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Hej,
En viktig del i en forskares gärning är att söka och hitta relevant
information
En unik undersökning har gjorts i England genom telefonintervjuer
av 395 akademiska forskare och 55 högskolebibliotekarier.
Researchers and discovery services. Behaviour, perceptions and needs.
A study commissioned by the Research Information Network.
November 2006
http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/Report%20-%20final.pdf
http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/Report%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
I stort är dom brittiska forskarna nöjda med dom hjälpmedel som finns,
humanister klagar dock över luckor. Humanister och samhällsvetare saknar
utlänskt material
Bibliotekarier och forskare har samma syn på många punkter men
på några finns skillnader:
As already noted, there are a number of important points of agreement
between librarians
and researchers concerning the quality of discovery services, the
availability of resources and
the gaps and problems that exist. There is also agreement that personal
contact between
researchers and librarians is irregular, and researchers do their own
searches in the vast
majority of cases. But librarians over-rated the importance to
researchers of datasets and
under-rated the importance of non-text resources. There is also a
divergence of view about
searching, with researchers making heavy use of search engines and
librarians barely
mentioning them as a key tool. While researchers themselves are
generally confident in their
abilities in terms of discovery, librarians see them as tending to be
conservative in the range
of tools used and relatively unsophisticated in their search methods.
Consequently,
librarians think that many researchers are not exploiting services to
the full. Unsurprisingly,
librarians see it as a problem that they are not reaching all
researchers with formal training,
whereas most researchers dont think they need it.
Intressant är att rapporten visar att Google och Google Scholar behövs
men inte på
något sätt ersätter andra källor:
Google (Figure 8) is used for a variety of general search tasks, but not
significantly for
those that are critical to research: in tasks such as finding a
reference or researching a
new area most users also use other tools as well. Locating datasets and
non-text sources
are important uses of general search engines as they are not
well-identified elsewhere.
■ Google Scholar (Figure 9) is used mainly for tracking down references
rather than
searching for unknown publications or articles. Researchers appear to be
using it for
convenience rather than relying on it for research in depth.
■ Use of colleagues (Figure 10): colleagues are asked for information
about many
areas. Of these, the most important in terms of direct input into
research are researching
a new area and locating datasets. Other questions asked of colleagues
focus on
information that may not be recorded in formal resource discovery services.
■ General web search (Figure 11) includes Google as well as other search
services.
Usage is similar to Google, although other engines are less likely to be
used for critical
tasks such as researching a new area or finding a reference.
■ Bibliographic databases (Figure 12), including abstracting and
indexing services,
are used for tasks that are essential for research itself. Their use is
evenly divided
between the three main tasks of researching new areas, finding
references and literature
reviews, which is what they are intended for. This also suggests that
they are used during
a project as well as at the start of one.
■ Web of Science and Web of Knowledge (Figure 13) are among the most-used
named resources, and are the most-used subscription-based services: this
is in a large
part due to both their multidisciplinary nature and their apparent
penetration of the
end-user community as well as the library/information specialist
community. They are
used in the same way as other bibliographic and A&I services.
Bibliographic databases and Web of Science/Web of Knowledge are used for
the three core
activities of researching a new area, literature review, and finding
references. Researchers,
contrary to some hypotheses, are not relying on general web search for
these mission-critical
tasks, but are using the general search engines to support the other
tools they use.
The main uses of all the more general tools (such as Google, other forms
of general web
search and asking colleagues) are for more general background
information activities. It is,
however, worth noting that the general tools are also used to locate
datasets whereas
bibliographic tools are not. This suggests that datasets have not yet
entered the mainstream
as far as perceptions of how to locate them and that more focused tools
are not providing the
detail that researchers need.
Google Scholar är mindre populär än Google:
Googles ubiquity needs no explanation, and by extension, neither does
Google Scholar. The
fact that Google is much more widely used than Google Scholar may seem
surprising, but
expert panel members point out that Google Scholar is still a beta
service and also that it is
not actually as good as Google, a point echoed by some interviewees who
have noticed that it
is not being updated. However, some interviewees do like it a great deal.
Intressant är att traditionella källor används i liten utsträckning:
Traditional sources such as abstracting and indexing services,
bibliographic databases, and
citation indexes, are used frequently by only a minority of researchers.
Citation indexes, for
example, are used regularly by less than a third of those interviewed.
Ett annat intressant faktum är att forskarna utnyttjar hellre sina
kontakter vid andra institutioner
för att snabbt få kopior av artiklar än utnyttjar bibliotekens tjänster:
Only a limited number of academic researchers (25%) pay for additional
services and
sources, if these services are not available from their institution
see Table 15. What is
much more likely is that other researchers would be contacted in other
institutions where the
service is taken. These academic networks are important for sharing
information and
overcoming the lack of access to specific services and sources in
specific institutions.
Particularly useful in this respect are researchers with access to
journals in other institutions
which are not taken by the interviewees institution. Various
researchers use these contacts to
obtain articles, often avoiding other options such as inter-library
loans which are seen as slow
and costly.
Man skulle önska att en motsvarande bred och djup undersökning gjordes i
Sverige som
täckte hela det vetenskapliga fältet.
För övrigt anser jag att det var ett olyckligt beslut att lägga ner
ScieCom.
Jan
--
<html>
<font size=3>Jan Szczepanski<br>
Förste bibliotekarie<br>
Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek<br>
Box 222<br>
SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN<br>
Tel: +46 31 773 1164 Fax: +46 31 163797<br>
E-mail: [log in to unmask]<br><br>
</font></html>
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