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.