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Home > Vol 22, No 3 (1997) > Noble

Information-Seeking Practices of Canadian Academic Chemists: A Study of Information Needs and Use of Resources in Chemistry

Ruth L. Noble (Concordia University)

Carol Coughlin (Concordia University)

Abstract: This paper presents selected results from a survey of Canadian academic chemists carried out in March 1996. These focus on the chemists' use of the journal literature and aspects of their experience with new information technologies. A discussion of these issues as they relate to libraries and scholarly communication is included.

Résumé: Cet article présente un choix de résultats obtenus lors d'un sondage effectué auprès de chimistes de certaines universités canadiennes au mois de mars 1996. Ces résultats portent sur l'utilisation des périodiques et des nouvelles technologies de l'information. L'article inclut aussi une discussion de ces sujets dans le contexte des bibliothèques universitaires et de la communication savante.

The study was carried out to investigate patterns of research and information-seeking practices of chemists in Canadian universities. The purpose was to obtain a better understanding of academic chemists' information needs, preferences, and practices; their experiences with new information technologies; and their perceptions of the university libraries' capacity to meet these information needs. There were no hypotheses being tested; the study was intended to produce a portrait of the survey population at that given time. It was hoped that this would then be useful when information issues concerning chemists were undergoing consideration.

A number of factors had suggested this study would be a timely undertaking. The first was the rapidly expanding volume of the chemical literature. Chemical Abstracts, which began in 1907 with abstracts of a modest 11,847 publications, has now reached over 16 million records (Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, OH, personal communication, February 27, 1997). Looking at this as a present rate of 13,000 journal articles and other documents per week, it is clear that current awareness would be a challenge for chemists, particularly those doing considerable research. The second factor was the cost associated with obtaining this literature. The cost of journals in the sciences and their continuing escalation has been well documented. Journals in chemistry have been top of the average price list for many years. The 1992 study prepared for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gives an historical development picture of the ongoing serials cost situation (Cummings, Witte, Bowen, Lazarus, & Ekman, 1992). A good summary of the history of scientific journals and related issues appears in Schaffner (1994). Thirdly, libraries have generally seen their budgets for collections unable to keep up with inflation and publishers' subscription price increases. The result of this situation has been the inability of university libraries to maintain the collections of journals that have traditionally supported work of their chemistry faculties. Finally, there was the proliferation of electronically based information resources and growth of the Internet, which were radically changing the information environment.

Literature review

A review of the literature found little that specifically looked at Canadian chemists and their information practices. In 1975, Katherine Packer's dissertation presented results of a survey of faculty in departments of chemistry and chemical engineering at Canadian universities. Her study was designed to investigate how scientists maintain current awareness in their fields of specialization and to discover the relative importance of their various means of communication, both formal and informal. A study by Schuegraf, Keliher, & van Bommel in 1992 looked at personal journal subscriptions of science faculty at a small undergraduate university, St. Francis Xavier University, and overlap with the library collections, among other factors. Recent works originating in Australia, Britain, and the United States, have examined use of the literature and information technology by scientists, particularly or including chemists. These include articles by Adams & Bonk (1995), Charton (1992), Heller (1994), Llull (1991), Meadows & Buckle (1992), Pötzscher & Wilson (1990), Rice & Tarin (1993), Schauder (1994), and Williams (1993). Jan Olsen's book (1994) reports on in-depth interviews with 16 chemists, as well as other scholars. From the British Library, of particular interest are the report by Philip & Cunningham (1995) and a 1993 Royal Society report which examined in detail the scientific, technical, and medical information system in the United Kingdom. Our study has adapted elements from many of the above to create a survey instrument from which data collected could be compared with certain earlier results. Many works on electronic journals appeared after this survey, and will be significant as electronic chemistry literature develops; these include the report on the CORE project (Stewart, 1996) and an extensive study by Harter & Kim (1996).

Survey population

Because the pressures of information gathering were likely to be heaviest upon academic chemists expected to do the most research, faculty in departments with graduate programs were the target population. University calendar lists of faculty in departments of chemistry and of chemistry and biochemistry that had doctoral programs were used to identify names of faculty and the number of faculty in the departments. Emeritus professors and certain names clearly associated with technical support or other adjunct positions were excluded.

