Abstract: iSchools are a representative academic community that explores disciplinary integration from the perspective of Library and Information Science (LIS). A thorough research on its intellectual structure and composition can provide references for Chinese LIS schools in the transition period towards information resources management. From the perspective of community identity, this study conducted the LDA model and Louvain algorithm on the research interest texts of scholars from iSchools to detect its overall intellectual structure and community composition. It is found that the current intellectual structure of iSchools can be summarized into four modules: interdisciplinary frontier, LIS, information technology, and humanities informatics. Further, Four typical models of discipline construction are discovered within iSchools, which are multidisciplinary information studies, library, information and archives management, information technology, and humanities information studies. In addition to strengthening the discipline foundation and shaping discipline identity, it is suggested that Chinese LIS schools construct a novel intellectual structure with Chinese characteristics, based on referring to foreign experience.

Key words: Community identity, iSchools, Intellectual structure, Community detection, Library and information science, Discipline construction