contribution is attributable in large part to the source of study, which is usually not examined as a physical entity (except in the case of pure textual study), but as a product of the intellect and imagination.
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"ltARDNESS, " "SOFTNESS, " AND THE BEHAVIOR OF SCHOLARS
Some efforts have been made at distinguishing the qualitative distinctions of many disciplines through quantitative means. Storer has attempted to place disciplines on a continuum.24 The "hard sci- ences" he saw as tough, unyielding, and impersonal; the "soft sci- ences" he saw as adaptive, sympathetic, and informal. In order to quantify differences Storer examined the use of tables and equations as a means of rigor and the use of author's initials, as opposed to full names, in references as a measure of impersonality. While such characteristics can be measured precisely, they constitute imprecise notions of the concepts of rigor and impersonality. They are arbi- trary, even personal, designations of formality or toughness which have little to do with the "hardness" or "softness" of a discipline. Nonetheless, the temptation to classify knowledge, disciplines, or even academic departments is a real one. Biglan focused on the last and defined departments according to three dimensions: hard-soft, pure-applied, and life-nonlife. According to the schema presented by Biglan, those departments usually associated with the humani- ties are classified as soft, pure, and nonlife.25 Such disciplines as botany, entomology, microbiology, physiology, and zoology are hard, pure, and life.
Price formulated a measure (Price's Index) for the purpose of describing a particular field as archival, normal, or research front.26 In order to determine Price's Index for journals, Price calculated the average number of references per article and the percentage of all references dated within the five years immediately preceding publi- cation of the article. Thus, American Literature could be described as archival; that is, all the literature that has gone before has an equal chance of being cited. Miller, however, has taken issue with Price's methodology as applied to the humanities, and posits that not only might the index be erroneous for American Literature, but also that references made in works in the humanities contain such varied material as to preclude the same means of measurement be- ing applied to them and to the sciences." The literary scholar makes references to primary materials and also draws on other disciplines such as history and philosophy. Houser objected to the basis of
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thinking leading to the work of Storer, Biglan, and Price, and re- ferred to the "hard science-soft science" as myth rather than
The differences discussed thus far between the natures of the sci- ences and the humanities and between the methods of inquiry of the disciplines lead to observed differences in the behavior of the prac- titioners. The differences are most likely to manifest themselves in the process of communication and in the product of communica- tion, published works. The behavioral distinctions are also evident in the means by which individuals gather information. Humanities researchers are likely to place more importance on the library and tend to do their own searching of the literature. The importance of the library was verified by research done by Soper." She found that, while scientists are far more dependent on personal collection than are humanists (73.9% of citations in published works by scientists are to be located in their personal collections, compared to 35.8% of citations by humanists), humanists make greater use of libraries. A total of 34.2% of citations made in the humanities are to works held in libraries at the researcher's institution; the corresponding figure in the sciences is 20.6%. The difference is even more marked when considering libraries in other cities and countries. The per- centage in the humanities is 24.3, compared to 1.3 in the sciences. Along with this is the observation that humanists view browsing as worthwhile, that serendipity is not only inevitable but desirable. In light of these observations it seems that the process attains a place of importance almost equal to that of the product.
The act of browsing is closely related to the individualistic nature of research in the humanities. Since the research process is less dependent on fact-gathering in the laboratory sense and more de- pendent on the printed evidence of previous thought, it apparently takes the form of a treasure hunt for mots jutes. If the conjecture is accurate, it may serve as a partial explanation for the individualistic nature of the humanities. Fabian and Vierhaus reported on the dis- cussion held at an international conference on the humanities in Gottingen in 1978." They noted that participants recognized that humanities research is an individual venture and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, that resources for scholarship are seen to be less centralized and the burden upon individual researchers and their institutions is increasing, and they recommend far greater
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communication and cooperation among scholars, universities, and nations.
The individualistic aspect of humanities research may also be due in part to the kinds of materials that researchers work with. The artifacts that form the objects of study for humanists include such things as literary works, works of philosophy or theology, art ob- jects, and musical compositions. Based on these objects of study, one can conclude that research in the humanities approximates the process of creation itself. It attempts to return to the genesis of creation in order to understand the things created. Since the act of creation is a personal one, the act of examining the creation also tends to be personal. Since the source of study does not usually lend itself to experimentation, collaboration is, as a rule, eschewed.