The departments were placed into three categories based on number of faculty -- small being less than 25; medium-sized, 25 to 35; and large being over 35 members. Twelve departments from nine provinces were then selected to achieve a geographical balance. The number of faculty in each category of faculty size was comparable. Biochemists in separate departments of biochemistry or within other departments like medicine were not surveyed. Chemical engineers were also excluded.

Survey methodology

Questionnaires were sent to individual faculty in each of the departments selected to be surveyed. The questionnaire was accompanied by a letter explaining the purpose of the survey, as well as a return envelope. Space for written comments was included on the questionnaire. Further detail about the methodology and survey instrument can be obtained from the authors.

Responses and the respondents

Of 355 questionnaires sent, 131 usable returns represented a 37% return rate. This is 19% of the number of faculty in departments which met our original criteria.

The 131 respondents represent the primary sub-fields of chemistry, and included 11 analytical, 26 inorganic, 38 organic, and 35 physical chemists as well as 18 biochemists. Two respondents gave their fields as education, and one did not identify a specialty. By faculty rank, just over 50% were full professors, 28% were associate professors, and 15% assistant professors; 6% held other ranks. By age groupings, 53% were over 50 years of age, 23% each in the 40-to-49 and 30-to-39 age groups. Only one respondent was under 30. Nearly 70% supervised graduate students at master's or doctoral level or both. More than one half the respondents spent greater than 45% of their time doing research, with half of this group (one quarter of respondents) estimating that research took over 60% of their time. Two thirds of respondents had done research in collaboration with faculty at other Canadian or international universities during the past three years. In the same time span, just under one half of respondents had done some amount of research on contract with industry or external organizations.

The use of journals

How important are journals to these academic chemists? Browsing print journals in their specialty was ranked highest (85% agreement) of all activities that the chemists relied upon to keep up to date with the literature in their fields of interest. When asked how often they find important articles by browsing recent journal issues, 78% replied either "very often" or "quite often." The importance of browsing journals has been well documented in investigations of the information-seeking habits of scientists for many years. Don Schauder (1994, p. 84) summarizes a number of studies attesting to the prevalence and value of browsing to academics.

Asked to indicate the number of journals significantly related to their current primary research fields, 40% stated "more than 10" and 43% "between 6 and 9." Of the 131 respondents, 98 have personal subscriptions to journals; most of these have 3 or fewer subscriptions, 23 have between 4 and 6, while 4 chemists stated they get more than 6 journals. Charton (1992, p. 201) found that chemists pay for books and journal subscriptions to support their research "both from their own funds and with whatever grant and departmental money they have available." The chemists interviewed by Olsen (1994, p.16) subscribed to an average of five journals each.

How do libraries fit into the journal picture? The chemists were asked approximately how many journals they would "try not to miss" scanning regularly in university library collections. Responses ranged from "none" (6%) to "more than 10" (21%); 38% replied 6 to 9, and 1 to 5 journals was the response of 34%. To compare, a British study gives the average number of journals that 97 chemists (90 academics) try not to miss as 11.72 (Williams, 1993). Many of the Canadian chemists said that most of the journals they themselves subscribe to are also available in their university's library, although 13 chemists replied that few or none of their subscriptions were. Asked to rate their university's performance in subscribing to the journals they need, 45% rated this "acceptable," 30% "good," and 20% "poor." A similar distribution of opinion was found in an international survey of 582 academics in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. who were asked to rate their university's journal provision performance (Schauder, 1994, p. 90).

Current awareness strategies

Is information overload a reality for academic chemists? Respondents were asked to express a level of agreement or disagreement with the statement: "It is virtually impossible to keep up with the literature." Only 9% strongly disagreed. Those who agreed (41) or strongly agreed (41) were 63% of the survey group, or 82 of 131 respondents. It is interesting to compare with the early-1970s' survey of Canadian chemists and chemical engineers, where only 34 of 135 said they had difficulty keeping up to date, and only 4 of these acknowledged "great difficulty" in doing so (Packer, 1975, p. 56).

