The Scholar’s Courtesy: The Role of Acknowledgment in the Primary Communication Process

This small, questing book by Professor Cronin shows yet again how the UK’s loss is USA’s gain. We lack many innovative, creative thinkers and theoreticians in the LIS profession and this intriguing volume demonstrates that Cronin has not lost his form while sojourning in American academia. He has taken the little examined role of the “mentor” in LIS research and explored with rigour and originality this hidden area of our professional discipline. “Acknowledgment is rooted in reciprocation” ‐ scholars work rarely in a vacuum, so the formative influence of other scholars and peers is important and incompletely understood. Citation analysis is widely used but acknowledgment analysis remains an uncharted area. Cronin writes about the obsessional detailed mass of material which has to be assembled as evidence for tenure and productivity (pace the research assessment exercise!) ‐ the “productivist scramble” par excellence. Citations are, of course, objective and exist in the public domain (e.g. papers, theses, books); acknowledgments are essentially personal, a private interaction difficult to quantify and under‐recognised and undervalued. Cronin raises the intriguing possibility that there is within the LIS research and academic community a “hidden population of influential teachers and researchers whose contributions as mentors, stimulators and nurturers are not revealed adequately through indivdual publications and citations counts” ‐ a sobering thought indeed. But how to organise such accreditation? As the author points out, only one in two LIS scholarly and research articles includes an acknowledgment statement. All in all, a stimulating, engaging scholarly work venturing into a barely explored field, well written and possessing some useful Appendices, a sound bibliography ‐ all contributing to a valuable and original addition to the body of LIS research literature.