THE LITERATURES OF THE TWO CULTURES
When considering research conducted in the sciences and human- ities one must take jnto account the available sources of secondary materials. The various indexing and abstracting tools in the humani- ties are not as numerous, as c6mprehensive, or as timely, as those in the sciences. Witness the Modern Language Association's Inter- national Bibliography, the most complete source for literature, lan- guage, and folklore. For virtually all of its existence it has provided such limited access to individual works that its usefulness has been substantially hampered. Add to this the fact that it appears only once a year. (The online counterpart, however, has been updated more frequently since late 1986.) By way of comparison, in the sciences such tools as Biological Abstracts and Chemical Abstracts are more timely (published semimonthly and weekly respectively) and offer the benefit of abstracting information. The shortcomings in indexing and abstracting tools in the humanities relative to the sciences affect research in the humanities and, thus, examination of such research. While use of available technology, such as online bibliographic databases and CD-ROM, is helping to alleviate this problem, the humanities still lag behind the sciences in providing access to the writings of predeces'sors.
Some data are available on citation indexing which may indicate further differences in use of information by humanists and scien-
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tists. First of all, it should be noted that, while the Institute for Scientific Information publishes Journal Citation Reports volumes for Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index, no such volume exists for Arts & Humanities Citation Index. As a result, the extensive analyses of citation behavior included in Jour- nal Citation Reports are not available for the literature of the hu- manities. Some summary data are provided in the Guide & Lists of Source Publication, however.
Since Science Citation Index (SCI) is more mature than Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), it should be expected that the numbers of journals covered and total source items (all articles, etc. included in the covered journals) are greater in the sciences than in the humanities. In 1986, 3,322 science journals were indexed," compared to 1,361 in the arts and humanitie~.'~ Also, SCI provided indexing for 625,432 source items that year, A&HCI included 122,522. It should not be surprising, then, that the number of cita- tions in SCI source items greatly outnumber those in A&HCI source items (10,007,083 in SCI to 875,593 in A&HCI). A figure is pro- vided for "average citations per article with citations" for SCI (20.35 in 1986), where none is given for A&HCI.
Certain conjectures might be made based on these summary sta- tistics. First, the number of fully-covered journals and the magni- tude of total source items in SCI, relative to A&HCI, indicate the. importance of the journal literature as a means of communication in the sciences. The first conjecture provides further evidence for statements made above and is not likely to be subjected to substan- tial dispute. A second conjecture may be made, though, which could be open to considerably more debate. Based on the summary statistics provided, it appears that authors of articles in science jour- nals make reference to a greater number of other materials than do authors of articles in arts and humanities journals. Not accounting for those articles without citations, the average number of citations per source item (total citations divided by total source items) is 16.0 for SCI. The corresponding figure for A&HCI is 7.1. There are some factors, however, which should be taken into account before the conjecture is accepted. The proportion of "articles"-that is, those source items including the primary communication and re- search in the field-to total source items is higher in SCI (61.7%)
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than in A&HCI (27.0%). This may add further support for the first conjecture but call the second into question. Since the type of item most heavily represented in A&HCI is the book review (which is likely to make reference to only one item, the book being reviewed, and little else), the difference in number of citations between SCI "articles" and A&HCI "articles" may not be as great as the sum- mary statistics suggest. This supposition is borne out by data from the 1981 A&HCI reported by Garfield.)) A total of 28,210 "arti- cles" made reference to 521,548 items, for an average of 18.5 cita- tions per "article." As a result of the lack of consistent information from citation indexes, generalizations based on these sketchy data should be guarded against. A clearer picture of this aspect of differ- ences between the two cultures may be gleaned from examination of specific citation studies.
Several studies in both the humanities and the sciences indicate differences in the way information is used in the two cultures. Craig studied the literature of geology and found that 21.5% of the cita- tions were to books and 75.5% were to periodicals." Kanasy found an even more dramatic difference in microbiology-3.63% of cita- tions were to books and 90.35% to periodical^.^^ Fussler examined chemistry and physics, observing similar trends in the two scientific disciplines. Chemical literature, according to Fussler, reflected ci- tation rates of 5.63% for books and 92.1% for periodicals; the fig- ures for physics were 7.0% for books and 92.1% for periodical^.'^ These data are in stark contrast to the results of some studies in the humanities. Simonton found that fine arts scholars are more likely to refer to books (66.4%) than to periodicals (25.3%).11 Budd found similar behavior in American Literature, with 64% of citations made to books and 23% to periodical^.'^ The figures for English literature were 74.9% for books and 19.9% for periodicals3%nd for German literature were 78.13% for books and 21.12% for periodi- cals." Frye offered a personal anecdote to verify the dependency on books.
