MAGISTERUPPSATS I BIBLIOTEKS- OCH INFORMATIONSVETENSKAP VID BIBLIOTEKS- OCH INFORMATIONSVETENSKAP/BIBLIOTEKSHÖGSKOLAN 2003:112

Information overload and its implications for a corporate library: As perceived by eight researchers at AstraZeneca

MAUD SALIM

© Författaren/Författarna Mångfaldigande och spridande av innehållet i denna uppsats – helt eller delvis – är förbjudet utan medgivande av författaren/författarna. Engelsk titel: Information overload and its implications for a corporate library: as perceived by eight researchers at AstraZeneca.

Svensk titel: Informationsbelastning och dess konsekvenser för ett företagsbibliotek: ur upplevelsen av åtta forskare på Astra Zeneca.

Författare: Maud Salim

Kollegium: Koll 4

Färdigställt: 2003

Handledare: Elena Maceviciute

Abstract: The aim of the present study is to develop an understanding of how researchers perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload related to maintaining currency. AstraZeneca was chosen to conduct this study because the pharmaceutical industry is a very intensive information industry.

Eight willing researchers were chosen via a contact person to participate in the qualitative interviews. Researchers work in different departments and their time of employments differs

The results revealed that the problem of information overload is an individual approach and it is related to maintaining currency. To overcome the problem researchers have adopted individual coping strategies; specialization was the most useful strategy adopted by most of the researchers. Personal information management, as sorting and filing, seemed to play an important role in handling the current information. At the organizational level, the Information Science & Library was perceived as updated, professional and necessary. The library staff helps researchers to stay up-dated and to cope with information overload, by acting as information providers and as research assistants and by offering end-users’- education.

Nyckelord: Informationsbelastning, läkemedelsindustri, Astra Zeneca, företagsbibliotek, Forskning och Utveckling, informationshantering. Content

1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Background...... 1 3. Problem, goal and objectives...... 3 4. Definitions and limitations ...... 3 4.1. Discussion of core concepts ...... 4 Information management...... 4 Personal information management ...... 4 Information overload ...... 4 Currency in Research and Development ...... 5 4.2. Limitations ...... 6 4.3. Literature search...... 6 5. Inforrmation overload: Earlier researches and theory ...... 6 5.1. Historical background ...... 7 5.2. Information overload as a research problem ...... 7 5.3. Causes of Information overload ...... 8 5.4. Approaches to coping with information overload...... 10 5.4.1. Individual- approaches ...... 10 5.4.2 Organisational approaches ...... 12 5.5. The library role...... 13 5.5.1. Current Awareness Services...... 14 5.5.2. Implications of information overload for the library...... 15 6. The pharmaceutical industry...... 17 6.1. AstraZeneca...... 18 6.2. The library at AstraZeneca...... 19 7. Metod...... 22 7.1. Interview...... 23 7.2. Analysis...... 24 7.3. Problem with the application of the method ...... 25 8. Results the empirical study...... 26 8.1. Information overload at AstraZeneca...... 26 8.1.1. The researchers information tasks...... 26 8.1.2. Information sources and databases...... 26 8.1.3. Sources of information overload ...... 28 8.1.4. Information overload and currency...... 30 8.1.5. Other kinds of overload...... 30 8.2. The researchers’ coping strategies ...... 32 8.2.1. Strategies to cope with information overload...... 32 8.2.2. Personal information management...... 33 8.2.3. The researchers’ information literacy...... 34 8.3. The library as perceived by researchers ...... 35 8.3.1. The library services and currency ...... 35 8.3.2. The library role in countering information overload...... 36 8.3.3. General approaches to information overload ...... 37 9. Analysis and discussion...... 39 9.1. The researchers’ experience of overload...... 39 9.1.1. Overload and maintaining currency...... 39 9.1.2. Other kinds of overload...... 40 9.2. The researchers’ coping strategies ...... 41 9.2.1. Strategies to cope with information overload...... 41 9.2.2. Personal information management...... 43 9.3. The perceived role of the library...... 44 9.3.1. The library role and currency...... 44 9.3.2. The library role in coping with information overload...... 45 10. Conclusion...... 48 11. Summary ...... 50 References ...... 52 Unpublished references...... 52 Printed references, Unpublished ...... 52 Printed references, published ...... 52 Electronic references...... 55 Annex 1 ...... 56 Annex 2 ...... 57 1. Introduction

Information has become the driving force of most people’s lives and the world that once, during the age of industry, was ruled by natural sources, is now run by information that seems infinite. To survive in the workplace or simply to function in the society we are obliged to assimilate a huge amount of information. This is very true in research where information is the life-blood of industrial research and development (further referred as R&D) and the scientist may feel overwhelmed by current literature while s/he strives to keep abreast of his field. Wilson stated that:

Everyone engaged in research is aware of the problem of information overload. It is always a threat if not a reality. It is perhaps most familiar as a problem of maintaining currency. (Wilson 1996b, p. 192)

Relevant information, known to be available, may go unused in R&D because of information overload (Wilson 1995, p. 45).

The problem of information overload has been identified in many contexts, including business organizations, managers’ decision making and research companies. Various factors have been identified and a wide range of coping strategies both individual and organizational has been adopted. Considering the special library as a part of a larger organization, its principal function is research support and informational. It shares and supports the objectives and mission of that organisation (Taylor 1985, p. 91). That means while providing researchers with the current literature, the library may have some role in helping them to cope with overload.

The subject of information overload in relation to published literature is revealed interesting because I was always fascinated by the researchers who can stay current- i.e. keeping up with what other research workers are doing and which is relevant to one’s own work. I wondered all the time how do they succeed to keep up with the flow of literature.

I just try to read the literature that is of close relevance to the subject of my thesis and I find this difficult. I feel overwhelmed by old and new literature that seems relevant to my subject and, because of shortage of time I cannot read it all.

I connected the problem of information overload to Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies’ research area because the pharmaceutical industry, especially its research activity, is well- known as the archetypal information intensive industry (Spilker 1994, p. 461).

This work will discuss the role of the library in countering the problem of information overload, seen by a small group of researchers at AstraZeneca, further refer as AZ.

2. Background

Over the last 35 years the international pharmaceutical industry has been developing in different areas. One of some major developments was in the area of data management and projects that manifests in the appearance of computer searchable databases, global planning

1 and management, integrated systems to manage information and national and international project teams (Spilker 1994, p. 33). Clearly information is the central basis for operations of a pharmaceutical company. It is needed to discover new medicine, to assess one’s competitors accurately and to make correct decisions. A large quantity of information is obtained from external sources and is generated internally. Information that is systematically recorded for easy retrieval falls into different categories as raw data, published literature, in-house company documents, information on chemicals synthesized, media reference to the company’s products, competitive intelligence and institutional memory (ibid. p. 461, 465).

By published literature Spilker means the scientific or technical books and journals that are housed in company library and meet most basic information needs of employees. Articles from the worldwide biomedical literature are gathered, analyzed, indexed, and entered into in- house, on-line bibliographic databases to make information rapidly available (Spilker 1994, p. 462).

In offering information to in-house professionals, Spilker suggested that one of the essential principles for many information services to follow is to provide a few valuable and useful references or documents to assist users in reaching a decision or solving a problem. This approach may be considered as “value-added service”. According to Spilker, large quantities of information dishearten the recipient and may be counterproductive to the goals of the data search (1994, p. 464).

The inability to respond to the abundance of information available is called information overload (Marcusohn 1995, p.26-27). Garfield E. stated that all working scholars live in a world of information overload that attends frustration (see Wilson 1996a, p. 22). Wilson argued that:

There can never be enough time to read all the things one should read or enough time to discuss with others all the things about which discussion would be beneficial...information overload is a gap between what one can do and what one wants to do, a gap between what one can do and what one thinks one should do with existing information. (Wilson 1996a, p. 22)

In this sense information overload is seen as a great problem in research and development because it is a world of conceptual change and the overwhelming magnitude of the biomedical literature is a threat for the physicians who want to keep up with advances in the knowledge in their discipline (Wilson 1996a, p. 22). Butcher had also mentioned this point and he believes that one of seven causes behind information overload is that people like to collect current information because they don’t accept to be left behind or shown up as being less well informed than others (Butcher 1999, p. 54).

Wilson distinguished between two kinds of information overload: task overload and upkeep overload. Task overload appears in the context of research projects or particular inquiry and it is explained by the overabundance of available date relevant to the particular inquiry. Upkeep overload is related to maintaining currency (1996b, p.192-193). Keeping up with the literature is necessary to keep up with the competitive edge. Although there is a fact to be admitted that people cannot know everything about everything and it is impossible to keep up-to-date with the literature (Laskin 1994, p. 661). If researchers admit this reality can we say that they are not supposed to experience overload that is related to maintaining currency? It is unlikely that one perfect answer reduces or eradicates the problem of information overload.

2 Scholars and scientists set up their own information systems to receive what they believe relevant to their work. They subscribe to journals, ejournals, exchange preprints with colleagues, and visit the library to look at new issues of journals or to browse. While searching they come across more interesting references. This huge flow of information must be managed (Wilson 1996a, p. 25). Individual strategies must then be adapted to adjust to the immense amount of information and to prevent overload. But there is still a question whether if the individual coping strategies are the best solution to overload or there is still some role for the library to play in helping researchers to cope with information overload?

Since the world of medicine discovery and development is rapidly changing, the pharmaceutical industry was thought an ideal sector to conduct this study because of its very information intensive nature. The research area is thought to be the significant primary activity in the pharmaceutical industry that is why this study emphasis on the researchers’ perspectives on information overload and the perceived role of the library to counter this problem. AZ has been chosen to conduct the present study due to the study: “How does the organisation of Library and Documentation fulfil the needs of information at Astra Hässle” made by Christian Karlsson and Elisabeth Letmark in the 1998. The study reported that the scientists at Astra Hässle (which is known at the present time as AstraZeneca), complained that they suffer from information overload.

3. Problem, goal and objectives

The proliferation of publication, printed and electronic, is the main cause of information overload (Bawden, Holtman & Courtney 1999, p. 252). Since a main part of the literature used by researchers goes through the library, it may be logical to think that the library has a role to play in helping researchers to manage information overload.

According to this, the goal of the present study is to develop an understanding of how researchers perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload related to maintaining currency.

This goal will be reached through these questions: 1. Do the researchers at AZ suffer of information overload? - How much information overload is related to staying current? - What else causes overload?

2. What Kind of strategies (if any) do the researchers at AZ adopt to cope with overload?

3. How do the researchers at AZ perceive the role of the library in helping them to counter information overload?

4. Definitions and limitations

Here below follow the discussion of the core concepts as well as the limitations of the present study. The literature search will also take place in this chapter.

3 4.1. Discussion of core concepts

Information management, personal information management, information overload and currency in Research and Development are revealed important to the present study. The reader of this work will come across some other concepts as work overload, process overload and communication overload, but they will not be discussed here because they were not revealed essential to understand the present work.

Information management

Wilson defined information management as:

The application of management principles to the acquisition, organization, control, dissemination and use of information relevant to the effective operation of organizations of all kinds. (Wilson 1997, p. 189)

With information Wilson means all types of information derived from various sources, produced internally or externally and that have value for the organisation. According to Wilson, information management deals with the value, quality, ownership, use and security of information in the context of organizational performance. Choo defined information management as:

A set of processes that support and are symmetrical with the organization’s learning activities. (Choo 1998, p. 199)

Wilson’s definition is seen as more suitable for this work because it is wider in defining what information management deals with and because it considers the organizational performance while Choo’s definition is related to the organization’s learning activities.

Personal information management

To define personal information management, referred as PIM, Etzel (1995) started by defining each term. By personal Etzel means information that belongs to the person doing the job and by information anything that a person uses to do her or his job. Although anything may include many things, according to Etzel it may be a department wall chart to look at to see what co-workers are doing. It may be paper files, journals, faxes, e-mails or voice mail, computer word processing documents and spreadsheets. Management refers to the strategy one uses for coping with all of this information-i.e. where to put the journals? Where to store all the e-mail? How long to keep information? Etc. Etzel meant that PIM helps the user to cope with information overload by helping her or him to define what information is important and to select the most appropriate tools to manage information (Etzel 1995, p. 2/1-2/2). In this thesis PIM is included in the individual coping strategies that also include the strategies that the scientists use to deal with information overload.

Information overload

The problem of information overload is widely recognised today. The fact that we are living in an information society puts us in the presence of a huge amount of information that reaches us from different sources. From a management point of view “information overload” implies an inability to respond to the abundance of information available (Marcusohn 1995, p. 26).

4 According to Wilson (1996a) information overload is a challenge to the rationality of scholarship and science. Overload means that one cannot use information efficiently. Wilson defined efficiency as the full and correct use of all relevant information. If rationality requires the use of all available relevant information then overload means irrationality. The consequences of overload result in inability to use all relevant information. This implies inefficiency and irrationality of research and development (Wilson 1996a, p. 22-23).

To understand the problem of information overload it is necessary to define two terms information load and information overload. Information load is:

The amount of information acquired by a processing system, e.g., a library user. (Rudd & Rudd 1986a, p. 315)

Rudd and Rudd stated that an increase in the amount of information in the library does not necessarily produce an increase in the information load carried by library users. When an increase in information supply results in an increased information load, users may feel the overload effects (1986a, p. 316). Information overload is then information load that cannot effectively be absorbed by the user.

Wilson (1995) stated that information overload may mean many things as:

Being presented with more information than one could absorb. It might mean being burdened by a large supply of relevant information, that is, forced to spend more time and energy on assimilating new information than one would like to do...The serious kind of overload is the possession, or the knowledge of the existence, of information one thinks to be probably relevant but does not use because of lack of time (Wilson 1995, p. 45-46).

Wilson by this definition does not make a difference between information load and information overload, when he admits that overload is the possession or the knowledge of the existence of relevant information that cannot be absorbed. In this sense information overload is used in the present study. Information overload in the present study is also related to maintaining currency that why, information overload and upkeep overload are used in this work to describe the same state.

Currency in Research and Development

To understand the relation between information overload and maintaining currency, it is important to review the importance of currency, especially in R&D. Wilson considered that almost everyone tries to keep up with some part of life but everyone differs in pattern of interest of pursuing currency. Staying current is a requirement of the social world imposed on persons of occupational positions. The social requirement is not the only motivation for maintaining currency the preservation of self or capital is a strong private motivation. This implies that anyone working in a competitive field is unlikely to be successful unless she or he maintains current knowledge of the state of play in her or his own field (Wilson 1993, p. 634-637).

