The reward system of science is undergoing significant changes, as traditional indicators compete with initiatives that offer novel means of disseminating and assessing scholarly impact. This paper considers a number of aspects of this reward system, including authorship, citations, acknowledgements, and the growing use of social media platforms by academics, with an eye towards identifying contemporary issues relating to scholarly communication practices, as understood through the perspectives of Bourdieu's symbolic capital and Merton's recognition paradigms. This paper posits that, while scientific capital remains the foundation upon which the reward system of science is built, this system is revealing itself to be more and more multifaceted, extremely complex, and facing increasing tension between its traditional means of evaluation and the potential of new indicators in the digital era. The paper presents an extended literature review, as well as recommendations for further considerations and empirical research. A better understanding of the perceptions of academics would be necessary to properly assess the effects of these new indicators on scholarly communication practices and the reward system of science. 1 Our translation of "on ne peut pas comprendre le capital symbolique, et les effets symboliques du capital [, sans réintroduire ce que j'appelle l'illusio]".
This review of the literature presents an overview of the last 50 years of research on acknowledgments in the context of scholarly communication. Through qualitative coding and bibliometric methods, this meta-synthesis provides an in-depth description of acknowledgments research and reveals the five main thematic categories that emerge from this corpus of literature. Adopting a historical approach, this review shows a diversified and scattered research landscape. Despite five decades of analysis putting forward the potential value of acknowledgments as markers of scientific capital, the literature still lacks consensus as to the value and functions of acknowledgments within the reward system of science.1. What is the comprehensive landscape of acknowledgments research from the past five decades? 2. Does acknowledgment research build upon the preexisting body of research? 3. What are the thematic categories of acknowledgments research and how is the literature distributed among them?Additional Supporting Information may be found online at:
This article examines the contribution of social discovery platforms and user-generated content (UGC) on readers' advisory (RA) services in Canadian public libraries. Grounded Theory was used to conduct a content analysis of library-assigned subject headings and UGC of 22 adult fiction titles in 43 Canadian public libraries that use BiblioCommons, SirsiDynix, and Encore social discovery platforms. Findings indicate that UGC complements the MARC bibliographic record as it provides insight into the subject of a work, itsprotagonists, and the effect the book has on readers. User-generated reviews provide a rich data set that clearly connects to known RA access points.
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