The central focus of this research was to analyze the impact of ideas originating from within librarianship and information retrieval and those from other disciplines. Twelve most cited journals in librarianship and information retrieval (source specialties) were chosen for citation analysis. From these journals, 40 articles were randomly selected from the last complete year and their references recorded, resulting in 1,159 citations. The analysis consisted of measurements of self-citation, cross-fertilization (proportion of citations made by one to the other source specialty), and openness (the degree to which a specialty is open to the ideas of other disciplines). Results showed that about half of all citations were self-citations, which is lower than the 70 percent average citation rate found in other scientific disciplines. The two source citations did not cite each other to any great extent. They drew about half of their citations from other disciplines; however, they seemed to be influenced by two different sets of disciplines. Suggested implications are that information retrieval and librarianship are interdisciplinary in nature. Required knowledge for problem-solution may be drawn from any pertinent disciplines as the need arises, rather than as a result of internal intellectual, systematic development. (Author/SW)