In R&D maintaining currency means keeping up with what other research workers are doing that is relevant to one’s own work. One wants to be able to claim intellectual command of a field and this requires deep and wide knowledge of what has been done and is being done by others in the same field. It is very clear that differences in the scope of current knowledge will be found among individuals working in the same discipline and there could never be some

5 precise rules on how deep and wide one’s knowledge must be. There is a requirement and it ordinarily means that one must devote time and effort to reading what others have published or are going to publish or have otherwise communicated. The time devoted will vary with the size and level of activity of the field (Wilson 1996b, p. 192-193). Time is the principal price of currency and different people will pay very different prices for the currency they attain (Wilson 1993, p. 637-638).

4.2. Limitations

This study emphasis on the relation between information overload and the current, research published literature and not the current information get when researchers intend the conferences or through the oral communication. Information overload is admitted in the present study as upkeep overload.

4.3. Literature search

First I started looking for theories and researches about information overload in general. Then I concentrated on information overload in research and development, especially while keeping current. I specified my searches to overload in pharmaceutical research in particular. There was not too much literature in this area. While looking for the literature I faced also a problem in finding literature about the library role, as perceived by its users, in countering information overload. It is important to point out that there is no earlier research that directly studies the role of the library as perceived by researchers. For all these reasons, a part of the literature used in the present study covers the problem of information overload in general.

Some of the articles and books used were found at the library of the Högskolan of Borås. Most of the articles were obtained through interlibrary loan from other universities in Sweden and sometimes from other European countries.

I looked too for information about AstraZeneca. Initial information about AZ was gained from unpublished material about AZ and from AZ’s website. Information about the Information Science and Library at AZ was gained from interviews with the library manager and with three librarians.

5. Inforrmation overload: Earlier researches and theory

This chapter discusses the historical background of the problem of information overload and earlier researches in this problem. It also presents the causes of information overload and the individuals’ strategies to counter information overload. The provision of current literature in special library and the perceived role of the library to cope with information overload, according to the literature will take place in this chapter too.

6 5.1. Historical background

There is a discussion around the problem of information overload, whether is it an old or a recent phenomena? Though Wilson stated that information overload is not a new phenomenon and that the potential for overload has existed since information became an important input to any human activity (2001, p. 3), Klapp claimed that the problem of information overload was noticed by a social scientist who described in the 1950 the problem of overload of the sensations in the urban world that makes habitants incapable to react to new situations with the appropriate energy. Klapp writes about communication overload as a disease of cities (Klapp 1986, p. 6-7). Noyes and Thomas stated that it is impossible to know when the problem of information overload started to be noticed, but it started to become a serious problem towards the end of the last century (1995, p. 2).

Bawden, Holtham and Courtney affirmed that information overload started to be well recognized as a problem by the late 1950s and early 1960s with the expansion of publication, especially in science and technology. They indicate that innovations in information technology in terms of printed books, periodical magazines, abstracting journals and the computer make it impossible to keep up with the information available (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 249).

Garvey W. D. stated that researchers moved from a period (1947) where the typical scientist was just able to keep up with the literature of direct relevance to the topic at hand, and not to other literature in the same discipline, to a period (1977) where the scientist could keep up with the fifth to tenth of the literature that is directly relevant to his work (see Wilson 1996a, p. 22). The time of the scientist was considered very precious to face rivers of current literature. This led to express the need for techniques of controlled selectiveness in supplying her or his information needs (Badwen, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 249).

By 1973, Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) was considered as specific information services used to overcome information overload. By the 1990s the problem of information overload began to be seen as a major problem with the emergence of the Internet and e-mail, and the emergence of new techniques became an urgent request (Ibid, p. 249). The development in communication systems increases the amount of information in the workplace. The rise in paper documentation created the need for the development of the information retrieval systems (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 19).

5.2. Information overload as a research problem

Information overload is not considered all the time as a problem. The argument used is that people are overloaded to the extent that one wishes to be overloaded. This was seen in the more pragmatic comments of some scientists in a pharmaceutical research organization (Bawden, Holtman & Courtney 1999, p. 251). Rudd and Rudd considered that library users rarely experienced information overload. The belief that they do is due to the confusion between information explosion and information overload. True overload is likely to appear under very specific circumstances (Rudd & Rudd 1986b, p. 304). Tidline looked at the question of information overload as a problem in popular culture that had not been documented through rigorous investigations. Tidline affirmed that information overload is a myth of modern culture. Tidline represented the findings of a pilot project to study information overload of future library and information professionals. The project confirmed

7 the presence of information overload and revealed people coping with overload. Tidline concluded that the results of the project confirm that a human is able to adapt to altered circumstances (Tidline 1999, p. 501-505).

The problem of information overload was seen elsewhere as a real and continuing issue. It was revealed in the literature of many disciplines such as medicine, business study, and the social sciences as well as in computing and information science. The term is well defined too and there cannot be many who have not experienced the feeling of having too much information (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 18). The problem of information overload does exist and Butcher mentions that management research into this problem falls into three categories, researches into information overload among individuals, organizations and customers (Butcher 1995, p. 1). Wilson stated that in R&D, the problem of information overload is as widespread as the constant testimony of scientists and scholars claims it is (1995, p. 46). Reuters’ researches into information overload in the Western World, in two different periods 1996 and 1998, reported that information overload does exist as a major problem and that it does seriously affect the people at work. Edmunds and Morris presented the results of Reuter’s researches which showed an increase in the majority that experience overload, 65% in the 1996 to 42% in the 1998. If the problem of information overload is beginning to be seen as less of a problem that may be because people learned how to live with it and they complain less, because overload has become an acceptable state (Edmunds & Morris 2000, p. 21, 28).

5.3. Causes of Information overload

The major contributing factor, if not the most significant one, in information overload is the too much information (TMI) effect (Bawden, Holtman & Courtney 1999, p. 251). Statistics given by Schuman P.G. indicated the problem of TMI:

§ A weekly edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth –century England. § The collections of the large US research libraries doubled between 1876 and 1990. § Over one thousand books were published each day across the world during 1990 (see Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 251).

The problem of information overload is the same then and now- too much information and too many sources (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 20). Wilson suggested that information overload is a terrible problem for professionals who are obliged to keep up with advances in the knowledge and techniques of their profession. It is also a great problem for physician as well for those involved in research because of the overwhelming of magnitude of literature facing them (1996a, p. 22). In R&D information overload is affected by the size and level of activity of the field. In a small field with slow producers, researchers will not face a problem in keeping up but in a large and very active field of fast producers researchers may feel overwhelmed (Wilson 1996b, p.193). It is enough to look at the growth of abstracts and indexes to understand the explosion of the literature. For example the 13th collective index of chemicals abstracts is about 150 volumes (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 20).

Laskin estimated that to understand the fact that we are facing information overload, it would be enough to know that each year, the average person reads 3000 notices and memos, 100 newspapers and 36 magazines, listens to 730 hours of radio and watches more than 2400 hours of television. The clinician adds to that the reading of professional journals and books,

8 listening to audiotapes and viewing videotapes. The proliferation of professional journals has increased overload. One might feel frustrated thinking of all the information that exist in these journals and need to be digested. It can be that the time spent on reading them is a wasted time because of the duplication of information or because they contain deficient data. Laskin wondered whether information users are really dealing with information overload or publication overload. If this is true it would be better to control the quality of articles before the publication (Laskin 1994, p. 661).

Klassen, Jadad and Moher affirmed that proliferation of books and journals make it impossible to keep up with the medical literature and it is easy to be overwhelmed by current literature. There are 17 000 new biomedical books published every year, along with 30 000 biomedical journals, resulting with an annual increase of 7%. The physician who attempts to keep abreast of his field need to read on average 19 original articles each day (Klassen, Jadad & Moher 1998, p. 700).

The problem of information overload, in pharmaceutical research organisation, was related both to the great amount of available information and e-mail. A recent survey of the use of information services and systems in pharmaceutical research organisation looks in a part at information overload. The majority (17) of the interviewees (30 scientists) agreed that they are affected by information overload. Those who are not affected answer that there was too much information available but they could cope with it (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p.154).

Most of the scientists in the same study conducted in pharmaceutical research organization pointed out IT as a cause of information overload, but they added that they had provided the tools to solve it. They mentioned two factors that promote to information overload: The first one is the great amount of information available, both internally and externally, so that even more selection and discrimination is needed to deal with it, when it is actively sought. The second is the amount of information sent directly by e-mail to the participants. The majority could easily find the information they need, but there was some difficulty in finding some external documents, e.g. conference abstracts, some aspect of patents and some supplier data. A less use of the library and the printed sources was mentioned (ibid, p. 155-156).

The diversity of relevant information is pointed out by Bawden, Holtham and Courtney to be a major cause to information overload. Bawden, Holtham and Courtney mentioned that new information and communication technology aimed of providing rapid and convenient access to information are themselves also responsible of the overload. Internet, Intranet and electronic mail are considered to be major contributor to information overload (1999, p. 249- 252).Countervailing views concerning the Internet and electronic mail were elaborated by Edmunds and Moris (2000), who argued that the problem of information overload existed before the arrival of the Internet. A research carried out for Reuter in the 1996 revealed that 48% of managers believe that the internet would be a prime cause of overload in the next two years. Two years later a research carried out for Reuters report that only 19% of respondents (managers) believed that the Internet has made things worse (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 19).

Wilson (2001) stated that the causes of information overload is not simply that, today there is more information than people can assimilate, and if it is so, people have adapted ways to cope with overload. Neither is it just a technological cause because the technology is not to blame for causing information overload. Instead there is a miss-use of the technology. Wilson added the human factors as a cause to information overload. By human factors Wilson meant the

9 propensity of people to seek information and disseminate it to others- information pull and push, in the computer jargon. Information pull is related to the desire of some people to seek information to understand their life-world. This desire can become pathologic if the person seeks information whether it is relevant to her or his work or not. Push technology exist as Wilson stated to facilitate the distribution of information, but it can be miss-used too. The appearance of these pathological states is the results of the organization’s management style (Wilson 2001, p. 6-8). Wilson considered that the root cause of information overload is the stress created by modern management practices which put people’s job under threat, or which increase general workload, or create defensive behaviour (Wilson 2001, P. 11).

Another cause of information overload is mentioned to be the nature of the work being carried out by the user that affects the nature and amount of information required. This is very familiar in interdisciplinary work (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 252).

Taylor looked at the problem of information overload not as an explosive growth of potential relevant information but as a problem in the information systems that filter, transmit and distribute information. He argues that these systems are not developed in an adequate way to deal with this explosive growth (Taylor 1986, p. 24).

To conclude, information overload is thought in terms of keeping up with new ideas and new publications and it is very clear that the proliferation of publication has contributed to increase the problem. The technological development in part causes information overload but is not the only to blame. The problem may arise from the organization culture and management practices as Wilson (2001) declares it. Whatever is the cause of information overload, the problem exists and it is seen to be a personal experience and it is affected by the individuals’ way of dealing with information generally and by the complexity of most participants’ job. The solution then will have to be individual and will involve personality as much as subject specialism and work role (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 154-155).

5.4. Approaches to coping with information overload

Solutions to information overload, like its causes, are multi-faceted, and there is no single tool that will correct the problem. The solutions proposed fall into two categories: Managerial, includes both individual and organizational approaches, and technological (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253). Some of the technological approaches and which are related to the library will be discussed under § 5.5. The managerial approaches will be discussed here below and these include the individual approaches and the organizational approaches.

5.4.1. Individual- approaches

Wilson gave two solutions to the problem of information overload in R&D. The first is specialization and the second is satisfaction. Satisfaction is normative and evaluative. This means that the best response to overload is specialization. Scientists solve their information problem by narrowing the scope of their interests. It is a way by which scientists and scholars adjust the size of the field in which they want to maintain expertise so that the burden of keeping up is manageable. Every scientist who has been in research for a long period knows that to remain an expert in some area she or he needs to narrow the width of her or his interest. Specialization is a solution to the problem of overload but one cannot think that research and development cope successfully with overload (Wilson 1996a, p. 23-25).

10 Bawden, Holtham and Courtney summed that the individual skills required to cope with information overload may be placed under the general heading “time management”. The first one is a prioritisation of information seeking related to work goals and objectives. A second one is to deal with a piece of paper as soon as it is touched. A third one is to join mailing lists and newsgroups very selectively, to delete many messages unread and only keep material that would be very difficult to find again (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253).

In a survey conducted in pharmaceutical research organisation the solutions were largely seen to be self-discipline in focusing on important things, and self-education in managing information. Several participants saw scope for formal training and support for personal information management as file handling, what to store and how, best practice in using e-mail (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 156-157).

Wilson mentioned some other personal strategies to manage the flow of information that come to a person from different sources and may cause overload. One of these strategies is prioritizing. People tend to assign incoming material to different categories. Many categories were identified: - Mandatory to be dealt with as soon as possible; - Documents of potential interest; - Documents which are good to know about but not necessary to read now; - Documents that are categorise as of no interest (Wilson 1996a, p. 25-26).

This categorisation explains that under condition of overload people tend to postpone what they feel can be postponed. People accumulate a backlog of things to be read. Dealing with the most urgent items may take up all the time allocated for reading. The backlog may grow bigger and bigger and it comes a time when people start to discard things unread from the backlog. There is nothing wrong with backlog and the viewpoint of a rational information management is for it. Wilson tries to explain that by contrasting two strategies used in information management: keeping up and catching up. The first one is to read the literature as it is published. In this case the filter of time may thin out the stream of current literature. Catching up in that case may be better. Under the pressure of overload older publications may be abandoned. One can think that everything useful in the older literature is incorporate in the current one. Wilson estimated that this is an appropriate thing to do in condition of unavoidable overload (Wilson 1996a, p. 26-29). Although prioritization may be a solution for information overload it may also appear that priorities used may be wrong and the problem of information overload may become a sign of strategic error. For this reason Wilson suggested that the most important kind of response to overload is team work (Wilson 1995, p. 49).