Reconciling the traditional behaviour of browsing with the volume of published material, chemists have developed the following strategies in their information gathering: Replying to questions on using the literature to keep up to date, 80% agreed that they tend to skim rather than read literature; 78% agreed that they have little time to read non-central articles; 77% agreed that they read more abstracts than complete papers. Generally the chemists considered the abstract to be either somewhat or very reliable as an indicator of the interest an article will hold for them. Almost 60% of those surveyed agreed that for current awareness they rely considerably on Tables of Contents (TOCs) from print or electronic sources. However, in a related question intended to corroborate opinions on TOCs, 46% agreed that Tables of Contents alone are not very useful. Clearly, sources that provide abstracts are considered more valuable. Organic chemists in particular commented that current awareness is strongly dependent upon being able to actually skim journals and see the graphic content because of the importance of chemical structures. Chemists interviewed by Olsen (1994, p. 33) strongly pointed out the need to have such graphics in any electronic journal.

Some electronic information resources were being used as current-awareness providers. Of our 131 respondents, 23 received updating services in CD-ROM format and 15 received journals on CD-ROM; however, only six chemists had journals electronically delivered. There were, in fact, not many electronic journals in chemistry at the time of the survey, although some full-text versions of print journals were available. This is illustrated by the relatively small number of articles from e-journals indexed by Chemical Abstracts. Editor David Weisgerber (1996) has pointed out that only 210 electronic papers from 14 on-line journals and 45 papers from two on-line conferences have made the cut since April 1995.

The "invisible college" and informal communication are still important to the chemists surveyed. In keeping current, 44% of the chemists relied considerably on colleagues and external collaborators; 33% indicated they kept up better by attending conferences than by reading. Thus, personal contacts rather than the literature alone are significant to many of these chemists. Electronic mail has greatly facilitated communication among networks of contacts in the research communities. Although 10% of respondents said they rarely or never used e-mail, 83% used it daily. Only 27% of respondents regularly accessed electronic bulletin boards or listservs. Pre-prints and pre-publication works by other researchers were important and relied upon by 20% of those surveyed.

Familiarity with electronic equipment and resources

Among the chemists surveyed, 99% had computers, 89% had access to communication software, and 87% were connected to the campus network, although it is not clear whether this network access was direct or by dial-in. Some replied specifically that they lacked ethernet connection. Fax was accessible to 97%, mostly at departmental offices. CD-ROM-equipped computers were available to 64% of the chemists. Asked to rate their knowledge of electronic information technology, 57% said it was "moderate," and 55% gave the same moderate ranking to their knowledge of how to access relevant electronic resources.

How have the chemists learned about computers and information technology? Primarily they are self-taught (78%), but they have also learned from colleagues (70%). In some instances (37%) there has been a "computer expert" on the department staff, with this response perhaps including fellow faculty as well as individuals hired to give computer support in departments or labs. Some 22% indicated they have received some information via the library, but only 17% have received help from computing services departments at their universities. Many respondents indicated that they learned from their students.

What electronic information resources were the chemists using? Some 40% used the campus on-line catalogue at least weekly; for others, use was monthly, rarely, or never. Databases and indexes available on the campus network or catalogue were used by 60%, while only 25% regularly used databases on CD-ROM in the library. (The resources actually available will of course vary from institution to institution.) Index and abstract databases from commercial systems were used by 43%, with 77% indicating they had database literature searches done at varying frequencies during a year. A considerable number of chemists considered their knowledge on how to use the Internet and World Wide Web moderate to good, 41% and 37% respectively. Their familiarity with specialized software for information retrieval within the chemistry field was rated "moderate" by 32%, with 56% rating themselves "poor" in this area.

Obstacles to using electronic information technology

Chemists were asked to check one or more obstacles they believed hindered them in their use of electronic information technologies. Results are presented in Table 1.

Fifteen of the 131 chemists reported that they lacked interest or need to use these technologies. One said, "I like to browse print on paper" (and added in parentheses, "old man!"); another commented, "I like to read, I resist the `electronic world,' I recognize that it is the way of the future but...." It would seem that, having established patterns that worked for you in the past, motivation to change is not automatic. Why attempt unproven practices for literature searching, particularly if the tools needed are regarded as less than straightforward in their functions -- and less than user friendly, as some comments expressed.

