Information Seeking Behavior of Science Researchers at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Background Information
1. What department are you in? ______
2. What is your campus box (CB) number? ______
3. What is your major field of research? ______
4. What is your position?
Faculty Graduate Student / Research Assistant
____ Professor ____ Masters Student
____ Associate Professor ____ Doctoral Student
____ Assistant Professor ____ Post graduate/fellow
____ Staff/Adjunct ____ Other (please specify): ______
5. What is your age? ______
6. What is your gender? Male _____ Female ______
7. Do you have access to the internet in your (check all that apply)
____ office/lab
____ department or campus public computer
____ home
____ no internet connection
8. Approximately how much time, on average, do you spend reading information relevant to your work?
____ hours per week
9. How many articles have you published in refereed journals in the last 5 years?
____ 0-4 ____ 5-9 ____ 10-14 ____ 15-19 ____ 20 or more
Types of Resources Used
10. How often do you use the following types of resources as a primary source of information for your research? For each item, please circle one of the numbers on the following scale:
Never Annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily
0 1 2 3 4 5
monographs 0 1 2 3 4 5
textbooks 0 1 2 3 4 5
journals 0 1 2 3 4 5
preprints 0 1 2 3 4 5
attendance at conferences 0 1 2 3 4 5
conference proceedings 0 1 2 3 4 5
web pages 0 1 2 3 4 5
online databases 0 1 2 3 4 5
personal communications 0 1 2 3 4 5
other (please describe): 0 1 2 3 4 5
______
Keeping Current
11. What are the five (or fewer) most important individual sources that you read to stay current in your field? Please list them in order of importance (#1 most important) and indicate how often you read them by circling one of the choices.
Annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily
1 2 3 4 5
(1) ______1 2 3 4 5
(2) ______1 2 3 4 5
(3) ______1 2 3 4 5
(4) ______1 2 3 4 5
(5) ______1 2 3 4 5
12. Do you use any current awareness services, or alerts, to help keep current? If you do, please list them in order of importance (#1 most important). For instance PubMed Alerts, ISI XX, Inspec, Faculty 1000, etc).
(1) ______
(2) ______
(3) ______
(4) ______
(5) ______
Searching For Information
13. How do you search out information relevant to your research work? For each type of search method, please indicate how frequently you use it by circling one of the numbers on the following scale:
Never Annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily
0 1 2 3 4 5
0 1 2 3 4 5 abstracting/indexing tools/databases (Science Citation Index,, PubMed, CiteSeer, etc)
0 1 2 3 4 5 web search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.)
0 1 2 3 4 5 citations (looking up citations from articles, or looking up articles that cite a particular article).
0 1 2 3 4 5 asking a colleague (phone, in person, email)
0 1 2 3 4 5 asking the library (reference librarian)
0 1 2 3 4 5 posting to newsgroup, listserv, wiki, special interest group etc.
0 1 2 3 4 5 browsing (online, or in library)
0 1 2 3 4 5 other (please describe): ______
14. What are the seven (or fewer) most important tools you use to search out information? Examples: ISI Science Citation Index, PubMed/Entrez, ArticleFirst , Google, colleague, specific listserv, CiteSeer, BIOSIS, Chemical Abstracts, ERIC, INSPEC, Mathmatical Reviews, ACM Digital Library, Physics Abstract, NetLibrary, Safari Online, arXiv, NDLTD, etc. Please rank them (#1 most important), and also indicate how often you use them by circling one of the frequency choices (1-5).
Annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily
1 2 3 4 5
#1 ______1 2 3 4 5
#2 ______1 2 3 4 5
#3 ______1 2 3 4 5
#4 ______1 2 3 4 5
#5 ______1 2 3 4 5
#6 ______1 2 3 4 5
#7 ______1 2 3 4 5
15. How do you obtain articles? (please put a check by all the methods you use).
____ [Electronic] personal subscription
____ [Electronic] Lab’s subscription
____ [Electronic] library’s subscription
____ [Electronic] web site (e.g. publications on author’s web site)
____ [Electronic] access to public (free) version (open archive, PubMed, digital library, etc)
____ [Electronic] electronic copy of a colleague’s electronic version
____ [Print] personal subscription
____ [Print] lab subscription
____ [Print] read library’s copy
____ [Print] photocopy library’s copy
____ [Print] print copy of a colleague’s print copy
____ [Print] interlibrary loan
____ document delivery service (please specify): ______
____ other (please describe): ______
16. For the same choices as in (15) please rank the most important ways you obtain articles, by writing in 1,2,3,4,5 next to entries for the first, second, third, fourth and fifth most important, respectively.
____ [Electronic] personal subscription
____ [Electronic] Lab’s subscription
____ [Electronic] library’s subscription
____ [Electronic] web site (e.g. publications on author’s web site)
____ [Electronic] access to public (free) version (open archive, PubMed, digital library, etc)
____ [Electronic] electronic copy of a colleague’s electronic version
____ [Print] personal subscription
____ [Print] lab subscription
____ [Print] read library’s copy
____ [Print] photocopy library’s copy
____ [Print] print copy of a colleague’s print copy
____ [Print] interlibrary loan
____ document delivery service (please specify): ______
____ other (please describe): ______
Personal Reprint Collection
17. Do you maintain a personal reprint collection? (print and/or electronic copies)
____ no
____ yes; if yes please indicate the approximate sizes of both your print and electronic collections:
Print (circle one): 1-99 100-499 500-999 1000+
Electronic (circle one): 1-99 100-499 500-999 1000+
18. How often do you utilize your personal reprint collection? Please circle one.
Never Annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily
19. Do you maintain a personal bibliographic database for print and/or electronic resources?
____ no
____ yes. If YES, please specify
(a) the software you use (e.g., EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, etc.): ______
(b) the percentage of articles in your personal reprint collection that you have entries for in your personal bibliographic database. (0-100%) ______
20. Of articles you have in your personal reprint collection, what percentage of them have you made some sort of annotation on (electronically or print)? (0-100%) ______
21. How do you search out information from articles in your personal reprint collection? On what attributes?
Searching and Using Information
22. If given the option, how would you prefer to search for information? Choose one:
____ print versions of databases and journals ____ electronic versions of databases and journals
23. If given the option, how would you prefer to read retrieved information (journal articles, etc)? Choose one:
____ print (hardcopy) only ____ electronic (computer) only ____ both / it depends
24. How often do you visit your library in person to retrieve information? Please circle one:
Never Annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily
0 1 2 3 4 5
25. What determines your choice of journals for the publication of your own work? Please circle one value (1-5) on the significance scale for each factor.
Insignificant Significant
1 2 3 4 5
standing of journal in your field 1 2 3 4 5
audience 1 2 3 4 5
editorial board 1 2 3 4 5
speed of publication 1 2 3 4 5
page charges 1 2 3 4 5
ability to include links, color, graphics, multimedia 1 2 3 4 5
support of open access to journal articles 1 2 3 4 5
availability on campus 1 2 3 4 5
26. Please add any other comments regarding library resources and services. What are the major shortcomings of the current system? Are there services that you need that the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill do not provide?
27. Imagine that you could have information made available to you in any form you desired. What one thing would you change to improve your access to, or use of, scholarly information?