A general solution proposed by Laskin has some implications on the individual level. The solution is to control the quality of publication but this does not mean that the problem of information overload will be solved in the future years. One needs to find best ways to manage the situation. Laskin stated that one solution is to focus on concepts and principles, rather than details and data. Laskin affirmed that information users must learn to be discerning readers, to scan the abstract and focus on what looks to be significant (Laskin 1994, p. 661).

Skimming or scanning in place of careful reading was seen by Klapp as a strategy to cope with information overload. Klapp suggested reading reviews and abstracts instead of books and passing up long for short conversation. One cost of this rapid scanning is distraction and

11 the information user may have the feeling of being disconnected or disengaged from the information (Klapp 1986, p. 106).

Information literacy is an approach to the problem of information overload that can be applicable both at the individual as well as the organisational level. Generally there is no accepted definition of information literacy, Bawden, Holtham and Courtney stated that:

It refers to a set of information-handling skills going considerably beyond the simple ability to retrieve information, and usually including elements of evaluation, organisation and use. (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253)

According to Abell (2000) the essential components of information literacy are the ability to find, create, organize and use information from a variety of sources (Abell 2000, p. 1).

The importance of information literacy in countering information overload, at the individual level, is in the regaining of control lost in the overload situation. This means that people know what information they need, they evaluate it and organise it. They approach information with critical thinking (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253).

In the findings of the survey conducted in pharmaceutical research organization, the researchers, who experienced the provision of desktop information systems, expressed the need of enhancement of personal “information literacy” as file handling and storing and practices in using email (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 156). Mutch admitted that to be information literate goes much deeper than becoming proficient at personal information management i.e. filing and organising, to the nature of information creation (Mutch 1997, p. 378).

5.4.2 Organisational approaches

Wilson (2001) who written about the problem of information overload within organisation from a management point of view, affirmed that the appearance of the pathological states of information pull and push are the results of the organization management style. The management ethos and the organization culture cause organizational stress which in its turn causes pathological information behaviour. All these with the mediation of the technology are the responsibles of creating information overload in organizations (Wilson 2001, p. 7-9). To overcome organizational pathologies there is a need for organizational therapies and the problem of information overload needs to be on senior management’s agenda. Organizations need to know the existence of the problem of information overload; they need to ensure that senior management are aware of the problem. There is also a need to advocate the development of an information strategy for the organization which is not confused with the information technology strategy and which considers the problems of information overload. In disseminating information, information providers must be selective according to established needs. To institute some policy on appropriate use of technology and a training policy for the use of e-mail, voice mail and other technologies is also a part of the solution to the problem of information overload (Ibid, p. 11-12). To have an e-mail policy that regulates forwarding, copying material, attachments, etc. Similar policy for meetings and voice mail were also mentioned by Bawden, Holtham and Courtney (1999, p. 254).

12 Information literacy may be another approach to the problem of information overload that could be applicable at the organizational level. Promoting information literacy in individuals, by means of appropriate training, seems to be a powerful way of minimising the effects of information overload (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253). The fact that end-users have desktop access to the web does not necessarily mean that they have a high level of information literacy. This implies that librarians still have a continuing role to play within organizations because of knowledge about web resources that contain highly relevant, good quality information, and because they provide in-house training for end-users (Pedley 2001, p. 8).

Hopkins affirmed that either the librarian or the information system will ever be able to deal with all the quality information filtering that users require. Part of the solution is training of users to be more selective, to make more quality judgments themselves, about the information they retrieve. This is certainly one of the primary objectives of the information literacy (Hopkins 1995, p. 327).

The role of the library by enhancing lifelong learning plays an important role in countering information overload, at the organizational level. Knowing the importance of the role of the library to the present study, it will be discussed as a separate paragraph.

5.5. The library role

Today more and more organizations are involved in research. In order to generate information and to make more information available, special libraries and issue-based information centre have come up (Ghosh & Wesley 2002, p. 135). Special librarians function as change agents and leaders providing the information needed to help the organization achieve its goals. They identify and acquire external sources of information and help to organize internal sources of information. Ghosh and Wesley considered that:

They provide vital information services by preparing abstracts and indexes of current periodicals, organizing bibliographies or analyzing background information and preparing reports on areas of particular interest. They are best positioned to monitor the information products and needs of different departments and deserve a central role in the development of processes and policies that harness an organization’s knowledge base. (Ghosh & Wesley 2002, P. 136)

The vital role of the library in research environment was highlighted by Ghosh and Wesley who presented the role of the library in managing information requirements for research at the Institute of Social Sciences in New Delhi. Ghosh and Wesley affirmed that there is an increasing recognition by the research community of modern trends in library documentation and information services. Libraries are no longer limited to in-house information; they have become facilities that provide electronic access to global information resources (Ghosh & Wesley 2002, p. 144).

Ball found that information overload is a dominating term in discussion on new orientation of libraries. Faced with competition from other information providers, special libraries must find new ways of handling their clientele. They need to create 'added value'. They must employ 'customer relationship management', using individual profiles and providing extra services

13 like content and knowledge management. They must demonstrate good cost management to their sponsor organization (Ball 2002, p. 39).

While Hopkins stated that some librarians expressed that the problem of information overload clearly means a new or enhanced role for the librarian (1995, p. 308), Biggs suggested that the challenges of helping clients in managing information overload caused by the proliferation of available data and publications and ever-more-comprehensive and widespread automated means to access to them is one new direction for service development (Biggs 1989, p. 411).

Recently the efficiency of the information services in face of the increasing flood of information has become a major question. There is a need to move from building collections to building services. There is a need to look at the investment of user’s time while providing information and to reduce that information to a manageable portion. There is a fact that must be faced and it’s that not all end-users have the time and the expertise to find the information that best serves their work. The solution may be in part to develop information filtering systems, another part is the reorganisation and improvement of services and of course a big part of the answer lies on the technological innovations. In the world of library there’s a need to look at the institutional goals and to separate policies focused on availability and access from those concerned with information management (Dougherty 1991, p. 339).

According to Wilson the problem of information overload poses new challenge for the information science. He stated that maybe it is time to develop new information systems that help scientists to select, evaluate, filter and screen an admittedly over-large corpus of relevant information (Wilson 1996a, p. 30-31).

The role of the library in both providing current literature and countering overload is discussed here below.

5.5.1. Current Awareness Services

The advent of the scientific revolution brought into focus the requirement for being aware of developments. The creation of scholarly societies and scientific periodicals and the active consulting of current literature by scientists and technologists, highlight the term “current awareness”. During the nineteenth century abstracting journals and cumulative indexes were created to assist scientists to staying abreast of the rapidly expanding knowledge base. By the early 1900s special library met the need for fostering current awareness services. Martin and Metcalfe assumed that:

The Current awareness service can be considered as a nascent knowledge management tool in that it tends to capture and manage easy consumption useful information pertinent to the needs of library clients. (Martin & Metcalfe 2001, p. 268-269)

The term “current awareness” was coined to describe the state of keeping up with new development. Current Awareness Services (CAS) were developed to deliver:

· Right information, to the · Right user, at the · Right time, in the · Right format, covering the

14 · Right sources, at the · Right cost, and with the right amount of effort to keep users up-to-date. (Fourie 1999, p. 381)

The original definition of CAS was given by Kemp, CAS was seen:

As a system or publication for reviewing newly available documents, selecting items relevant to the needs of an individual or group, and recording them so that notifications may be sent to those individuals or groups to whose needs they are related. (Kemp 1979, p. 12)

Kemp estimates that some libraries prepare and issue separate current awareness bulletin for different kind of publications, a patent bulletin is a popular example. A typical current awareness bulletin contains: · general library publicity and announcements · general new items from news papers, meetings and conferences · details of recently received documents, especially periodical articles · Details of items not available from the library but obtainable through it (Kemp 1979, p. 25-26).

With the new range of services offered via the Internet the definition of CAS is expanded so that they present a selection of one or more systems that provide notification of the existence of new entities added to the system’s database or of which the system took note (Fourie 1999, p. 381). The Internet affords the opportunity for information users to access CAS directly. A major facet of CAS is the alerting of journal contents (Martin & Metcalf 2001, p. 269).

Selective dissemination of Information (SDI) or otherwise known as document filtering is an extension of CAS as it is a targeted service in which the individual’s research interest are profiled, and then matched against the text of incoming documents (Martin & Metcalfe 2001, p. 268). Traditionally they have been performed by a librarian acting as a filterer, scanning the literature with awareness of its value for the client. Today SDI is used to save database search that can be run automatically against future updates of the database. SDI is most useful in interdisciplinary research and it enhances the productivity of basic research scientists working in R&D environment (Ibid. p. 269).

In the past, the libraries and information centres have promoted CAS and SDI, either through print or electronic means, to furnish the need of information seekers. CAS and SDI as mediated and promoted by librarians are considered to contribute towards reducing the problem of information overload. They help to filter the ceaseless flow of information so as information users receive only the materials that are relevant to their area of interests. Although CAS can be provided via Internet and although the opportunities now exists for information users to access such services directly through online systems, from the desktop, there still remain a vital role for the library (Martin & Metcalfe 2002, p. 267,275).

5.5.2. Implications of information overload for the library

Hopkins presented some of the attempts that have been made in library and information science to help users to cope with information overload. These were categorized as ideas presented in the past but have not been widely adopted and some present approaches. Hopkins presented a speculation about some future ways to deal with information overload (Hopkins

15 1995, p. 311). Condensed surrogates are a well established coping strategy. This strategy was adapted in the past and it still has relevance in the present. With condensed surrogates Bernier means abstracts in particular, but reviews, extracts, articles in encyclopaedias, textbooks, handbooks and a few publications of terse conclusions (Bernier 1980, p. 313).

The past ideas include also a quality information filtering system which reduces the quantity of journal literature on a specific subject to a few highly relevant and easy accessible items. This information system was used successfully (Hopkins 1995, 315f). Today the quality filtering system as one of value-added services to user of library and information systems is one that is already established in information analysis centre like the Congressional Research Service, and some special libraries. Although Taylor stated that many special librarians do possess the necessary time and expertise to filter, select, delete or rank output by perceived importance for their clients (Taylor 1986, p. 129). Hopkins suggests that many special libraries do not have time neither money nor staff to be able to put a great deal of emphasis on the quality filtering of information. Hopkins concluded that it is unlikely that the quality filtering services will offer a radical solution to the problem of information overload (Hopkins 1995, p. 317).

Another present approach (1995) to overload is the provision of printed guides, handbooks and state-of-the-art review articles. These types of sources are effective in assisting the user to make quality judgments about the relevance of documents for a particular information need. What implications does this approach have for the library and for the librarian? First, is that the librarian must be aware of each type of guides, and identify and purchase them for the collection. Second, the librarian must be adept at accessing the various types of guides. Third, librarian may identify some gaps in the present guides and try to fill these gaps by developing new guides or contribute by informing publishers about desirable new titles. Fourth, make the library users aware of the existence of these guides (Hoppkins 1995, p. 317- 321).

A systematic review was considered by Klassen, Jadad and Moher as strategy to counter information overload. Systematic review is a review in which there is a comprehensive search for relevant studies on a specific topic, and those identified are then appraised and synthesized according to a predetermined and explicit method. The review may have some limitations as the difficulty to identify all potentially relevant studies to include and the variable quality of studies included (Klassen, Jadad & Moher 1998, p. 700-702).

Though it is a fact that new information and communication technologies are partly responsible for the problem of information overload they also provide something in the way of solution. Many systems and functions were suggested. These systems were regrouped into three classes: a) intelligent search agent, b) systems for automatically ranking and filtering e- mail and c) systems for customising retrieved information after its arrival (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 254).

To be really useful, information needs to have value added to it by way of summary or analysis. Intelligent agents that scan and summarise text and automatically route the information for users have been proposed as a tool to help reduce information overload. Intelligent agents are smarter than average search tools for two reasons: The first is that they act with autonomy while requiring data about the environment and the second is that they have the facility to learn about individual preferences so that they predict the items that will be of interest for the user (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 22).

16 The request for an intelligent agent to filter incoming material, and/or scan for interesting things in a variety of sources was the only technical solution, to cope with information overload, suggested by several interviewees in pharmaceutical research companies (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 155). The intelligent agent is designed to act autonomy in the performance of the tasks of gathering, sifting and organizing information on the Internet and corporate Intranet. It basically operates as a collaborative adjunct to knowledge workers’ information needs (Martin & Metcalfe 1994, p. 270).

What relevance has intelligent agents for the library? Martin and Metcalfe stated that the use of intelligent agents, which interface and collaborate with the end user, represents a desirable enhancement to library services. Agents can be used as collection management tools, through seeking, analyzing and delivering information for review. A degree of similarity has been observed between the actions of software agents and the reference librarians. Each take in account the information requirement of a client, discovers and utilizes the best sources and codifies the information for delivery (Martin & Metcalf 2001, p. 272). According to Martin and Metcalfe:

The library community can be seen as a class of cooperative, distributed, but in this case cognitive, agents; and librarian employ knowledge sharing as a matter of course. (Martin & Metcalf 2001, P. 272)

Since the library client is often best placed to know and act on her or his interests, it remains for the librarian to facilitate access by providing the most efficient and ready methods of delivery. This might be accomplished through customizing contact points such as the library Web pages. As the librarians know their vital role in smoothing access to the library’s range of resources, they have introduced a customizable interface to the library Web site, which allows links like: citation databases, electronic journals, search engines, discipline-specific Internet resources and importantly CAS linked to the library catalogue (Ibid, p. 269-270).

Hoppkins considered that electronic searching tools are admitted to help users to cope with information overload (1995, p. 317- 321).

A recent technological development to reduce overload is push technology that works by pushing notices of pre-selected information sources across the computer screen alerting users to new and updated information. While there is debate about if push technology reduce the problem of information overload or contribute to it, many users who suffer from information overload view push as an annoying nuisance that provides little of value (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 20).

6. The pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry is defined as the collections of companies that discover, develop manufacture and market medicines for human use. Some research-based companies may fulfil all four of these criteria, while others may only meet one, two or three of these criteria (Spilker 1994, p. 7). Spilker stated that for research-based pharmaceutical companies, the most critical issue today is maintaining a flow of new, innovative medicines that ensure the company’s growth and survive. To meet this challenge companies are adopting strategies to develop their medicines and attempting to improve their efficiency of medicine discovery and development (Ibid, p. 15).