I notice that whenever I publish an article and get offprints, I may send the offprints to friends, but I seldom get any requests for them. On the other hand, when I gave an address to a convention of psychiatrists that was printed in a psychiatric
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journal, I got over a hundred requests for offprints. It was no surprise to me to learn that scientists tend to work with off- prints and abstracts, but I had not realized before so strongly how much the humanist tends to wait for the book. It is as though the humanist cannot really understand any aspect of his subject unless he studies a large configuration of it."
Ages of materials used also point to different approaches to re- search and scholarship. The sciences rely on more recent materials, as further data from some of the studies mentioned above have shown. A total of 72.3% of citations in geology were to materials fifteen years old or less." Kanasy found 82.28% of citations in mi- crobiology were to items of a similar age." Fussler discov'ered rates of 76.14% for chemistry and 91.8% for physics." The contrast is evident when available data for the humanities are considered. Budd's study of American literature showed that 42.5% of citations were to materials fifteen years old or less." Frost found that 44.7% of citations in German literature were to recent materials.46
The data provided by citation studies are supported by available studies of interlibrary loan practice. Palmoure et al. conducted a survey in 1971 of interlibrary loans at eighty academic institutions. In science and technology, 77.7% of items requested had publica- tion dates of 1961 through 1971; the figure for the humanities was 38.5%." Clarke examined 1980 data for the British Library Lend- ing Division. She found that 63% of requests in the sciences were for materials'more recent than 5.5 years old. In the humanities the figure was 31%.48
It is likely that the kinds of materials used affect the rate at which obsolescence occurs (if it occurs at all) in the humanities. Since the item studied in a particular instance may be the creation of someone long dead, the researcher must examine that item regardless of its age. A literary scholar studying Chaucer must read Chaucer; the reading of contemporary views of Chaucer is not sufficient. It is even possible that new discoveries may actually move scholarship backward in time. A recently published critical edition of a work may approximate the actual creation of the author more exactly than does an earlier publication. Thus the new edition provides the re- searcher with an earlier version of the work than the older edition.
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Secondary works may very well age and become obsolete as new discoveries are made, but this rate of obsolescence is probably lower for the humanities than for the sciences. As Line and Sandi- son have observed:
Literature may decline in use faster when
a. it deals with data of ephemeral relevance (e.g., prices, stocks, experimental filling in a theory)
b. it is in the form of a 'report,' thesis, 'advance communication' or preprint (which may be written up more fully or in more accessible form later)
c. it is in a rapidly advancing technology
Literature may decline in use more slowly when
a. it is descriptive (e.g., taxonomic botany, properties of materi- als, basic methodology)
b. it deals with concepts (e-g., philosophy, political theory, new or seminal ideas)
. c. it is critical (e.g., literary criticisms, hi~toriography)~~
If citation data indicate the reliance of the sciences on journal literature and of the humanities on the book, publishing data give further credence to the view of the humanities as book-bound. Ex- amination of book title production for the years 1981 through 1985 reveals that 41,457 titles were published in the sciences (defined as the categories agriculture, medicine, science, and techn~logy).'~ A total of 55,197 titles were published in the humanities (defined as the categories art, fiction, language, literature, music, philosophy, poetry and drama, and religion); the total is 64,285 if history is included. Sciences comprised 75.1% of the number in the humani- ties (64.5% including histoly among the humanities). It must be remembered that a number of general or popular titles are included in these figures; by no means are all of the titles scholarly.
A better indication of the output of scholarly titles may be the materials reviewed in Choice. Data on titles are available for 1983 through 1986. While the number of titles reviewed in Choice each
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year is relatively stable, selection for review is based on the schol- arly content and appropriateness for academic library collections. In four years, 3,942 titles in the sciences were reviewed. A total of 8,066 were reviewed in the humanities (11,185 if history, exclusive of geography and travel, is counted with the humanities rather than with the social sciences)." This means that science titles total only 48.9% of the number in the humanities (35.2% if history is num- bered among the humanities). Tenner has bemoaned the declining publication rate of books in the sciences, observing that
A good measure of the decline in scientific-book writing is the prestigious Baker Lectureship in the chemistry department at Cornell University. In the first ten years of the program, be- ginning in 1926, 17 published books resulted from 18 sets of lectures by distinguished chemists. By contrast, in the decade following 1966,4 books resulted from 11 sets by equally nota- ble scholars."
