1. Information Use and Needs of
Biology Faculty
Joe Kraus
University of Denver
June 10, 2003
SLA Conference - NYC

2. Why did I do this research?
Because I wanted to learn more about the
information needs and seeking patterns of
biological science faculty
Correlate teaching faculty with student use of
information

3. Introduction
Background of Information Needs Assessment
“Frequently, the simplest and most effective
way to develop information is to identify major
stakeholders and just ask them how they use
information, what information resources they
believe they need, or similar questions.”
Biblarz, page 15

4. Needs, wants and demands
Needs are “situations that require solution; it
does not always follow that a need is
something the group or person wants.”
“Wants are things that the group or person is
willing to expend time, effort or money to
acquire; it does not always follow that the thing
wanted is good for the group or person.”
“Demands are things the group or person
wants and is willing to act … to acquire”
Evans, page 32-33.

5. Prior information use research
Curtis, Weller, and Hurd, 1997
Cecelia M. Brown, 1999
Tenopir and King, 2000, Towards Electronic
Journals, pages 163-165

6. What did I do?
Surveyed Biological Sciences Faculty at the
University of Denver (DU) to inquire about their
information use and needs.
Focused on this group because I am not as
familiar with life science research and their
information needs.
14 questions covering 2.5 pages -- modeled
after the Curtis and Brown surveys

7. What did I want to learn?
What databases do the faculty use and how
often
How do they find and use journal articles
How many articles and how much time is
consumed reading articles

8. Basic statistics
17 surveys were sent out
7 were returned (41%)
6 male, 1 female
1 full professor, 3 associate, 1 assistant, 1
lecturer, and 1 adjunct
Have been on the DU faculty an average of
10.1 years (Range 5 to 18 years)

9. What databases were used in the
last year?
4 AGRICOLA
3.5 Bio Abs
3
CSA Bio
2.5
2 Chem Abs
1.5 MEDLINE
1
PsychINFO
0.5
0 PubMED
Databases used
SCI or WoS

10. How often were those databases
used in the last year?
AGRICOLA was used 1-2 times by one person
BioAbs was used 5+ times by three people
CSA Bio was used 5+ times by one person
Medline and PubMED were used 5+ times by
four people
SCI / WoS was used 1-2 times by two people,
and 5+ times by one person

11. Where do they use those
resources?
6
5
DU Office/Lab
4
Home
3 Campus Library
CU Health Sciences
2
CU Boulder
1 Other, Cornell U.
0
Where

12. How do they obtain journal
articles?
7 Download
6 Personal subs
5 Colleague subs
Reading Room
4
Library print or Web
3
Assistant
2 ILL
1 Email author
0 Area Lib
How do they obtain journal articles DocDel

13. Other services to obtain articles?
4
3.5
HighWire
3
UnCover
2.5
BioMedNet
2
InfoTrieve
1.5
Scirus
1
Google
0.5 Lib databases
0
Other Services

14. How do they keep abreast of
current developments?
7
Scanning/browsing
6 current issues
5 Search DB's
4
Personal Comm
3
2 Conferences
1
Current Awareness
0 Service
Current Developments

15. How do they become aware of less
recent articles?
7 Citations at ends of
joural articles
6
Citations at ends of
5 book chapters or
conf. proceedings
4
Searching lib DB's
3
2 Personal Comm
1
Browsing older
0
journals
Less Recent

16. How many hours during a typical
week do they read articles?
Range from 2 to 5 hours
Average of 3.1 hours/week (161 hours/year,
13.43/month)
Compare with Tenopir and King Research
– University Scientists, 259 hours/year in 1984, 182
hours/year in 1990-93.
– Life Scientists, 8.1 to 24.1 hours/month

17. How many articles during a typical
week do they read articles?
Range from 2 to 8 articles
Average of 4.1 articles (215 articles/year)
Compare with Tenopir and King Research
– University Scientists, 172 articles/year in 1984, 188
articles/year in 1990-93

18. What are the most important
journals read to stay current
33 journals were listed
The only duplicates were:
– Nature
– Science
– PNAS
– Journal of Cell Biology

19. Comments given
Need more journals online
How about a site subscription to
ScienceDirect?
Site-wide access to the Science Citation Index
would be useful.

20. What did I learn?
MEDLINE and PubMED are still more “popular”
than Biological Abstracts (BioAbs).
BioAbs is used heavily by the faculty that know
about it.
The CSA databases are not used as much by
the faculty
Much more use in faculty offices than at home

21. What did I learn?
The demand for BioMedNet has waned
Colleagues do not share personal journal
subscriptions
Not many faculty know about HighWire Press
as the provider of FT journals
Compared to national studies, DU faculty read
similar numbers of articles and for similar
periods of time

22. What was confirmed
Faculty want more access to electronic
journals and databases in their offices (follows
from Curtis, and anecdotal evidence)
Scanning current issues of journals is still
performed (follows from Brown)
Faculty continue to follow citation chains for
older articles (Brown)
Desire for Web of Science and ScienceDirect
(Anecdotal)

23. References
Brown, C. M. (1999). "Information Seeking Behavior of Scientists
in the Electronic Information Age: Astronomers, Chemists,
Mathematicians, and Physicists." Journal of the American Society
for Information Science 50(10): 929-43.
Curtis, K. L., A. C. Weller, et al. (1997). "Information-seeking
behavior of health sciences faculty: the impact of new information
technologies." Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 85(4):
402-10.
Tenopir, C. and D. W. King (2000). Towards Electronic Journals:
Realities for Scientists, Librarians, and Publishers. Washington,
DC. Special Libraries Association.

24. References
Biblarz, D., S. Bosch, and C. Sugnet. (eds.) Guide to
Library User Needs Assessment for Integrated
Information Resource Management and Collection
Development, Lanham, Md., Scarecrow Press, 2001.
Evans, G. E. and M. R. Zarnosky. Developing Library
and Information Center Collections, Englewood, CO,
Libraries Unlimited, 2000. (Chapter 2 is “Information
Needs Assessment,” pages 31-68)

25. Questions 1 & 2
What databases and indexes have you used in
the past year, and how often?
Such as AGRICOLA, Biological Abstracts,
Biological Sciences Collection in CSA, Medline
(or PubMED), Science Citation Index (or the
Web of Science), etc.

26. Questions 3, 4 & 5
Where do you use these resources?
How do you obtain journal articles?
Are there any other services that you use to
obtain journal articles? (DocDel, Highwire,
Google, etc.)

27. Questions 6 & 7
How do you keep abreast of current
developments in your field?
How do you become aware of less recent
research?

28. Questions 8 through 12
8, 9 & 10 – Demographics – faculty rank,
gender, and years at the University.
11 & 12 – How many articles do you read per
week, and how many hours per week.

29. Questions 13 & 14
13 – What are the five most important journals
that you read to stay current in your field.
14 – Comments on library resources/services?
Are there services you need that we do not
offer?