17 The research-based pharmaceutical industry is well-known as being one of the most information intensive industries involving many scientific, medical and commercial disciplines, and generating very large amount of data from its own program. Since the existence of diverse disciplines in the pharmaceutical industry, many and varied information sources were required. Information sources may be categorized as formal and informal. Formal sources include both printed and computerized information services and normally come within the remit of a library and information science service (Desai & Bawden 1993, p. 486-487).

6.1. AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Its task is to develop and market new and effective medicine. AZ’s goal assumes a constant and strong engagement in innovation in research. This is a part of AZ’s goal; to improve and develop the existing medicine is another part. More than 80 million crown is invested each working day to develop new products. R&D is carried on at nine major research sites situated in five countries: Sweden, Great Britain, USA, Canada and Indian (AstraZeneca 1, 2003). AZ’s Headquarter is in the UK and the R&D headquarters in Sweden. AZ sells in over 100 countries, manufacture in 20 and have major research centre in five. The number of the employees is 58,000 people worldwide (AstraZeneca 2002a, p. 01).

R&D is formed of three unities: Discovery, development and market. It is focused on improving productivity and efficiency of new drug delivery. In discovery, the aim is to increase the output of high quality candidate drugs (CDs) with a lower risk of failure in development. In development, the aim is to develop better drugs faster. In R&D work over 11,000 people at the nine major sites. The 2002 R&D investment totalled $3,069 million (AstraZeneca 2002b, p.21). Researches at AZ cover seven different disease areas: Gastrointestinal, Cardiovascular, cancer, Respiratory, Central nervous system, pain control and infection. Developing a new medicine is a lengthy and complex process in which animal studies play a vital role. It starts with the identification of a need for a new medicine and passes through two long phases: drug discovery and drug development. This process takes 10 to 15 years (AstraZeneca 2002c, p. 3-5).

AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal is one of AZ’s larger research centres. Approximately 2,300 employees work for research and development of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal medicines. AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal covers the range of pre clinical, pharmaceutical and clinical trials, and contact with authorities. Over the years, research at Mölndal has contributed to the production of the most successful and the highest selling medicine Omeprazol that has been marketed under the name Losec. Losec is used to treat a variety of gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. Nexium is a follow-up to Losec and it has been developed at Mölndal centre now. Nexium is an even more effective proton pump inhibitor. When it come to cardiovascular medicine researchers at Mölndal are also working on several interesting projects such as thrombosis inhibitors that will prevent the occurrence of blood clots (AstraZeneca 2, 2003).

At AstraZeneca, there are many divisions that furnish researchers with information, some of these department are:

18 § Knowledge management: they work with publications. They do not make searches. § Information support in different Bioinformatics; they are looking for how the information will be delivered. They provide databases, work with international marketing and buy new databases. § International market. § PR (Public Relation) and Communication deliver different kinds of information. Its mission to present the industry in the mass media, to provide internal journals and internal information (Librarian 4). The information division handle information about the company at a whole. They are responsible for the Intranet which may sometime cause overload (Librarian 1). § The library, further referred as IS&L, serves everyone at AZ. According to the information management policy at the library level, IS&L aims to furnish the researchers with the information they need in all areas (Librarian 4).

At AZ different departments do the same things done by the library though partnership in the information policy but they don’t compete with each other. If the library is to do the entire job done by other departments it will need more financial support (Librarian 4).

According to a librarian, there is a huge information flow within AZ, at all levels and functions, not just the library. The main part of the information is not related to the library at all. The main part of the information and communication is related to research in itself (internal, in-house data). The library does supply information to the scientists and other staff. They visit the library and use its services when they have a need for external, published information (personal communication 1, 2003).

6.2. The library at AstraZeneca

The library at AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal is known as Information Science and Library/Documentation Centre. According to a librarian, the Documentation Centre will not be a part of the library IS&L from autumn 2003. IS&L is placed in the centre of the AstraZeneca’s building on the third floor and it is divided into two floors. The researchers pass the library to the cafeteria and the restaurant. There are 16 librarians working at IS&L.

At the library and next to the information disk researchers can find printed manuals that help them to learn how to use new tools that are provided by the library. The library offers also on- line manuals that can be reached through the library homepage. Opposite to the main library entrance researchers can take a break with a cop of coffee at bubblan where they can read newspapers, current journals and look at new books that are displayed. At bubblan, the researchers can also read some overviews about new papers that came out and advertisement about new issues of medical journals.

IS&L’s mission is:

To provide an industry-leading information capability developing value-added and innovation solutions in support of AZ business goals across all SET in an environment that fosters partnerships, collaboration and empowerment. (IS&L information policy, 2003)

The library policy is to keep itself informed and to inform its clients (Librarian 3). It works to make all the researchers get the information they need. The library manager affirmed that it is

19 different with a common information policy at AZ because different departments have different information needs. The library cooperates in a very good way with different departments. It works according to their needs. There are people from the library who work in some departments. IS&L works very closely with the projects and accepts each request. An information specialist works within the project and helps to search information. The idea to work with the researchers in projects was an initiative from the library side and it started in 1995-1996.

IS&L is a corporate library with traditional library services, although in an “electronic environment”. The most important services are: · Published information in form of journals, ejournals, books etc. · Copies of articles. · External and internal databases (structured information: bibliographic databases, chemistry, patent, pipeline and news. · Professional database searches on behalf of users. · End user education · Purchasing books (personal communication 1, 2003).

Books IS&L provides the book catalogue AZlib that contain more than 12 000 titles held at the AZ site in Mölndal. All books, except reference books are available for lending. Books are kept both in the library and at the research departments (Information Science & Library 2003). According to librarians, books are not used that much nowadays. About 1500 books are bought every year both for the library and the researchers. On AZ’s homepage can researchers read about new books that come in (Librarian 2).

Journals At the IS&L there are about 2000 e-journals that are accessible through IS&L’s homepage. IS&L subscribes also to about 600 printed. Only 500 of these journals are used. Researchers ask by themselves about the new journals they want. Through AZ’s homepage the researchers announce their interest about journals and articles. When these arrive they get e-mail through alert (Librarian 1).

Copies of articles Library customers can make their own copies of printed and electronic journals from IS&L’s collections. Otherwise the copy requests should be ordered through the document order system Bestis (Information Science & Library, 2003).

Databases IS&L provides access to a more than 69 databases within the scientific, medical, commercial, patent, safety and technical areas. These databases are available on the Mölndal site (Ibid, 2003). Some of the most used databases at AZ, according to a librarian (1):

§ Ovid: some of databases as Medline, Embass, Biosis and others are available through the OVID system. § Medline is a bibliographic database produced by US National Library of medicine, coverage from 1066 to present. § Embase, Excerpta Medica database covers the biomedical and pharmaceutical literature, with emphasis on European sources.

20 § PL@net is a database, produced by Global IS&L, containing references to and abstracts of published literature on AZ’s products. It also contains selected publications from competitors and background material. § Biosis Previews is a comprehensive bibliographic database for life science research. § IDdb, Investigational Drugs database, to follow the competitors. It provides monograph of drug candidates, patent reports, company profiles scientific references, etc. § Amiracle an intern database. Several sets of information among them Thrombin Mölndal is available through the Amiracle system. § Current contents are a table of contents database with a broad coverage of scientific journals, including bibliographic data and abstract. § European Pharmacopoeia 2001 covers all medicines in Europe. § FASS § PHARMAPROJECTS provide profiles of drug candidate from preclinical to launch. § U.S. Pharmacopoeia-National Formulation (USP-NF): provides the official FDA standards, testing guidelines, and specifications that are needed, in one comprehensive resource. It Keeps on top of current developments in standards and test methods that affect AstraZeneca products (IS&L homepage, 2003).

The library keeps itself up-to-date, especially when it comes to databases. It gets a lot of advertising but there is no time to look at all that. The library buys new databases according to what the researchers’ need and wish. Some new databases come and other disappears. At the library they work globally and they have people all around the word to look at theses things. The library has access to News databases on the Internet. The library staffs have their own systems as New Edge which is a specification of different news (Librarian 3).

Tools EndNote is a reference manager which is specialised in storing, managing and searching for bibliographic references in the private reference library (Information Science and Library, 2003).

Database searches IS&L provides professional database searches on behalf of its users. Information specialists play an important role at AZ in helping researchers to find the relevant literature (Librarian 2). When the researcher come on 800 hit the library come on 200. New researchers think they can search by their own but they come back to the library. The “big researchers” are those who use the most the library searches. The chemists perform their own search and are generally very skilled at information seeking (Librarian 4).

With their scientific backgrounds and information science skills, information specialists can provide services as: · Retrospective searches: finding the right databases among in-house and on-line databases for scientific literature, patents, news and competitor information. · Current Awareness: which means create project-related or individual profiles keeping the library users up-to-date within their area and providing the search results in the most appropriate form. · Pa tent Information: carry out complex and comprehensive searches using the search language, codes and indexing of each database. · Competitor Information: providing charts of drugs in development at different companies, in different therapeutic areas and specified indications.

21 · Project Teams: participate in project teams to proactively provide relevant information and give search support. · Desktop Databases: offering support and end-user training for databases and tools available through IS&L. The library can also provide departments with tailor-made courses (information science &Library, 2003).

Patent documents Patents are available on desktop through the Micro patent service. The user of this service can search front-page information and download the complete patent documents. Translation of patents can be ordered via SI&L (Ibid, 2003).

The researchers have their own subscriptions to databases and other sources, these researchers use the most the library services. They buy their own databases and they have contacts all over the world (Librarian 3). About 100 researchers have their own subscription to journals but they still use the library services. They visit the library if they are new or if they want to use a new thing. Some researchers think the library don’t have too much to do because they get everything through their desktop (Librarian 1).

It takes long time before the researchers are conscious about the problem of information overload. The first sensation for the problem was with the provision of ejournal. Alert helps the researchers to reduce the information flow (Librarian 4). Researchers may overestimate their own abilities. According to a librarian (1), one of the researchers had announced for 30 journals via e-mail alert and didn’t now how to cancel the request or minimize it.

Staff at the international marketing department does not always have the time to read full articles instead they prefer to read abstracts. The library provides an in-house database with references to articles about AZ’s products and decease areas. In this database the marketing people find the abstracts they need so that they do not have to read the full articles. There are also contact person in the library that inform the marketing department about interesting articles at the present time the library is working on something that it will look like review or handbook where relevant articles on a specific area are gathered (Librarian 4).

7. Metod

Qualitative research is a situated activity that located the observer in the world. It involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Qualitative research involves many practices as case studies, interviews, observations and others used to get a better understanding of the subject matter at hand (Denzin & Lincoln 2000, p. 3-4).

Qualitative researches generate a theory grounded in the collected data. It is less driven by very specific hypotheses and categorical frameworks and more concerned with emergent themes and idiographic descriptions. One of the cornerstones of the qualitative approaches is its acceptance of the inherent subjectivity of the research endeavour (Cassell & Symon 1994, p. 3-4). A defining characteristic of qualitative research is its focus on the participants’ point of view (Lee1999, p. 40) and the present study emphasis on the scientists’ way of experiencing information overload in term of staying current, within their natural settings and how do they perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information

22 overload. Qualitative methods are also known to be flexible in the meaning that they allow to adjust the ongoing data collection and much more quickly to respond to context specific constraints (ibid, p. 27).

7.1. Interview

The qualitative researches used different ways to generate empirical materials grounded in the everyday world. Interviewing is one of these ways. It can be used for measurement or its scope can be the understanding of an individual or a group perspective (Fontana & Frey 2000, p. 645).

The interview is revealed to be the most common qualitative method practiced in organizational research (Lee 1999, p. 24). This approach is known to be a highly flexible method and it is capable to produce data of great depth. The goal of using this approach is to see the research topic from the perspective of the interviewee (King 1994, p. 14).

Two kinds of interviews were made: the first was with the library manager and three librarians to look learn about the library role at AZ while helping scientists to keep up to date and to avoid overload. The second was with the scientists to have an understanding about the perceived role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload. To meet this goal, the questions of the interviews with the scientists, and as King stated, were open and focus on the specific situation in the world of the interviewees, in this case AZ (1994, p. 15). The most useful data, come from face-to-face interview with a relatively small group of researchers at AZ, using semi structured individual interviews.

The present study aimed to have a representative picture at AZ. It was not that easy because the researchers are too busy to participate in a study that is not suggested by the organisation and because of lack of time. They may think that the study has not a direct relevance to their work. The choice of the interviewees was not mine and I was obliged to delegate the task to a librarian, who helped me to contact the scientists and to find some willing participants. He sent email to about 15 researchers that were thought to be willing and can participate and who have a major contact with the library, according to the librarian. There was no possibility to select the participants according to a specific criterion; the most realistic was to find some willing to participate. To interview some scientists who have a major contact with the library and its staff and use the library services was considered a possible good criterion look at how the scientists perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with overload. This criterion was considered suitable to the purpose of the present study. Those who answered were only 9 researchers. Eight of them were researchers; the ninth one was not. The eight interviewees were all scientists in various research areas and disciplines and with various seniority and length of service.

The eight respondents were told by e-mail, sent in advance (Annex 1), about the purpose of the study, what it hopes to achieve and when they may receive a copy of the study. These points were repeated at the start of every interview and I took the permission to tape-record the interview. The length of the interviews varied between 20 minutes and 45 minutes. I have used an interview guide (Annex 2) that was quite detailed but the questions were not asked, all the time, in a specific order, because the interviewees had sometimes answered the question before I asked it. There were also some probes to remind me to explore certain area in more dept. My primary concern with the interview guide was to estimate the individual

23 experience. With the six first questions I wanted to investigate how each of the respondents experiences the problem of information overload in term of keeping up-to-date with current literature, at AZ. The other three questions are related to the coping strategies used by researchers. With the last three questions I intend to discuss how do the researchers perceive the role of the library in relation to the problem of information overload and maintaining currency.

When it comes to the interviews with the library staff, the interviews were all informal conversations where I didn’t follow any interview manual. The first one was my first step at AZ. Two librarians were met, at the same time. During this interview the library and its services were presented to me. The other three interviews were conducted to look at the library role in the organization while providing information to the researchers, to find its policy and how do (if they do) help the researchers to cope with information overload. The results of the interviews with the librarians are not directly used, in the present study, to build an understanding about the library role; they are sometimes used in the discussion chapter when it is revealed to be needed.