The behavior of the scholars points to a possible explanation for the 'different types of materials used in the humanities and in the sciences. Since obsolescence is not the major factor it is in science, the humanities scholar can draw on the entirety of materials written on a subject, not merely that which presents the latest facts. Also, since the humanities endeavor tends to be personal, it can delve into territories that have been explored on numerous occasions, but with a different, personal, viewpoint based on experience, history, or anything else the scholar chooses to infuse his work with. As Batts has point out, "Essentially, humanists are arguing a case which is rarely if ever demonstrable beyond doubt, and they must therefore use circumstantial evidence which is infinitely ~aried.''~' While the scientific tradition, being cumulative, tends to take note of all the building blocks used to reach a certain point, the disciplines of the humanities are more likely to reach their destination by a more cir- cuitous route. The humanities, therefore, do not usually include an accounting of all that has gone before; the debt would, in many cases, be too great to pay. A paper on Faulkner, for instance, at- tempting to acknowledge its intellectual debt to those who have blazed the trail would be a ponderous mass of notes or references.
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IMPLICATIONS FOR COLLECTION MANAGEMENT
If collections are built for use (immediate or eventual), the differ- ences between the sciences and the humanities may help inform decision-making in collection development. In fact, it is impossible to ignore the behavior of scholars when considering production and use of materials. It is not a revelation that scientists rely on the journal and that there is a relationship between this reliance and the strains on library materials budgets. The rapidly accelerating cost of journal subscriptions, particularly those in the sciences, are skew- ing materials expenditures, prompting libraries to examine closely the way they have been spending money in the past. It may be that a number of libraries will react to the situation with large-scale can- cellation of some journal subscriptions. The question that arises from this possible action centers on the effects, not only on poten- tial use, but also on production of scholarship.
Is there an underlying reason for the phenomenon noted above of the increasing amount of material produced, particularly in the sci- ences? William Broad and Nicholas Wade refer to the Least Pub- lishable Unit (LPU),
a euphemism in some scientific circles for getting as many separate articles as possible out of a single piece of scientific work. Instead of publishing one comprehensive paper that ties work together, a researcher will publish four or five short
This practice can be a means employed by some scientists to assure satisfactory (or higher) evaluations within academic departments. A possible repercussion is that, in order to compete for limited tenure slots and promotions, other scholars adopt similar behavior. As- suming such measures are taken by scholars leads one to conclude that the system of journal literature is enlarged, possibly beyond the actual need inherent in the system to communicate research. The effects, extended to the entirety of scholarly communication, are felt by libraries in the form of larger populations of extant journals and greater comoetition for limited financial resources.
1t ian be seen; then, that reducing research to its LPU has conse- quences for the overall mechanism of scholarly communication.
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One of the consequences is the fact that such behavior accentuates the problems of libraries as the means by which the communication process continues from production to use. The difficulty in deci- sion-making in libraries lies, not only with cost per subscription (although this is, of course, a problem that has been articulated by several writers), but also with the degree of choice that is available. As journals can only afford so many pages per year, the alternative means of handling the bulk of manuscripts is more journals. The effect is not limited to the sciences; pressure on scarce library re- sources affects the ability to purchase materials in the humanities and other areas as well.
A rational approach to the pressures on libraries necessitates ac- quiring knowledge of the many factors affecting the process of scholarly communication. The factors have intellectual, economic, and sociological bases which contribute to the complex relation- ships among disciplines. This paper presents an attempt to examine the relationship between the sciences and humanities-a relation- ship which defines two bodies of research and their output. An un- derstanding of the relationship can assist in making collection man- agement decisions.
CONCLUSION
That research and scholarship in the humanities and the sciences are different is undeniable. The ways in which they differ are inter- esting, though, and the two must be seen in contrast for the differ- ences to be appreciated. Empirical evidence shows that humanists rely more on self and less on a systematic search for materials, that they depend on the book to aid analysis and inquiry, and that the nature of humanities scholarship is personal. Humanities scholar- ship cannot and should not attempt to mimic scientific research, but, in examining the differences between the two, it may become evident that the humanities can adopt some of the technology (used in the broad sense of the word) of research in the sciences.
