Information Seeking Behavior
Arts and Humanities 22%
Physical Sciences and Engineering 6%
Medical and Biological Sciences 8%
% of researchers that felt they require training in the uses of electronic information sources
% of researchers that felt they required no more training
Arts and Humanities 14%
Physical Sciences and Engineering 40%
Medial and Biological Sciences 24%
East, J. W. Information Literacy for the Humanities Researcher: A Syllabus Based on Information Habits Research. The Journal of Academic Librianship , 31 (2), 134-142.
Rely on subject experts Interested principally in primary materials and
will travel to obtain access to them Comfortable with “detective-like” approach
Browsing Citation chasing Constant reading in subject area
Initiate research projects in haphazard ways Older materials very important to historians
Barrett, A. The Information-Seeking Habits of Graduate Student Researchers in the Humanities. The Journal of Academic Librarianship , 31 (4), 324-331.
98% found materials by following leads and citations in printed sources
81% searched printed bibliographies 56% consulted printed documentary
editions 81% searched printed finding aids 81% searched printed repository guides 57% used newspaper files to find other
materials 59% used government documents to
findother materialsTibbo, H. R. 2002. Primarily history: historians and the search for primary source materials. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (Portland, Oregon, USA, July 14 - 18, 2002). JCDL '02. ACM, New York, NY, 1-10.
68% used own institution’s online public access catalog (OPAC)
65% searched other institutions OPACS via Internet
58% used bibliographic utilities 61% look for information directly on
repository websites 46% searched for primary materials
using search engines
Tibbo, H. R. 2002. Primarily history: historians and the search for primary source materials. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (Portland, Oregon, USA, July 14 - 18, 2002). JCDL '02. ACM, New York, NY, 1-10.
Books and journals are primary sources Consult colleagues and initial print
source material for references to other work
Use catalogs to find secondary source materials rarely
Limited use of bibliographic tools
Tiratel, S. R. Accessing Information Use by Humanists and Social Scientists: A Study at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Journal of Academic Librarianship , 26 (5), 346-354.
Humanities Social Scientists
Prefer to examine journals then consult with colleagues
Humanities scholars use older material - 74% older than 20 years
Prefer to consult with colleagues then journals
Social scientists prefer more recent material – 50% older than 20 years
Tiratel, S. R. Accessing Information Use by Humanists and Social Scientists: A Study at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Journal of Academic Librarianship , 26 (5), 346-354.
Tiratel, S. R. Accessing Information Use by Humanists and Social Scientists: A Study at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Journal of Academic Librarianship , 26 (5), 346-354.
Provide training on use of online databases, library catalogues of own and other libraries, how to create personal bibliographic references electronically
Up-to-date books and journals for browsing Good inter-library loan services Information on electronic discussion lists
and forthcoming conferences Be aware of major publishers in the
discipline Understand importance of theses Understand how to locate specialist
gateways and search enginesEast, J. W. Information Literacy for the Humanities Researcher: A Syllabus Based on Information Habits Research. The Journal of Academic Librianship , 31 (2), 134-142.