7.2. Analysis

The main techniques for analyzing qualitative data involve various applications of storing, organizing and indexing data (Lee 1999, p. 96). The data gathered through the interviews with both the researchers and the librarians were written down entirely. The data from the interviews with the researchers was organized first under three headings related to the three main parts of the questions. Then under each heading there were some others headings where the data was organized according to different areas threaten in the questions of the interviews.

· Information overload at AstrZeneca: - The researchers’ information tasks. - Information sources and databases. - Sources of information overload. - Information overload and currency. - Other kinds of overload. · The researchers’ coping strategies: - Strategies to cope with information overload. - Personal information management. - The researchers’ information literacy.

· The library as perceived by the researchers: - The library services and currency. - The library role in countering information overload. - General approaches to information overload.

The data from the interviews with the librarian were connected both to the observations I have made while visiting the library and to the unpublished documents about the library. The data was assumed to be suitable in the sixth chapter, under the role of the library at AZ.

24 7.3. Problem with the application of the method

The major problem I faced was in finding some scientists who were willing to participate. They were only eight researchers, which mean that the present study is not representative for the whole organisation.

While presenting and analysing the results of the empirical study, it was sometimes too difficult to regroup the data under only one of the three headings, because the answers given by the researchers could be used in the three headings at the same time. For example some of the researchers started at the very beginning talking about the library role while answering the second and third questions. Then they talked about it again while answering the last three questions. This made it difficult to decide where the data was more suitable and I thought of reorganizing the results differently, each interview for itself. But this was not revealed to have major affects on the final results of the study. That is why the analysis of the data was as it is represented in the chapter 8.

25 8. Results the empirical study

This chapter includes the results of the interviews with the researchers. The length of service of the researchers at AZ varies between five years and twenty nine years. Some of them have been in the field, R&D, even longer.

8.1. Information overload at AstraZeneca

The work of the researchers at AZ involves many information tasks. The information sources used by researchers as well as the sources for information overload will be presented here.

8.1.1. The researchers information tasks

Five of the respondents agreed that they need much information in their work. The work of one of them is 100% based on information. Three of the researchers stated that keeping up-to- date with the current state of the art of the field is important. According to the half of the respondents, to know what the competitors are doing and to check out what is going on is important. Two respondents affirmed that they need to know what to expect and about new studies coming out. One of them added that the interpretation of these new studies and the future ideas, are important.

Almost all the respondent stated or strongly stated that they went about seeking and using information in their work. Information use was perceived by two respondents as a main part of the daily work. Five of the respondents do information seeking by them. According to two of them information seeking constitutes 50% of their work that includes also analysing and presenting information. One of the researchers stated that s/he is information provider and helps people to find information. The researcher added that:

Sometimes my role is intelligent scientist. I gather the information and write it so that people can find it; I transform the information to knowledge. (Respondent 8)

Another respondent stated that it can happen that s/he searches information. The respondents had different attitudes to information seeking; two of them search the information they know exists, another researcher seeks new information. Someone else searches scientific database that is related to the work that the researcher performs. Another interviewee stated that s/he knows where to find information when it is needed. Another said that s/he has knowledge and that s/he can chose the results that exist.

8.1.2. Information sources and databases

Six of the participants get the information about the literature they need to stay current in the field through self searching in the Internet and databases such as CA Select, IDdb, the pharmaceutical chemistry that covers all the journals in the pharmaceutical science and the

26 Chem web which is free. Ovid which is a database host, offer access to Medline and Embass, was mentioned by most of the researchers as an information source. These databases are used differently by different researchers. While two respondents mentioned Ovid in general as the main source, another respondent suggested Medline as a major source where the researcher gets daily up-to-date information using set of key words that runs every night against Medline and by that it will pull up what has happen, in the areas that interested the researcher, so every morning s/he has a long list with e-mail, telling which articles have been published in the interval of a day or a week, and in which journal and get the abstract.

Two researchers stated that today it is much easier to find information about the current literature and that in the past they could not make searches. All the searches were done by library staff. Today the researchers have Ovid. One researcher stated that is easier to search through Ovid than the Internet. Another one affirmed that the only disadvantage with Ovid is that it covers journals only from the 1996 and it is difficult to find a book that cover the period between 1920 and 1996, which does not exist in Ovid. That leads to the repetition of earlier researches.

The Internet was the most commonly cited source to get hold of current literature and articles. Four interviewees agreed with that. One of them stated that 75% of what is needed exists in electronic forms. According to the respondent, everything goes through the library; it has access to these, the company pays for that, it is just to follow the links from Ovid into the papers. The respondent added that the library organizes all this and the researchers have access to index of all the electronic journals that exist at AZ, if the researchers need a specific journal they just go to that journal. It goes through the library portal. The respondents stated that only 25% is through ordering through the library, in case the researchers do not have a licence or the reference does not exist in electronic form. Another respondent affirmed that the literature may be requested from the library if the researchers do not have access to it.

Besides using the Internet, another interviewee order copies from the library. Three of the respondents used to order the articles if they do not exist on the Internet. One of them who uses this service quite a lot and mentioned that to order the articles directly from desktop is a good system and it works extremely well at AZ. The library offers interlibrary loan; one of the interviewees specify that the library has good systems to obtain articles from British lending services and s/he is very pleased with that, and it takes a week or something like that. It is a good time. The respondent used to order books and some old literature, to check out the old literature which is needed in preparing articles and not to find new things; retrospective is the most important for the researcher. Two participants cited that asking the library staff to get the information they need is practically an alternative. One respondent stated that s/he knows the services offered through the library homepage and that s/he directly goes to current contents if it is necessary.

When it comes to the current literature, the books were not seen for today. Today there is not too much books, it is much articles.

Two of the interviewees referred to the circulation list that AZ used to have few years ago as a good way to get the current information in one condition that the journals reach the researcher in short time other way it will be for no help. One of the participants used to have 20 journals through the circulation list of journals but the journals are today electronic.

27 Almost half of the respondents cited e-mail alert as an alternative used to get information about current literature. One of them specified that e-mail alert is a good service but it needs a continual work to keep it updated. Another mentioned an alert from a site which collects all information in specific areas that the researcher decides to have information about. It comes once a day, once a week or a month. Some other respondents get a long list with e-mail alert. Although one of the researchers stated that s/he does not try alert, another researcher claims that because of lack of time, s/he does not have alert any more.

An interviewee suggested, as a source for current information, a channel for cardiovascular within AZ. It is a function that researchers can subscribe to, to get information every week about most important new publications within that area and within some other areas related to most important fields that AZ works in within cardiovascular deceases areas. In early phase in the project it doesn’t give much value information but the researcher scan it very quickly.

Four of the respondents mentioned that they keep some current knowledge in the field by talking to people that are working in something that is interested for the researcher. For one of them this is the most useful alternative. According to another researcher through oral communication the researcher gets current information about the related fields. Another researcher that likes to be better up-to-date in the related areas of cardiovascular deceases stated that reading some overview articles in a related field is what s/he is keeping doing now and then. Another researcher suggested that information does exist but because of time problems, the researcher does not scan journals to find what is going on. That is very little any way.

One of the respondents that is working in projects stated that s/he needs very much current information and s/he gets information via professional contacts both internal and external, and both for the clinical studies and the preclinical work. Internally the respondent gets information through professional contacts and externally through physicians, investigators and consultancies who reported about new things they think are important, about new studies coming out and how they do interpret them. The researcher added that:

at the market organisation, they do not test and collect marketing data but also they detect and follow up clinical studies to the other compounds being done all over the world, new results reporting in conferences and in papers, so that we get current things. (Respondent 4)

While one respondent mentioned the Intranet as an alternative through it the researcher reaches many links, another respondent stated that the Intranet is not worth looking at. The respondent uses it once a year.

Contact network, literature references, patent references, surfing for customers and new colleagues via Internet were cited as additional sources to get information about the current literature. One of the participants referred to personal contacts, some types from conferences and e-mail, adverse and news papers as ways to get hold of the current literature.

8.1.3. Sources of information overload

To answer the question whether the researchers think that they are dealing with too much current literature more than they can handle, three of the researchers who have respectively, 17, 25 and 29 years of working experience in R&D, strongly agreed with that. One of them

28 wished to have more time to read all the gathered literature and a part of what is gathered, the respondent just skims it.

The information send via Alert was perceived by the second respondent as much. The respondent added that:

I would like to read much more, I would like to read the relevant paper. The dream is to have five papers covering exactly what I want. That is the dream. You have to perform several searches to get these five articles. If I got a lot of irrelevance I throw them away. When I do search, in general I get information and it is too much, that such, that is why I keep doing over and doing... If we set up a search, it is important we scientists to know ourselves how to make adequate searches. And also training and doing that give us the means of getting those five papers that we need, I mean the limited number of relevant articles. (Respondent 4)

The third interviewees stated that s/he is dealing with too much information more than s/he can handle. The respondent added that s/he tend to make broader search and follow different links.

One of the participants, while answering this question, associated directly the too much current literature with information overload when s/he stated that in some area there is information overload, mainly when it comes to the two areas: gastrointestinal deceases and cardiovascular deceases. The participant, who is working in obesity research, affirmed if s/he might to know everything about the field, the researcher may find hundred new papers per day, new papers that are available, in this case it is too much. In some cases where the researcher works in specific protein family or something like that, there is one paper every week or month, is not that much happening. According to the respondent, it depends on what the researchers are looking at, and in some areas there is definitively information overload.

Four of the respondents, whose length of service varies between 6 years and 27 years, affirmed that they are not dealing with too much current literature. While one of them stated that the literature s/he gets is necessary and s/he can deal with it, the respondent mentioned that the big problem is to have enough time to read and reflect on the information in the articles. Another respondent experienced that wrong information is the problem. Another respondent stated that it is not always overload, it is sometimes lack of information. When the researcher does not find s/he tries again.

Though one of the four and who works in Discovery department, stated that s/he generally does not need too much information, affirmed in another question that s/he suffer from overload. Another respondent stated that things have changed. The circulation list has disappeared and today the researcher chooses the journals s/he wants to subscribe to. Two of the four mentioned that there is a risk not to read everything and to miss some information. According to one of the respondents, her/his colleagues said often that they have too much to read, some of them have subscribed to journals on the Internet.

One of the respondents claimed that mostly they obtained too much information; lot of information in the organization, administrative information and tremendous information from the projects, which they are working with and participating to.

According to a respondent, it is too much information circling on the Internet and which makes the researcher overloaded.

29 8.1.4. Information overload and currency

Five respondents, whose length of service varies between 6 and 29 years, agreed or strongly agreed that the problem of information overload in research is related to maintaining currency. One of the interviewees who has a long experience in R&D, more than 25 years, came in saying: “I have information overload” (respondent 5). Another who works for AZ since 1986, laughed and affirmed to have a big backlog of unread papers beside her/his bed. According to the respondent, what is needed is to accept this.

Three of the respondents who agreed with that gave some comments. The first respondent added that a lot of people will concentrate on a little part and leave the rest. To cover a whole field it will be totally impossible, but to narrow to the very specific field that the researcher works with will makes it possible to handle the information. That is why the researcher focuses on a small sector that is needed in her/his work.

The second respondent suggested that the relation between overload and currency depends on the level that the researcher aims at it, if s/he thinks it is absolutely necessary to be ware of everything then s/he is likely to be overloaded.

The third respondent explained that it is not a general problem. The researcher agreed if the area of interest is too broad and then one need to narrow her/his view because the problem is not the information itself but it is that the researcher’s broad view.

Another participant looked at the problem of information overload as a personal approach, where the researchers want to know what is done before and what they are doing to stay on the front line. According to the respondent, the researchers want to analyse it, read more about it, it has to do with professionalism. The researchers want to be well informed; it is their duty, their purpose and their task to stay up-to-date.

For two of the researchers who work 6 respective 17 years at AZ, the relation between information overload and maintaining currency does not exist. While one of them who affirmed strongly that s/he does not experience that there is relation between overload and maintaining currency. The other one suggested that the researcher must know what other researchers are doing but this can be uncomfortable. The researcher may spend as much time on searching information but the question is how much time do the researcher has? According to the respondent, in this society, where there is too much information, there is too much to do, that is why “casting” is a right thing, and s/he does it. According to the respondent, the researcher solves the problem by her/himself.

8.1.5. Other kinds of overload

While one of the respondents did not experience any other kinds of overload, another respondent affirmed that:

When I feel information overload it is when it comes to be up-to-date, that is the only area where I feel there is a problem. (Respondent 7)

30 At AZ, work overload manifested to be a serious kind of overload, where two researchers stated that there is too much to do. According to one of the respondents, the researchers at AZ took advantage of the information and are using it too much.

Information overload in some areas, according to a respondent, is more process related information. Process related overload, according to the respondent is the whole process that researchers need to go through, how to handle various things within the company how to deal with clinical studies, for example, to plan for the project that takes into account everything like finance, patents, and check points and so on. It is in the way the researchers work. The big problem is this kind of information overload.

While talking about e-mail and Intranet, one of the interviewees said that they are sometimes seen as a burden. Another respondent stated that information is not user-related and the information pushed to a researcher together with many other people is another kind of information overload. The researcher did not request the information but someone else in the organization thinks that the researcher may need it. According to the respondent, producers want to show that they have the full knowledge. The information pushed is an advance but used by unskilled can causes tremendous information overload. Generally e-mails are good, it makes easy to reach people, to contact them and to send recently information, but the researcher should always keep it as short as possible. The respondent added that the situation can be improved.

Although five respondents stated that it is most e-mail, misuse of the e-mail. One of them affirmed that there is a lot which is not needed but while getting rid of e-mails there is risk to get rid of important things. Another respondent affirmed that the rapid communication is a cause to information overload and the researcher has to answer all the e-mails, so s/he does not have time to think what to do. The respondent added that the researcher does have to start the day by getting rid of e-mails, and while getting rid of e-mail there are other things to be done and those can not always be done in a proper way because the researcher spends the time on reading email rather than on working.

While two participants agreed that information from the Intranet causes overload, there were two others who considered the Intranet as more structured and as a good aid. There the users may find what they need if they know where to go and where to find the information. One of the two respondents added that many communities now are using shared information, which is a trend. According to the respondent, at AZ they are also working in project, they can put the information on one screen, a community thinking on sharing and reusing information.