The debates and discussion surrounding the humanities and the sciences attest to the existence of two cultures. In fact, the argument
. itself, be it articulated in logical or emotional terms, is evidence of the two cultures. The two camps, it seems, are bent on taking dif-
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ferent paths to their destinations. While it may be that they share a common direction, it remains that they employ distinct means of travel. Many points can be (and have been) argued, but, in fact, no supremacy can be claimed. Each can learn from the other with re- gard to specific means of conducting research or approaching a problem. The fact is that the problems to be solved in one domain differ from those of the other. So, too, do the natures of scholarship differ. Once the differences are accepted, examination of the schol- arship and its literature can be fruitful. The understanding brought about by such an examination is useful, not only in describing the means by which separate scholars achieve their desired ends, but also in the acquisition and organization of the physical evidence of the scholars' efforts.
REFERENCES
1. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1959).
2. Michael Yudkin, "Sir Charles Snow's Rede Lecture," in Two Cultures? The Signifkunce of C. P. Snow, ed. F . R . Leavis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1963), p. 51.
3. F. R. Leavis, Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1963).
4. Matthew Arnold, "Literature and Science," in Philistinkm in England and America, vol. X of The Complete Prose of Matthew Arnold, ed. R. H. Super (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1974).
5. Thomas Henry Huxley, "Science and Culture," in Science and Educa- tion: Essays (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899).
6. Jacob Bronowski, "The Educated Man in 1984," Science 123:710 (April 27, 1956).
7. Ibid. 8. Lionel Trilling, "Science, Literature & Culture: A Comment on the
Leavis-Snow Controversy," Commentary 6 (June 1962): 461-77. 9. 1. Roben Oppenheimer, "On Science and Culture," Encounter 19:3-10
(October 1962). 10.. Martin Green, "The Two Cultures Gap Revisited," American Journal of
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Though!, ed. F. E . Manual (Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1966), pp. 31-32. 12. Adous Huxley, Literature and Science (New York: Harper & Row,
1963), p. 6 . 13. Ibid., p. 7.
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14. Ibid., p. 8. 15. Pierce Butler, "The Research Worker's Approach to Books-The Hu-
manist," in The Acquisition and Cataloging of Boob, ed. William H. Randall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), p. 273.
16. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 175.
17. Ibid., pp. 47-48. 18. Lloyd Houser, "The Classification of Science Literatures by Their 'Hard-
ness'," Library & Information Science Research 8:362 (October-December 1986).
19. R. S. Crane, The Idea of the Humanities, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp. 10-11.
20. D. J. Urquhart, "The Needs of the Humanities: An Outside View," Jour- nal of Documentation 16:22 (September 1960). Kuhn, however, would take issue with the notion of the cumulative process of scientific research. He says that a different historical approach makes it difficult to answer questions about revolu- tionary scientific discoveries using the "development-by-accumulation" concept. Kuhn's idea seems to be more appropriate to a description of scientific revolution, while Urquhart's more aptly describes the process of "normal science."
21. C. P. Snow, "The Case of Leavis and the Serious Case," Times Literary Supplement, July 9, 1970, pp. 739-40.
22. Eugene Garfield, "Is Information Retrieval in the Arts and Humanities Inherently Different from That in Science? The Effect ISl's Citation Index for the Arts and Humanities Is Expected to Have on Scholarship," Library Quarterly, 50:43 (January 1980).
23. Northrop Frye, "The Search for Acceptable Words," Daedalm 102:19 (1973).
24. N. W. Storer, "The Hard Sciences and the Soft: Some Sociological Ob- servations," Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 55:75-84 (January 1967).
25. Anthony Biglan, "Relationships Between Subject Matter Characteristics and the Structure and Output of University Departments," Journal of Applied Psychology 57:204-13 (1973).
26. Derek J. de Solla Price, "Citation Measures of Hard Science, Soft Sci- ence, Technology, and Nonscience," in Communication Among Scientists and Engineers, ed. Carnot E . Nelson and Donald K. Pollock (Lexington, MA: Heath Lexington Books, 1970). pp. 3-22.
27. William Miller, Collection Development in the Literature of the Humani- ties: Can Citation Analysis Provide a Rational Guide? (Beaverton, OR: Blackwell North America, 1976).
28. Houser, "The Classification of Science Literatures," pp. 357-72. 29. Mary Ellen Soper, "Characteristics and Use of Personal Collections,"
Library Quarrerly 46:412 (October 1976). 30. Bernhard Fabian and Rudolph Vierhaus, "The Calling and Condition of
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the Humanities Disciplines: The Future of the Humanities: Report of a Confer- ence," Minewa 17549-54 (Winter 1979).
