Latest Issue of Historical Social Research Released

We are pleased to announce that the lated issue of our journal, Historical Social Research (HSR), has been released:

Historical Social Research 38 (2013) 3: Space/Time Practices

This new HSR issue contains a Special Issue and a Focus:

Special Issue: Sebastian Dorsch & Susanne Rau (Eds.): Space/Time Practices. Theories, Methods, Analyses from Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Whereas in cultural studies and the social sciences concerned with social dimensions of space and time the tendency to treat both dimensions separately has increased in recent years, this special issue brings together contributions from different disciplines in order to analyze spatial and temporal practices together. Its underlying thesis is that spatiality and temporality are inseparable within the lifeworld.

Along with a programmatic introduction, this issue contains three essays which critically address methodological and theoretical questions in the works of Michel de Certeau, Reinhart Koselleck and Mircea Eliade, and discuss their applicability. Ten additional essays, covering topics from antiquity to the twentieth century, analyze such concrete space-time practices as borders, memory, writing, cartography, interpretations of temporality, and processes of urbanization. Each essay takes relevant theoretical approaches into account. They all test and present the applicability of their methodological tools insofar as they start with specific questions within determinate contexts and situate them within more abstract discussions. They thereby contribute to current theoretical debates in cultural studies and the social sciences. Encompassing several epochs and regions, these multidisciplinary perspectives provide multifaceted insights into space-time practices. This HSR Special Issue is published in cooperation with the research unit “Erfurter RaumZeit-Forschung” of the University of Erfurt.

Focus: Philipp Schaer: Information Retrieval and Informetrics: The Application of Informetric Methods in Digital Libraries

Recent user studies in digital libraries show two weaknesses of the classical IR approach: ranking of retrieved documents and the language problem during the query formulation phase. Recent developments in the area of applied informetrics show very promising effects by using long-known informetric and bibliometric methods like the analysis of power-law distributions described by Lotka’s, Zipf’s or Bradford’s laws. This work will concentrate on the description of the open problems and the current approaches to surpass these by using applied informetrics methodologies.

Elise Kammerer GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Journal Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung Unter Sachsenhausen 6-8 50667 Cologne Germany Visit the website at http://www.gesis.org/en/hsr/current-issues/current-issues-2011-2013/current-issue-383-spacetime-practices/