Neither lack of hardware nor of software was viewed as a major obstacle to exploring new technologies, but lack of information on what resources were available, as well as lack of training in how to access these resources, were felt to be greater impediments. The most frequently noted obstacle was lack of time to explore the technologies. The multiple responsibilities of chemists in academia make this understandable.

To illustrate with the chemists' own words:

• "The biggest problem is TIME. Given the time, the facilities are available and simply require training. My graduate students have these skills, and I rely on them for information and /or help."
• "I would be thrilled to have greater access to on-line search /retrieval programs and journals, but know little about this area....It's frustrating knowing that these new technologies exist but that I just don't know how to access them."
• "Finding the time to keep current, whether this refers to the literature or the technology to access it, is my biggest difficulty."
• "The software is not yet sufficiently "user friendly" and takes too much of my time."

The problems created by lack of operating funds can perhaps best be summed up by the following statement from an assistant professor of organic chemistry, in the under-40 age group, who spends over 60% of his or her time in research:

[The] biggest problem is COST. We get less [financial] support from our administration each year. This means fewer journals each year. But less support also means the cost of on-line or CD-ROM access is more and more passed on to individual researchers. But...NSERC [National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada] grants are smaller each year too, and chemicals cost more each year, so I don't have any money to buy access to the on-line journals, etc., which are supposed to replace the "expensive" bound journals. Result: my information-gathering ability gets less each year. [And in capital letters, the following:] LIBRARY ACCESS IS VITAL INFRASTRUCTURE!

The library as infrastructure

From the library perspective, the question is: How well can academic libraries provide this infrastructure? There is less money in the system for research, for universities, and for libraries. Driven by cost and technology factors, libraries are trying to deal with the rapid transition into the electronic information age. Our ability to maintain our contribution to the continuum that is the chemists' scholarly communication process seems threatened.

Our portrait of 131 academic chemists one year ago shows them to be versatile in their information gathering. Journals are still the main vehicle for their formal communication and it is essential that researchers know what has just been published in them in order to keep up with their fields. If present pricing and budget trends continue, libraries will have to continue to cancel journals and the opportunities for browsing print will become rarer. But before we are too quick to say that there are other obvious alternatives for current awareness, we should reflect that there is more to traditional browsing of journal issues than the comfortable feel of paper and convenient portability. Jan Olsen's 1994 study on electronic journal literature included in-depth interviews with a group of chemists. A significant conclusion is that:

[Their] actual purposes in interacting with the literature are learning, creative thinking, and analytical thinking....Functions such as selecting articles or browsing the latest literature appear to be tasks which a computer can be programmed to perform well, but in practice the computer performs them quickly, but not well. (p. 71)

Academic chemists already use electronically based information resources and continue to adapt their information-seeking habits. What they miss in this transition from print to electronic browsing is the likelihood of unexpectedly encountering something exciting in the literature strictly through serendipity.

Chemists see journal collections shrinking, but, not unreasonably, expect their libraries to continue as the main provider of information resources. They also recognize that more of these resources likely are going to be electronic. They will be more willing to make the transition to electronic resources if they get adequate content and coverage of the literature as well as convenience of access. Already, a range of electronic products, systems, and delivery mechanisms exist that can serve chemists. For librarians, this raises several questions: How can libraries make the best choices? What resources can we afford to provide, particularly if the user group is relatively small? Can we find advantages by contracting through local or national consortia?

Another issue for academic libraries is our mixed user population and the need to provide for students who use the collections. Their journal usage and requirements do not necessarily parallel or coincide with faculty research interests. Libraries have to strive to maintain core journals regardless of format in order to serve this group as well. If we decide to provide electronic access to resources that students will need to use, off-site access is almost essential if we want to maximize our investment. Universities then need to have adequately networked systems to provide this access to their student population. Harter & Kim (1996, p. 453) conclude that since many users will not have the necessary hardware and software to utilize e-journals on their own computers, academic libraries will need to provide appropriate equipment and software for users to access e-journals and to print and manipulate related files. Are there then any cost savings to be realized by abandoning print journals in favour of electronic?