31. Science Citation Index, Guide & Lbts of Source Publicationr, 1986 (Phil- adelphia: Institute for Scientific Information, 1987), p. 29.
32. Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Guide & Lists of Source Publications, 1986 (Philadelphia: Institute for Scientific Information, 1987), p. 32.
33. Eugene Garfield, "Arts and Humanities Journals Differ from Natural and Social Sciences but Their Similarities Are Surprising," in Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Guide & Journal Lists (Philadelphia: Institute for Scientific Infor- mation, 1984), p. 11.
34. J. E. G. Craig, Jr., "Characteristics of Use of Geology Literature," Col- lege & Research Libraries, 30:230-36 (May 1969).
35. James E. Kanasy, "Citation Characteristics and Bibliographic Control of the Literature of Microbiology," dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1971.
36. Herman Fussler, "Characteristics of the Research Literature Used by Chemists and Physicists in the United States," Library Quarterly 19:19-35 (Janu- ary 1949) and "Characteristics of the Research Literature Used by Chemists and Physicists in the United States. Part 11," Library Quarterly 19:119-43 (April 1949).
37. Wesley Simonton, "Characteristics of the Research Literature of the Fine Arts During the Period, 1948-1957," dissertation, University of Illinois, 1960.
38. John Budd, "Characteristics of Written Scholarship in American Litera- ture: A Citation Study," Library & Information Science Research 8:189-211 (April-June 1986).
39. Richard Heinzkill, "Characteristics of References in Selected Scholarly English Literary Journals," Library Quarterly 50:352-65 (July 1980).
40. Carolyn 0. Frost, "The Use of Citations in Literary Research: A Prelimi- nary Classification of Citation Functions," Library Quarterly 49:399-414 (Octo- ber 1979).
41. Frye, "The Search for Acceptable Words," p. 14. 42. Craig, "Characteristics of Use of Geology Literature." pp. 230-36. 43. Kanasy, "Citation Characteristics and Bibliographic Control." 44. Fussler. "Characteristics of the Research Literature," pp. 19-35 and
"Part 11," pp. 119-43. 45. Budd, "Characteristics of Written Scholarship," pp. 189-211. 46. Frost, "The Use of Citations in Literary Research," pp. 399-414. 47. Vernon Palmour, Edward C. Bryant, Nancy W. Caldwell, and Lucy M.
Gray, A Study of the Characteristics, Costs, and Magnitude of Interlibrary Loans in Academic Libraries (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972).
48. Ann Clarke, "The Use of Serials at the British Library Lending Division in 1980," Interlending Review 9:111-17 (October 1981).
49. Maurice B. Line and A. Sandison, "'Obsolescence' and Changes in the Use of Literature with Time," Journal of Documentation 30:317-18 (September 1974).
50. Chandler B. Grannis, "Book Title Output and Average Prices: 1982 Pre-
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liminary Figures," in The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1983), pp. 371-79, Chandler B. Grannis, "Book Title Output and Average Prices: 1983 Preliminary Figures," in The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1984), pp. 41 1- 18, Chandler B. Grannis, "Book Title Output and Average Prices: 1984 Prclimi- nary Figures," in The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Infomation (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1985), pp. 459-68, Chandler B. Grannis, "Book Title Output and Average Prices: 1985 Preliminary Figures," in The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1986), pp. 419- 28, and Chandler B. Grannis, "Book Title Output and Average Prices: 1986 Preliminary Figures," in The Bowker Annualof Library and Book Trade Informa- tion (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1987), pp. 411-21.
51. Kathryn A. Soupiset, "College Book Price Information 1983," Choice 21:1577-79 (July-August 1984), Kathryn A. Soupiset, "College Book Price In- formation 1984," Choice 22:1107-11 (April 1985), Kathryn A. Soupiset, "Col- lege Book Price Information 1985," Choice 23:999-1003 (March 1986), and Kathryn A. Soupiset, "College Book Price Information 1986," Choice 24: 1006- 10 (March 1987).
52. Edward Tenner, "The 'Two Cultures' and the Decline of the Scientific Book," Chronicle of Higher Education 34:A48 (September 9, 1987).
53. M. S. Batts, "Citations in the Humanities," IPLO Quanerly 14:35 (July 19731 -- . -
54.. William Broad and Nicholas Wade, Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. 55.
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