Another kind of information overload mentioned by one participant is that the researchers overestimate their abilities in the meaning that they work with a problem and they find interesting information about another and they want to work with this too. The respondent thought that this is the overload, to be interested in many areas.

Nor the e-mail neither the Intranet are causes for overload, stated one of the respondent and added that s/he is selective and this is due to the university studies.

31 8.2. The researchers’ coping strategies

The individual coping strategies suggested by the researchers were regrouped into two kinds: strategies to cope with information overload and personal information management.

8.2.1. Strategies to cope with information overload

To be selective was perceived by five participants as a strategy to cope with information overload. One mentioned that the researcher can not know everything about everything but needs to be selective and to filter. Using this strategy the respondent reads just what is necessary. Another one added that to be selective is to narrow the area of interest and to select the information that is needed to the most essential pieces that the researcher thinks are important for the work. In this case the researcher can handle that information; it is a matter of selecting and prioritizing.

To deal with the problem of information overload, one respondent affirmed that s/he has a long experience in R&D and can choose strategies. The researcher added that her/his strategy is very practice "att anpassa rätt munnen efter matsäcken”. According to the respondent, this means if it is lunch time so the researcher must finish, if it is time to go home than s/he must quit and when there is not more time it means there is not more time. The respondent added that at AZ there are meetings and many other fixed things that must be done. According to the same researcher this strategy is also available to work overload where the situation is more difficult. The respondent stated that s/he controls the information that s/he searches but can not control work overload.

To deal with information overload, three interviewees stated that speed reading is an applicable strategy. One of them added if s/he finds 200 articles on the Internet s/he scans them and chooses five abstracts and read them. The researcher who works at AZ for 18 years ago, added that this strategy had developed through the years so that the researcher can know from the title decide which article to choose. According to the respondent, the risk is that many things will be missed. According to a respondent, to reduce the time spent on reading the literature is a possibility that is working. Another researcher who works at AZ for sex years affirmed that s/he sometimes reads summary and abstracts and marks the important things, this strategy, according to the respondent is due to the university studies which made it possible for her or him to read 50 papers per day if necessary.

One of the researchers affirmed that’s/he selects high quality journals, for example, s/he does not look at The National Academic of Sciences. No one had looked if it is correct or not. Another one stated that the number of journals mentioned to be read is reduced at the moment only one journal. Another respondent that used to have “little bit too high ambition” and reads “little bit too much” had reduced that only to what is less required to the job.

One of the respondents affirmed that the strategy used to cope with overload is to cast away the literature but it is not that easy to cast away. The respondent reads if there is something interesting or if s/he is curious about something. In general, it is difficult to cope with information. To work with the library people, is a strategy mentioned by another respondent.

Some strategies to deal with information overload were cited by a participant and these include: To reduce the amount of alerts, to finish the task more efficiently and not go aside

32 and not follow up different information, to decide more efficiently what to do with the information that is coming.

Another mentioned strategy is to share information and to not think that no one has done the same question before. According to a respondent, the researcher must think that someone else has the answer. At AZ’s side there are good possibilities to search and the problem is not in the databases but is to learn and to teach others to search efficiently; the quality of answer depends on how the researcher formulates the question. To limit the searching was another strategy mentioned by another respondent. Another respondent affirmed that researchers have group meetings and usually one of them has to present new paper, they take turn to present something that they find interesting, and they discuss it at a separate meeting.

One mentioned strategy related to e-mail alert is to look immediately at the alert, prints out the abstracts and puts everything into the databases that the respondent has for collected information. Another strategy is to reduce alert and to describe in which areas the researcher wants to be updated.

One of the respondents suggested that to be interviewed to discuss the problem of information overload may highlight some ideas to handle the problem.

For the other kind of information overload, the one related to the process, the suggested strategy was not to follow the supposed mandatory, read it and reflect on it, but to ask others about the important things in it. For the process related information overload, the researcher does not need to feel under informed when it comes to read the whole process, it proves it is not necessary to read everything.

To deal with that kind of information overload that manifests by lack of information, one respondent stated that trying again to find information is a strategy.

To deal with overload caused by the e-mail, what was suggested is generally to deal with every e-mail as soon as the researcher marks it, to decide whether to answer it, forward it, put it where it must be or delete it and to remove directly the unwanted mail. One respondent affirmed not having good solution and needs to be better.

8.2.2. Personal information management

To deal with the literature and the articles that the researchers need to keep up-to-date, various strategies were adopted. Sorting and storing them for further reading, were considered by almost the half of the respondent as a main strategy. Two researchers suggested that they print them, sort them in different categories. One of them prints only those that are related to the area of interest. The other confirmed that s/he likes copies but in time of overload s/he does not have time to sort them in different categories. At the present time, the respondent has a huge amount of things that need to be sorted. It is time consuming and it could be a kind of overload. Another respondent affirmed that the researchers must think where to put the things they hear or read, to act immediately in the meaning that to send the information away or to throw it or to put somewhere until the researcher has time to deal with it and to decide what is important for the researcher.

33 One of the participant affirmed that s/he has personal management in dealing with the literature s/he needs to stay current in the field. This includes: organizing the literature in different categories so that the researcher knows where they exist, storing them and never throw any paper away. The researcher collects things and keeps all the paper, at least the first pages. To organize is a good thing.

Another respondent affirmed that organizing the overflow is a good strategy and the researcher may feel overload if s/he does not organize. Organize on fields, on themes, on quality of paper, quality of what is known about the journal, kind of journals. Organize in the meaning: what the paper is about, where they come from, are they from some journals the researcher does not care about? Two other researchers organise by putting the literature that is needed in Endnote and the references in different libraries using classification words and definition.

8.2.3. The researchers’ information literacy

Six of the respondents who have various length of working experience at AZ, between 6 and 29 years, agreed strongly with the definition of information literacy and stated that they are information literate and gave different comments. One of them laughed and confirmed that s/he is skilled and knows how to handle all that. Another interviewee explained that s/he tries to decide what to find and select. Two other affirmed that they use selection and judgement in dealing with the literature. A fifth respondent stated somewhere else during the interview that s/he needs to be more efficient and decides if the information is for her/him or for someone else, is it right information and what content that make her/him interested of it.

Although one of the researchers answered that s/he needs improvement to be better, another respondent stated that s/he is not information literate but needs to be.

How do the researchers evaluate their own coping strategies? Five answered that their strategies were effective and they give various comments. One respondent specified that the used strategies as specialization, prioritizing and selecting were effective but has not find good strategies for e-mail. A second respondent thinks that it depends on the age, the one become more experienced with the years. One becomes less “hungry” and it is “strength to not be hungry”.

One of the interviewees claimed that s/he needs to be even more efficient. In certain task s/he is satisfied but it could be more improved but s/he copes with quite a lot. The respondent added that s/he is satisfied with the possibilities but not satisfied with the ways to get rid of it. Satisfied with the information s/he searches for her/himself but not satisfied with how the information is available for others. According to the respondent many needs have not been full field, between them possibilities, chances and available information and how to publish it so that every body that needs it can reads it. That is what they are working with, sharing knowledge.

While one of the respondent affirmed that it is difficult to say if the used strategies are effective or not because s/he always gets the information s/he likes and this depends on what information literate the researcher is. Another participant affirmed not having effective coping strategies and that information is growing so fast that it is not possible to follow with.

34 8.3. The library as perceived by researchers

The library role was divided into two parts: its role in helping researchers to stay current and its role in helping them to cope with information overload.

8.3.1. The library services and currency

Answers to question 10, about the use of the library services, were very varied. Two respondents stated that they do not use the library services at the present time because everything exists on the Internet. According to one of them, earlier the researchers have used the library when they will search via abstracts and via the library. At the present time the researchers make these things by themselves. Four respondents affirmed that they most use the databases. One cited the reference library and the library’s homepage as main services. Six of the respondent stated that they use the library to order reprints from journals that they do not find, do not have access to or that are not available electronically. One of them uses this service quietly extensive. Another researcher added that the articles reach her/his work place via post and if the researcher is in hurry, s/he will pass by the library and bring them. According to the respondent, it is very seldom that s/he visits the library and that now a day the researcher works a lot through the computer. Two respondents stated that they order books and new books, other visits the library to check some journals or to check articles in the archives.

The library staffs are considered as efficient, trained, and professional in different topics and experts in performing searches. Four of the respondents mentioned that they ask the library staff to help them to perform some searches. Two of them may ask the library staffs when they could not reach any results by themselves, the other two respondents stated that they use the library most often to retrieve current information that the researchers may not have access to through the Internet, for example Science Citation Index. One of them adds that if s/he needs additional information in a specific scientific area, where s/he is not currently updated or it may extend backwards in time that s/he does not know, then s/he asks the library to help to do search of that type of information.

Two interviewees mentioned that the library staffs organize all electronic journals and it is one way where the researchers make use of their services.

One participant stated that there is a good cooperation with the library. The respondent added that s/he helps people to communicate with the library staff through translation of the questions so that the library staff can understand it. According to the respondent, at the present time the services used are information portals, the databases, links, tools, and news on the Internet about what is available and updated and how to use it.

As a respondent stated, their manual help is not that often, once in month or less actually.

Almost all the participants stated that the library helps the researchers to stay up-to-date. The answers were all the time followed by comments. One of the respondents affirmed that the library staff help them implicitly in the sense that they provide all the tools, Ovid, all the electronic journals, e-mail, alert and so on. They do also, help in looking for patent and patent information. According to one respondent, the library makes announcement about available

35 portals. A second interviewee stated that the library also helps through announcements about the coming references as new journals on the Internet and the arrival of some books. Another one specified his answer by saying that everything the user should know is that, he or she has to go to the library pages and there they can find different access to different account. They have information on how to use it. Many Alerts are made of library people and connected to the researcher’s area of interest.

While one of the participants affirmed that the library has good possibilities if one wants to stay current, another respondent stated that the library’s work becomes less and less and that it helps with copies and announcements, but some big help?

Another respondent affirmed that the library staff advertised a kind of short information overviews of different areas that could be of interest so that people at AZ know when something appears that they could need. The respondent added that these overviews need to be short and easily read information due to the time factor and if other things are coming as editorial and articles where important information is summarised into pages, it could be valued if it was advertised.

8.3.2. The library role in countering information overload

When it comes to the library role in helping researchers to cope with information overload, at the present time and in the future, there was diversity in the opinions. Though two respondents affirmed that the library does not help them to cope with information overload, another respondent stated that the library can help them to cope with overload but s/he does not know how. The respondent added that “this study maybe can help us in someway”.

Another interviewee specified the answer by saying that the library is a very well maintained library that is why it helps them both to stay up-to-date and to cope with overload. According to the same researcher, the library helps researchers to cope with information overload by providing the CA (Chemical Abstract) select series where the researcher can find articles quickly and check other publications and, according to the respondent as long as s/he keeps do that it resolves her/his problems and s/he can trust them. Two other respondents affirmed that the library helps researchers by training them, giving them tips and instruction and education on how to perform a search in adequate way. The library helps researchers by giving assistance to go to the right direction, by communicating and working together in projects. Another respondent affirmed that the library plays a role, with the training courses, with transferring knowledge, how to use different databases and tools. The respondent referred to the change in the journals from printed to databases (ejournals) to affirm that the library is necessary. Another respondent with a long experience in R&D (more than 20 years) stated that “the younger” think they cover the literature of the last ten years; it is a risk to think so. To educate “the younger” and to give them some courses in literature searching and in use of reference systems is very important.

According to one of the respondents, the library can help the researchers to organize information and to establish a relation between different pieces of information and to exemplify the respondent added that the researchers work on projects in the company and if they have a keyword it is easy, in some cases, to start the search but in many cases it is not that simple where there is a lot of keywords and there are a lot of synonyms used or substances, they have different names and different countries, the library staff in this case can

36 help to have bate to fish out everything that is of interest and show how it is related to each other.

One of the participants affirmed that the library could always help the researchers to cope with information overload but the researchers need to have the literacy, to understand whether it is relevant information or not. The respondent added that:

Within the very narrow specific area it takes a lot of specialist knowledge to be able to understand that and, I don’t think that is something that you can ever expect from the library that kind of specialist information or knowledge. In that respect I don’t think the library can help but together with the library you can build strategies to exclude irrelevant information, the final evaluation always has to follow up the users. (Respondent 4)

One of the participants suggested that without the library it will be a problem. The library has some role to play in helping to cope with overload and they do today, they provide portal for all the journals, they do provide Ovid. They provide means for selective behaviour, in that way. Ovid is a way, by searching the researchers can be selective and do not have to go through all the journals. Similar thing with science citation index, for six, seven years ago it was a book formal, today library provides tools and different services, the researchers can be elective and get the interesting information through their own computer, that to overcome overload.

According to one respondent, the library has good services and it can help but it is up to the researchers to contact the library. While the respondents added that to have good and up-to- date alerts can be a solution to overload. Another one affirmed that:

The library will continue to behave professionally and keep up-to-date library. It is constantly changing and I trust it will change in the future as well. (Respondent 7)

One of the participants affirmed that the library can present the information so that it is clear and make it more available.

One of the respondents stated that the library can not help researcher to cope with that kind of overload due to process related overload neither with that kind related to misuse of e-mail.

8.3.3. General approaches to information overload

The researchers had some suggestions when they were asked to imagine an ideal situation where the problem of information overload will be solved.

Three of the respondents looked at the problem of information overload as an individual matter. Two of them explained that today there are more and more journals, more and more publications and there will always be more books than people can read and the researcher needs to be more restrictive when dealing with information. According to one of them, there is not a problem of information overload in the sense that it is something that has to be solved because no one has ever said that there is a problem when they visit the library and find that there are too many books, so they prefer library with few books. The respondent added that human been prefers to have access to all the information and it is not really matter with too much, is not really matter with methodology, it is just a general thing. The respondent explained that:

37 I never suffer from information overload and there is something like information overload, it is just a matter that you need to know that you can’t know everything about everything, hence you need to narrow, to be selective. (Respondent 7)

The third respondent suggested that the solution needs to be individual as to reduce and to decide the limits and it is difficult to do. The respondent admitted that to be together as a collective can help to spread the burden little bit. To work as a collective was perceived by another respondent as an ideal situation to cope with information overload. The respondent affirmed that people are gathering information and are dealing with different topics, so to share the work to collect and to have access to one knowledge base to put it into, and the user visits one page, one knowledge base and gets all the updated information. According to the respondent, knowledge sharing and the community thinking are good; one site, one portal and one desktop, the researcher can publish, can share, can retrieve even can ask questions. The respondent added that they have many information sources; they have people that are reading it and collecting it, and rewriting it sometimes and making common sense.