The chemists see the costs of obtaining information being passed on to them. They may subscribe to some journals, but most are out of reach because of price. On-line databases, particularly those from Chemical Abstracts Service, have always provided the best comprehensive coverage of the latest chemical literature, as well as the most precision for specialized topics; for these, there are searching charges. Chemists must now get more articles from outside their own libraries as local collections are cut back. Our survey showed that very few chemists ordered documents from commercial services, but used the library to obtain them. Since chemists usually pay at least part of the cost for each article, these costs for document delivery add up. What part of these costs can and should libraries absorb, given their own financial constraints and responsibilities to other services and users?

One of the chemists commented, "I prefer to get my information free over the Internet." Another stated, "Inexpensive electronic media (literature searches, on-line journals) are very useful." Electronic journals and databases can reach scholars' desktops, and indications are that they will be used, if their costs are not prohibitive. There are assumptions that electronic publications will be (or should be) cheaper than any print equivalent, but to date these expectations have not proven realistic. Publishers of scholarly journals point to the printing and distribution costs as only a small part of the final cost of production. In the electronic sector, publishers have the potential to widen their user base by offering affordable products, both to the scholar and to the institutions. The pricing models for electronic subscriptions alone and for combined print with electronic access are still "under construction." This complicates library decisions because we are less able to predict what next year will bring. One model, that of charging an additional fee to the print subscription cost for "value-added" access to the electronic version, seems to many librarians as extractive, and a policy to be resisted.

Bridging the transitional challenges

From the data and chemists' comments, there appear to be three major areas where changes and improvements will assist in enhancing their adoption of, and adaptation to, an increasingly larger electronic realm.

Operating fund support

Libraries and universities have an obligation to support their academic programs and research. However, reality for these institutions often means a precarious balancing act of attempting to confront shrinking institutional budgets, maintain serials collections as prices constantly rise, providing more services in electronic formats, and moving to a greater reliance on document delivery services. As a result, some of the information acquisition costs are being shifted onto the shoulders of the users.

Research funding agencies must recognize that the costs of acquiring information are rising and researchers may require increased support when local institutions cannot meet their needs. Concurrently, researchers must anticipate their information acquisition requirements and incorporate these costs in applications for grants.

Technology support

The basic hardware infrastructure has to be in place to enable connectivity for the individual researcher. Campuses and libraries need to be networked to a currently acceptable standard, which will permit high-speed transmission of text and data. Additionally, the on-site hardware and software must be capable of receiving electronic journals and databases with images and specialized data.

Training support

Linked to the technology support is, of course, the ongoing need for training to enable individuals to use equipment and hardware at levels appropriate to their needs. Training, whether institutionally supported by programs and services offered by computing services, the library, or elsewhere, remains important to a percentage of faculty for development of their information technology skills.

Libraries have traditionally provided training and instruction in the use of their resources and will continue in this role. Now, however, given the widespread non-standardization of interfaces, publishers and producers cannot assume that librarians have the time or staff to act as on-site experts or product promoters on their behalf. Publishers and producers need to supply clear information about their electronic products that is geared towards new users, detailing what they need to have and how to go about using a particular resource. "User friendly" should really be the operative term for all products, including those in information technology. And the less training involved the better, because time is the least available commodity in the chemist's repertoire.
We may not be able to provide time -- the essential ingredient which these chemists lack -- but adequate hardware, software, networked connections to electronic resources, and training to use them should be within our collective capacity to arrange. It is certain that, to achieve conditions that encourage scholarly communication in an electronic age, we must have ongoing and constant technical support by all of the agencies that form part of the chain. It will be then that the initiatives of the individual participants can flourish.

References

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Charton, Barbara. (1992). Chemsits' [sic] use of libraries. Journal of Chemical Information & Computer Sciences, 32(3), 199-203.

Cummings, Anthony M., Witte, Marcia L., Bowen, William G., Lazarus, Laura O., & Ekman, Richard H. (1992). University libraries and scholarly communication: A study prepared for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries.

Harter, Stephen P., & Kim, Hak Joon. (1996, September). Accessing electronic journals and other e-publications. College & Research Libraries, 57, 440-456.

Heller, Stephen R. (1994). Gazing into the future of chemical information activities. In H. Collier (Ed.), Further advances in chemical information (pp. 16-34). Proceedings of the Montreux International Chemical Information Conference, Annecy, France, October 18-20, 1993 (Special Publication 142). Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry.

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