A hierarchical typology of scholarly information units: based on a deduction-verification study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to lay a theoretical foundation for identifying operational information units for library and information professional activities in the context of scholarly communication. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a deduction-verification approach to formulate a typology of units for scholarly information. It first deduces possible units from an existing conceptualization of information, which defines information as the combined product of data and meaning, and then tests the usefulness of these units via two empirical investigations, one with a group of scholarly papers and the other with a sample of scholarly information users. Findings The results show that, on defining an information unit as a piece of information that is complete in both data and meaning, to such an extent that it remains meaningful to its target audience when retrieved and displayed independently in a database, it is then possible to formulate a hierarchical typology of units for scholarly information. The typology proposed in this study consists of three levels, which in turn, consists of 1, 5 and 44 units, respectively. Research limitations/implications The result of this study has theoretical implications on both the philosophical and conceptual levels: on the philosophical level, it hinges on, and reinforces the objective view of information; on the conceptual level, it challenges the conceptualization of work by IFLA’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records and Library Reference Model but endorses that by Library of Congress’s BIBFRAME 2.0 model. Practical implications It calls for reconsideration of existing operational units in a variety of library and information activities. Originality/value The study strengthens the conceptual foundation of operational information units and brings to light the primacy of “one work” as an information unit and the possibility for it to be supplemented by smaller units.