Another suggestion to counter the problem of information overload was to go back to that time where information was not too much and it was much easier to find what is needed.

One of the researchers who do not experience the problem of information overload stated that there are two alternatives; yes or no, “the no strategy” is good.

38 9. Analysis and discussion

In this part of the study, the analysis and the discussion of the answers will follow the questions asked in the chapter of problem formulation. The results will be sometime related to the literature and when needed to what the librarians had mentioned about IS&L. The results fall into three main parts:

1. The researchers’ experience of overload 2. The researchers’ coping strategies 3. The perceived role of the library

9.1. The researchers’ experience of overload

Two major questions will be answered in this part: 1. How much information overload is related to maintaining currency? 2. What are the other kinds of information overload?

9.1.1. Overload and maintaining currency

The value of currency in R&D was affirmed by the majority of the interviewed scientists at AstraZeneca when they affirmed that it is necessary to know about what is happening in a specific area and about new publications and the future ideas. They need also to know what the competitors are doing. To stay up-to-date was considered as the researchers’ task, duty and purpose. From the rich data of the study, it is clear that the researchers devote a lot of time to keep up-to-date with the state of the art of the field and sometimes of some related field. The time devoted to currency varied with the size and level of activity of the field as Wilson stated (1996b, p. 192-193) and as was revealed in the present study.

According to Wilson, different people will pay very different prices for the currency they attain (Wilson 1993, p. 637-638). While a researcher stated that 50% of her or his work is information seeking, another one mentioned that because of lack of time does not scan the journals. Although Wilson mentioned that anyone working in a competitive field is unlikely to be successful unless she or he maintains current knowledge of the state of the art in her or his own field (Wilson, 1996b, p.129), One of the researchers affirmed that it is up to the researchers to decide when there is not more time to spend on searching the literature. Others researchers stated that the researcher has other responsibilities and cannot keep up-to-date all the time. Laskin (1994, p. 661) stated that keeping up with literature is necessary to keep up with the competitive edge but there is a fact to be admitted that people cannot know everything about everything and it is impossible to keep up-to-date with the literature.

The interviews showed that there is a relation between maintaining currency and the need for too much information in the daily work. Almost the half of the researchers, who at the same time considered that keeping up-to-date is necessary, affirmed that they are dealing with more current literature than they can handle. The other four researchers did not agree directly with the relation but some of them complained somewhere not having enough time to read and

39 reflect on the information in the gathered articles. Another researcher expressed the risk to not reading everything. According to a librarian it takes long time before the researchers become conscious about the problem of information overload. The first sensation for the problem was with the provision of ejournal.

At AZ, there was an agreement by more then the half of the researchers of the existence of upkeep overload but it was not considered all the time as a general problem. According to researchers, the relation between information overload and currency depends on the level the researcher aims at and if the researcher thinks that it is absolutely necessary to be aware of everything so s/he is likely to be overloaded. It also depends on the area of interest; and the researcher with a broad view will be then the problem and not the information itself.

As Wilson stated, in R&D information overload is affected by the size and level of activity of the field. In a small field with slow producers, researchers will not face a problem in keeping up, but in a large and very active field of fast producers researchers may feel overwhelmed (Wilson 1996b, p.193). One of the participants presented that by comparing the obesity field where there is a lot new papers each day with the research into the protein family, for example, where there are not that many new publications. According to the respondent, the overload feeling depends on what the researcher aimed at.

Besides the size and the level of activity, Bawden, Holtham and Courtney (1999, p. 252) suggested that the nature of the work carried out by someone and which affect the nature and amount of information required, is another cause of information overload. This was not directly cited by one of the interviewed researchers but s/he mentioned that as medical responsible s/he needs too much information about the current situation of the field.

9.1.2. Other kinds of overload

In R&D, at AZ, information overload is not just related to maintaining currency. Some of the interviewed researchers claimed that they had experienced other kind of information overload at AZ. Underload or lack of information instead of overload was a kind mentioned by one researcher. To get the wrong information was perceived by another researcher as another kind of information overload.

Two other kinds that were not mentioned in the literature appeared to have some importance at AZ: Work overload and process related overload. At AZ there is a lot of work to be done and work overload was considered as more difficult to deal with than information overload. Another big problem that appears in some areas is that information overload can manifest as a process related information where the researchers are ought to deal with a huge amount of information about the projects they are working with.

Whether the e-mail, the Internet and the Intranet can cause information overload; Bawden, Holtham and Courtney affirmed that the new information and communication technology are themselves responsible of the problem of overload. They cited the Internet, Intranet and e- mail as major contributors to information overload (1999, p. 249-252). Some of the researchers agreed with that by considering the Intranet and the e-mail as a burden where the information from the Intranet was seen as a cause to overload. The information circling on the Internet was considered by a researcher as too much.

40 According to Wilson (2001, p. 6), the technology is not to blame for causing information overload but the miss-use of technology. E-mail used by unskilled can causes tremendous information overload, affirmed some of the respondents. Wilson (2001, p. 11) mentioned also the human factors as a cause to information overload. According to Wilson, human factors are the propensity of people to seek information and disseminate it to others, information pull and push. The pathological states of pull and push are a result of management style. Two of the researchers affirmed that the information is not user-related and it is pushed to many researchers at the same time, and that the information reached the researcher without requesting it. In this case the technology is not to blame but the management practices at the organizational level are the responsible of this pathological pull and push.

Besides the overload feeling, the pushed e-mail may causes another problem for the researcher, while getting rid of e-mails there is risk to delete important information and there are many other important things to be done instead of removing the unwanted mail. The researcher then spends time on reading mail rather than working. The rapid communication is to blame for causing information overload, according to a respondent.

The present study revealed some advantages with the Internet and the e-mail. E-mail was considered generally as good that makes easy to reach people, to contact them and to send recently information, but it should always be kept as short as possible. The Intranet was considered as more structured and as a good aid where the users may find what they need if they know how to search the information.

An interesting kind of information overload appeared in the present study and it is to overestimate the own abilities. The respondent affirmed that this kind is the overload where the researcher is interested in many areas.

9.2. The researchers’ coping strategies

The interviewed researchers at AZ mentioned two kinds of strategies to cope with information: strategies used to cope with the problem of information overload and personal information strategies to deal with the current literature.

9.2.1. Strategies to cope with information overload

To cope with information overload, Wilson mentioned that specialisation is the response. Scientists solve the problem of information overload by narrowing the scope of their interest and by that they adjust the size of the field in which they want to maintain expertise to a level where they can keep up-to-date (1996a, p. 24-25). From the results of the interviews it is clear that researchers at AZ believed that to select the information that is needed to the most essential pieces that the researcher thinks are important for the work and to narrow the area of interest was are the good strategies to cope with upkeep overload. In this case the researcher can handle that information; it is a matter of selecting and prioritizing. Though most of the researchers affirmed that specialisation is an effective strategy to cope with overload, they agreed elsewhere that information overload is related to maintaining currency. According to Wilson, though specialisation is a solution to the problem of information overload, one cannot think that R&D copes successfully with overload.

41 To reduce the e-mail alert and to describe in which areas the researcher wants to be updated and to reduce the number of journals were also parts of the “selective strategy”. When it comes to journals some researchers had reduced that to what is less required to the job or to only one journal.

Skimming and scanning were other strategies cited by some researchers at AZ. According to Hopkins (1995, p. 307) skimming and scanning instead for careful reading, is a strategy to deal with information overload. Three interviewees at AZ, stated that speed reading is an applicable strategy. One of them stated that this strategy had developed through the years (18 years working at AZ) so that the researcher can know from the title which article to choose, but there is risk to miss many things. Another researcher mentioned while using this strategy s/he reads just what is necessary; summary and abstracts. The researcher (6 years working at AZ), affirmed that acquisition of this strategy is due to the university studies. The disadvantage with this strategy and as Hopkins stated, was mentioned by the researchers and manifested in the risk to miss important information. To focus on concepts and principles rather than details was revealed by Laskin (1994, p. 661) also as a one solution to deal with information overload. According to Laskin the information user must learn to be discerning reader and to scan the abstract and focus on significant things.

The NO strategy was mentioned and used by one researcher and it means just to accept that there is not more time for searching and reading new information. This strategy was also revealed as available to work overload that was seen as more difficult to control.

To control the quality of publication is a solution to the problem of information overload as Laskin (1994, p. 661) stated. While the accomplishment of this solution on the individual level is difficult, one of the researchers suggested that the researcher must be selective while dealing with information. The researcher did not approach The National Academic of Sciences because no one had controlled if it is correct or not.

A strategy mentioned by Bawden, Holtham and Courtney (1999, p. 253) is to deal with a piece if paper as soon the researcher touches it. This strategy was used by some interviewed researchers at AZ, whether to deal with the information from e-mail alert or from the e-mail in general. One respondent affirmed not having good solution to deal with information overload caused by the e-mail and needs to be better. Though the researcher explained that they suffer from overload caused by e-mail and the miss-use of the e-mail, no one suggested a solution to be taken on the organisational level. According to Wilson (2001, p. 6), organizations need to institute some policy on appropriate use of the technology and policy for the use of e-mail.

Sharing information was also mentioned by researchers at AZ. One of them stated that new papers are presented in turn in a group meeting and discussed later in another meeting. Though the researcher used this strategy to stay up-to-date and to cope with information overload, the importance of the time factor in R&D, may transform this strategy to another cause of overload. According to another respondent, knowledge sharing and the community thinking are good; one site, one portal and one desktop, the researcher can publish, can share, can retrieve even can ask question. Though the idea of sharing knowledge and to work as a collective was perceived as an ideal situation where the problem of information overload can be solved, the question is how much can that be true in an organization as AZ, with 2000 researchers with different information needs, working in different departments and in different phases of developing a medicine?

42 Some other cited strategies include: to finish the task more efficiently and not go aside and not follow up different information, to limit the searching, to reduce the time spent on reading and to cast away the literature. To be interviewed to discuss the problem of information overload was mentioned by a researcher as a strategy to handle information overload. Another researcher looked at the present study as something that can help to cope with overload.

9.2.2. Personal information management

When it comes to personal information management, most of the researchers agreed that to organise is a good strategy to deal with the current literature. Four of the researchers stated that they sort and organize the literature in different categories to further reading. The articles that are related to the area of interest of the researchers may be printed. Copies are hold but in time of overload the researcher does not have time to sort them in different categories because it is time consuming and then it could be a kind of overload. According to researchers, to not organize may lead to overload. The literature that is needed may be put in Endnote, and the references in different libraries according to some classification words and definitions.

Wilson (1996a, p. 25-26) mentioned prioritization as a strategy to deal with the literature. At AZ maybe it is better to call this strategy categorisation or just organizing. Some researchers had mentioned that they prioritize in dealing with information overload but when they discussed their personal information management they just affirmed that they sort the literature in different categories without emphasis on the term prioritization in sorting the information.

According to the definition of information literacy given to the researchers during the interviews, the majority of the researchers interviewed at AZ strongly affirmed that they are information literate. It is clear that these researchers possess the skills cited by Bawden, Holtham and Courtney (1999, p. 253) that an information literate should have as evaluating, organizing and using information.

Though that the researchers affirmed that they are information literate, some of them had claimed elsewhere during the interviews that they are dealing with too much information. Despite the length of services at AZ, there was a claim to improve the skills while dealing with information and e-mail and to learn how to be information literate. According to Pedley (2001, p. 8) the fact that end-users have access to the web does not necessarily mean that they have a high level of information literacy.

The strategies used by researchers to counter the problem of information overload were evaluated by more than the half of the researchers as effective. One of the respondents related the effectiveness of the coping strategies to the long experience in R&D. Another researcher related that to what kind of information literate the researcher is. A third one affirmed that to be selective in dealing and handling information has developed during the university studies.

Even if one of the researchers at AZ, affirmed that the coping strategy had developed through the years, there were not a direct relation between the length of experience in R&D at AZ and the coping strategies admitted by the researchers. The analysis of the interviews does not neither show that the feeling of upkeep overload is related to length of the experience of researchers in R&D, at least in this study. Most of the researchers who expressed having a long experience in R&D affirmed that they are dealing with too much information. Some of

43 the five researchers who agreed with the relation between information overload and maintaining currency, explained somewhere in the interviews that they have been in R&D for a long time. Of the interviewed researchers, there was a researcher who has been working at AZ only since 1998 and don’t experience overload and have some effective coping strategies that are related to the university studies, while another researcher who has been working in R&D at AZ for more than 29 years, claimed having too much information to deal with and expressed the need to be more efficient while dealing with information. Only one of the researchers who has a long experience in R&D, at AZ strongly affirmed that s/he does not experience information overload.

9.3. The perceived role of the library

The library at AZ was seen to play an important role both in providing researchers with the current literature and in helping them to cope with information overload.

9.3.1. The library role and currency

Looking at the answers of the researchers, it is clear that the library fulfil its goal as a special library; to generate information and make it more available and to provide the information needed to help the organisation to achieve its goal. Also IS&L achieves its goal by identifying and acquiring external sources of information and helping to organize internal sources, as Ghosh and Wesley stated (2002, p. 135). According to some researchers the library is considered as well maintained, updater and professional.

According to some researchers, the library at AZ has good possibilities to help researchers to stay up-to-date. Besides offering access to some databases, the information portals, the tools, the ejournals, e-mail alert and announcements on the Internet about what is available, updated and how to use it, the library at AZ, IS&L, according to the researchers, offered different services. All of them have used the library service to get hold of some current literature. IS&L was contacted by most of the researchers to order the articles that were not found on the Internet or that the researchers do not have access to (for example Science Citation Index), to ask the library staff when the researchers could not reach any results by themselves, to order copies, to order books and new books, to order old literature and to perform some searches on the behalf of the researchers. The researchers can find different access to different account and information how to use them on the library pages. The library provides many alerts that are connected to the researcher’s area of interest. IS&L helps also the researchers through announcements about the coming references and it helps them by looking for patent and patent information. Most of these services were mentioned by a librarian while asking about the IS&L’s role.

