Interdisciplinary research presents unique challenges and unique opportunities for collaboration, but measuring the impact of interdisciplinary research creates particular opportunities for subject librarians. Researchers working in the field of applied zooarchaeology collect data about ancient animal populations by examining animal remains found at archaeological sites. These data provide historic insights that would be of use to scholars working in a variety of disciplines, but the question has lingered among applied zooarchaeologists as to whether their colleagues in other disciplines have been discovering and citing the published data. The authors of the current study designed a citation analysis to measure the impact of applied zooarchaeological publications beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of anthropology/archaeology. The authors then reflect on the implications of the findings for not just applied zooarchaeology, but for interdisciplinarity, for discovery and collection management, and for collaboration and demonstrating value.

跨学科研究提出了独特的挑战和独特的合作机会，但衡量跨学科研究的影响为学科图书馆员创造了特殊的机会。在应用动物考古学领域工作的研究人员通过检查在考古遗址发现的动物遗骸来收集有关古代动物种群的数据。这些数据提供了对从事各种学科工作的学者有用的历史见解，但在应用动物考古学家中，他们的其他学科的同事是否已经发现并引用了已发表的数据，这个问题一直困扰着应用动物考古学家。当前研究的作者设计了一项引文分析，以衡量超出人类学/考古学传统学科界限的应用动物考古学出版物的影响。