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Doctoral students rely on their peers as important information sources. However, information behavior studies in academic settings most often describe peers as intermediaries who simply assist individuals' information seeking for academic resources. To address this issue, the authors interviewed six LIS doctoral students at Florida State University in order to explore the types of peer relationships and information sharing between LIS doctoral students. The preliminary findings confirmed the existence of close, social/academic, and other peers that can be categorized as special, collegial, and information peers using Kram and Isabella's continuum of peer relationships. In addition, it was found that work-related and everyday life information is shared in all three types of peer relationships, while relational strength influences the scope and depth of information sharing. Future work will investigate the role of peers as mentors and agents of socialization in academic settings, and will further address the types of information shared as part of such mentoring relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citation analysis, in addition to peer review, is one of the popular methods to assess faculty research performance. In some disciplines, the validity of citation counts for evaluating research has been proven by many studies. However, it should be used cautiously when different disciplines are concerned, because citation practices may vary across disciplines. Although there have been studies that have examined the different citation practices across disciplines, relatively little research has investigated the citation rates of subject areas within a single discipline. This study explores the citation rates of subject areas in library and information science (LIS) in Korea. The preliminary results of this study will provide the rationale for further work, analyzing the causes of different citation patterns in a discipline. Ultimately, the study could provide useful implications for understanding and using the citation counts in assessing research performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]