The data of the interviews showed that some of the databases mentioned to be important information sources for the researchers were offered by the library as Ovid (Medline and Embass) and CA Select. Beside that the library has access to some other databases and help researchers to get current literature. Though researchers may reach all the information they need through their desktop, there still some role to the library to play. Two of the researchers justified the use of the library service by saying that the library staffs organize all electronic journals and it is where the researchers make use of their services. Some researchers stated that the library help is not that big and that they do not use the library services at the present

44 time because everything exists on the Internet, but they affirmed elsewhere that they use Ovid besides that they order articles and copies if they do not find them. Knowing that the library provides access to Ovid and other databases, the researchers must be aware of the fact that they are using the library services more often.

The IS&L staffs are considered by the half of the researchers, as efficient, trained, and professional in different topics and experts in performing searches. One participant stated that there is a good cooperation with the library. Another researcher affirmed that the library staff advertised some short information overviews of different areas that are interesting for the researchers at AZ, so that they know when something appears, but the researcher claimed that these overviews need to be short and easily read information due to the time factor. The researcher suggested also to advertise editorial and articles which will be valued.

Few researchers visited the library nowadays. One of the researchers stated that s/he visits the library to check some journals or to check articles in the archives. Another researcher affirmed that s/he will pass by the library to bring some ordered articles, if s/he is in hurry.

9.3.2. The library role in coping with information overload

Without the library there will be problem and the library will remain necessary at AZ that is what some researchers affirmed; it is enough to look at the change in the journals from printed to databases (ejournals) to understand that. Through the opinions of the researchers, the library proved good cost management to AZ, which according to Ball (2002, p. 39) is necessary to libraries that are facing competitors from other information providers. Researchers highlighted some services offered by the library and which help them to cope with information overload. The library provides training courses, portals for all journals, transfers the knowledge and teaches how to use different databases and tools. The library helps researchers by giving them assistance to go to the right direction, by communicating with them and by working together in projects. The library helps also by providing Ovid, Science Citation Index and CA Select series, which help researchers to find the articles very quickly, to be selective and to look at other publications. Hopkins (1995, p. 321) stated that the electronic searching tools are admitted to help users to cope with overload.

Besides that the library helps researchers to organize information and to establish a relation between different pieces of information, the library staffs help researchers to find the adequate keyword to start a search. This task was revealed very difficult by one researcher because of the diversity of keywords and the used synonyms in different countries. This showed that the library staffs are well trained and professional in performing searches. The library is also working at the present time on something like a review or handbook where some relevant studies on a specific topic are gathered. According to Klassen, Jadad and Moher (1998, p. 700) this review is considered as a strategy adopted to counter information overload.

A recent technological development to cope with information overload, was mentioned by Edmunds and Moris (2000, p. 20) and it is push technology. According to Edmunds and Moris, it works by pushing notice of pre-selected information sources alerting users to new and updated information. In the present study, e-mail alert was classified by the half of the researchers as good to stay up-to-date in a field. Some researchers claimed that having good and up-to-date alerts can be a solution to overload. Here it is important to notify that a

45 librarian considered that the e-mail alert helps the researchers to reduce the flow of information.

The pathological state of push technology, concerning the e-mail alert, was mentioned by one researcher who complained that the information obtained via e-mail Alert is too much. Knowing that researchers create e-mail alert by their own selves and in the areas in which they want to stay up-to-date; the library seems not to contributing to this pathological state.

The library role in helping researchers to cope with information overload was completely denied by two researchers. Another respondent stated that the library can help them to cope with overload but s/he does not know how.

The future role of the library will change because the library is constantly changing and because it behaves professionally and keep up-to-date library. A researcher who has a long experience in R&D considered the education of “the younger” in literature searching and in use of reference systems as a part of the ideal situation where the problem of information overload is solved. According to one respondent, the library has good services and it can help but it is up to the researchers to contact the library. This point of view was affirmed by a librarian who stated that IS&L offers end-user education if the researchers or a department request that.

Though the library was perceived to have an important role to play in countering the problem of information overload, the problem was considered as an individual matter and not as a general problem to be solved. There will always be more books and journals than one can read, the solution is to be more selective and restrictive when approaching the literature.

46 47 10. Conclusion

In face of the challenge caused by the problem of information overload, the role of the special library is well recognized today by the research community, even if some researchers still ignore the behind-the-scenes work of the librarianship. The library at AstraZeneca or IS&L, was perceived by the researchers as professional, updated and necessary. It fulfilled its policy by being informed and by informing the researchers. IS&L provides customized information services as the computerized loan system, access to internal and external databases, e-mail alerts that are related to different areas of interest, interlibrary loan, photocopying and document delivery services. The library staffs offer also value-added services as helping researchers to find the most suitable information sources. They make use of their skills and the current technology to organise the information and to establish a relation between different pieces of information. The library staffs at IS&L posses both skills in locating information and technological skills that help them to find highly relevant and good quality information, there for they work parallels in projects with the researchers.

IS&L’ staff helps the researchers to counter information overload by training them to use the new technology and to perform a search in an adequate way. But the library was not considered as the main solution because the major contributor factor to overload was not only the TMI (too much information); the broad view of the researcher may sometimes interfere to make the problem worse. Information overload was seen as an individual approach and that is why the solution at AZ was considered as individual where the researchers play an important role, in case the researcher is information literate.

Information literacy relies on the researchers’ abilities to access, evaluate and use the information from different sources. It involves also the personal information management as filing and sorting information. At AZ, it seems that information literacy proved to be a good strategy to the problem of information overload used by most of the researchers but there still a need for enhancement of information literacy in general and of personal information literacy as dealing with the e-mail. The need to be information literate was also expressed at AZ. Information literacy was sometimes related to the long experience in R&D and other time it was gained through the university studies. Whatever is the cause of information literacy, it can be considered as the results of training and the long experience in dealing with information. Taking this in account, the role of the library will remain an important component in the coping strategies due to the training courses that the library offers and which help researchers to acquire the information literacy, but it is up to the researchers to contact the library.

It is very clear that the problem of information overload is related to maintaining currency in R&D. Currency which involves many things as new studies coming out, future ideas and the work of the competitors, was revealed to occupy an important space in the daily work of the researchers at AZ. But upkeep overload was not the only kind of overload that manifested at AZ. Researchers may suffer from work overload, the process related information overload and the overload caused by the e-mail in general, the miss-use of the e-mail and the Intranet. This implies that the solution to the problem of information overload is not all the time individual, some coping strategies must be taken at the organisational level, in this case not from the library side but maybe from the side of the other departments that are providing

48 information to the researchers. Maybe it is the time for information managers to recognize that a management problem exists.

Information and communication technology were seen to participate both to the problem of overload in R&D at AZ, and to its solution. E-mail alert and the databases were the most cited information technologies that help to counter information overload. Knowing that the library provides these services, it becomes clear that the library role in countering information overload can not be denied.

It is important to notice that the library helps the old researchers as well as the young researchers, which means that the library follow the change in the information world and it remains all the time well maintained, updated and behaves professionally.

Some of the researchers mentioned that the present study may help them to handle the problem of information overload. Yes it may do that because it emphasis on the role of the library and elucidates the effectiveness of its services, which was not perceived by all the interviewed researchers at AstraZeneca.

To conclude it is worthy to indicate that the solution of the problem of information overload is not the responsibility of the library; neither is it the responsibility of the researchers only. They both provide something to the solution. A third and an important part is the information management policy at the organizational level. Knowing that researcher at AZ face the challenge caused by information overload and that the library is one part of many other divisions that furnish the researchers with the information they need, it will be interesting, for further study, to investigate how these divisions cooperate to solve the problem of information overload.

49 11. Summary

The goal of the present study was to develop an understanding of how researchers perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload related to maintaining currency. Information overload is the possession, or the knowledge of the existence, of information one thinks to be probably relevant but does not use because of lack of time.

To reach the goal of the study, eight qualitative interviews were conducted with researchers at AZ. The selection of the researchers was based on two criteria to choose those who are willing and have time to participle and who has contact with the library. The researchers have different length of service at AZ and were judged by the librarian, the contact person at AZ, to have a major contact with the library.

To start the study it was important to review what was written about information overload, its causes and the strategies used to cope with the problem. Information overload in R&D is known to be related to maintaining currency. The proliferation of the literature was revealed to be a main cause for information overload especially for the researchers who strive to stay up-to-date with the state of the art of the field. Information and communication technology was in part a cause of the problem of information overload.

To overcome the problem of information overload many approaches were taken, the managerial approaches include individual approaches and organisational approaches, and the technological which hold some relevance for the library. As individual approaches, Wilson mentioned specialisation, where the researcher that scientists narrow their area of interest to the level where they can keep up-to-date. Skimming and scanning was another approach to overload. Categorisation which is to assign incoming material to different categories was also considered as an effective solution. At the individual level information literacy was seen to generate an increasing importance and offering a partial solution to information overload. At the organisational level, a policy to control the use of e-mail was the most suggested solution.

Special libraries were placed in research organisation to help the organization to accomplish its goal. It provides the Current Awareness Services and Selective Dissemination of Information to furnish the need of information users. The emergence of the problem of information overload poses new challenges for the information science. To counter the problem many attempts have been made in the library and information profession. The provision of review articles, electronic searching tools and the push technology were considered to have a role in helping users to cope with overload.

The results of the present study showed that that the problem of information overload depends in a part on the value that scientists associate to currency. Scientists need to devote more time for keeping up but they may feel overwhelmed by the current literature. At the other hand there are many other things in R&D that the researcher cannot offer for just keeping up. The solution was offered by many researchers as to narrow the area of interest to the level where the scientist is able to keep up-to-date with the state of the art of the field. According to a researcher, at AZ the researcher is able to do that because no one expects that the researcher knows everything about everything.

50 Other kinds of information overload were; work overload and process related information overload. The solution for the second one was easy; not to read every thing. The miss-use of the e-mail was revealed as a main cause of overload.

The library at AZ or IS&L was perceived to play an important role whether to provide the researchers with the current literature through databases and other services or to help the researchers to cope with information overload. The library can help researchers to counter the problem of information overload by training the researchers to perform searches, by giving them some start key words in the search, by helping in the projects and by preparing short overview about new publications. The library staffs were considered as well trained, efficient and professional in all the topics.

A requirement form the researcher side was if the library can advertise the review of some articles and editorial at bubblan which will be very appreciate from the researchers side. Another request was to have updated alert to help the researchers to cope with overload.

51 References

Unpublished references

Interviews

Mölndal, AstraZeneca, the interviewed researchers:

Respondent Time of employment Date Respondent 1 Started at AZ 1986 03-06-16 Respondent 2 5 years 03-06-16 Respondent 3 Started at AZ 1988 03-06-16 Respondent 4 Sat AZ 1976 03-06-19 Respondent 5 25 years 03-06-19 Respondent 6 15 years 03-06-19 Respondent 7 6 years 03-06-26 Respondent 8 Started at AZ 1974 03-07-17

Mölndal, AstraZeneca, the interviewed librarians:

Librarian Date Librarian 1 03-03-11 Librarian 1 03-06-06 Librarian2 03-06-06 Librarian 3 03-06-16 Librarian 4 03-06-26

Mölndal, AstraZeneca Personal communication 1: e-mail from the acquisition librarian 1, 2003-03-26.

Printed references, Unpublished

AstraZeneca (2002a). Corporate Responsibility Summary Report.

AstraZeneca (2002b). Annual Report and Form 20-f.

AstraZeneca (2002c). Animal Studies and pharmaceutical development

Printed references, published

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52 Bawden, David; Holtman, Clive & Courtney, Nigel (1999). Perspective on information overload. Aslib Proceeding. Vol. 51, no. 8, pp. 249-255.

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53 Ghosh Sharmila & Wesley G.Y. (2002). A special library for development research- The role of the ISS library in managing information requirements for research. INSPEL 36 (2) 2002, pp. 135-145.

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54 Spilker, Bert (1994). Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies, principles and practices. 2d edition, Raven press, New York.

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55 Annex 1

Hello,

This study deals with individual’s strategies to cope with information overload and the implications for the library. In research and development, information overload is related to maintaining currency (keeping up with what others are doing and is relevant for one’s work). Through this questionnaire I intend to reach the goal of the present study which is:

To develop an understanding on how the researchers at AstraZeneca perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload related to maintaining currency.

This study is my master thesis and I choose AstraZeneca first because the pharmaceutical industry is extremely information-intensive expertise and researchers need to keep up with the literature. Second because I had read that researchers at AstraZeneca suffer of information overload because of lack of time. This complaint was reported in the 1998. I do really hope that you do not suffer any more from overload. But this seems somehow unrealistic and I will express myself in other way. I hope my subject will be interesting for many and I hope there will be some willing to participate to the interview. I hope to get an answer, lately on the 30 of June.

The interview will take for the most a half hour, even though I know it is a long time to put it on other things than reading new articles and making experiments.

The results will be gathered and a copy will be sent to AZ lately at the end of December.

I will thank you for you help

Maud Salim

56 Annex 2

1. Do you need much information in your work? What kind of information tasks that works includes? Does it include information seeking? How long have you been working at AZ?

2. Where do you get the information about the literature you need to stay current in your field? Extra explanation: - Email alerts for electronic journals? To what extent? - Bibliographical databases such as Medline or Embase. - Other

3. What are your ways to get hold of current articles and literature? Extra Explanation: full-text databases, interlibrary loan, document delivery, exchange preprints with colleagues, Etc.

4. In general, do you think you are dealing with too much current literature more than you can handle? Extra Explanation: So, you mean that there is more current literature than you can handle?

5. The problem of information overload in research is related to the problem of maintaining currency. Do you agree with that? If we consider this relation would you say how it manifests itself?

6. Name two most important causes of other types of information overload.

7. What are your strategies of dealing with the problem of information overload? What are your strategies in dealing with the literature you need to keep up in your field?

8. Information literacy is the most effective counter to problems of overload. One of the objectives of information literacy is the training of users to be more selective and to make more judgment themselves, about the information they retrieve. According to this definition do you consider yourself information literate?

9. How do you evaluate your own coping strategies?

10. When and for what reasons do you use the library or contact the library staff, or use its services? What services do you use most often?

11. Do you think the library can help you to cope with information overload? Does the library help you to solve the problem of staying current?

12. Would you imagine an ideal but real situation where the problem of information overload would be solved? Does the library have a role to play in that situation?

57 58