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Jamali, H.R., & Nicholas, D. Information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers, 2008. In Aslib Proceedings. Emerald. pp.444-462. (Published) [Journal Article (Print/Paginated)].
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Citable URI:
http://hdl.handle.net/10760/13096
Files in This Item:
| File |
Description |
Size | Format | Visibility |
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| JAMALIi-FINAL-preprint.pdf | | 1.11 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open
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| Author(s): | Jamali, Hamid R.
Nicholas, David |
| Title: | Information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers |
| Subjects: | C. Users, literacy and reading > CB. User studies |
| Date: | 30-Sep-2008 |
| Abstract: | Purpose – The study examines two aspects of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers including methods applied for keeping up-to-date and methods used for finding articles. The relationship between academic status and research field of users with their information seeking behaviour was investigated.
Methodology/approach – Data were gathered using a questionnaire survey of PhD students and staff of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London; 114 people (47.1 per cent response rate) participated in the survey.
Findings – The study reveals differences among subfields of physics and astronomy in terms of information-seeking behaviour, highlights the need for and the value of looking at narrower subject communities within disciplines for a deeper understanding of the information behaviour of scientists.
Originality/value – The study is the first study to deeply investigate intradisciplinary dissimilarities of information-seeking behaviour of scientists in a discipline. It is also an up-to-date account of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers. |
| Publication: | Aslib Proceedings |
| Volume: | 60 |
| Number: | 5 |
| Starting page: | 444 |
| Ending page: | 462 |
| Publisher: | Emerald |
| Keywords: | Physics, Astronomy, Information-seeking behaviour, User studies, Information behaviour |
| Country: | Iran, Islamic Republic of |
| Type: | Journal Article (Print/Paginated) |
| Rights: | http://eprints.rclis.org/copyright/ |
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References
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- Huntington, P., Nicholas, D., Jamali, H.R. and Tenopir, C. (2006), “Article decay in the digital environment: a usage analysis by date of publication employing deep log methods”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57 No. 13, pp. 1840-1851.
- Jamali, H.R. (2008), Information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers: an intradisciplinary study, unpublished PhD thesis, University College London, London.
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- Nicholas, D., Huntington, P., Dobrowolski, T., Rowlands, I., Jamali, H.R. and Polydoratou, P. (2005b), “Revisiting 'obsolescence' and journal article 'decay' through usage data: an analysis of digital journal use by year of publication”, Information Processing & Management, Vol. 41 No. 6, pp. 1441-1461.
- Nicholas, D., Huntington, P. and Jamali, H.R. (2006), “Authors as users: a deep log analysis linking demographic and attitudinal data obtained from scholarly authors with their usage of ScienceDirect”, Ciber, University College London, London.
- Nicholas, D., Huntington, P., Rowlands, I., Jamali, H.R. and Haynes, J. (2005a), “An investigation of physicists' information-seeking behaviour, publishing practices, and views on the scholarly publishing system: with special reference to the Institute of Physics and its journals”, report of an international survey”, CIBER, University College London, London.
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