Accessing Information Use by Humanists and Social Scientists: A Study at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina by Susana Romanos de Tiratel This study investigated the nglo-Saxon literature on library the literature to appear in (e.g., books or information-seeking behavior and information science (LIS) journals); (3) the rate of obsolescence of Apresents a considerable number the material they handle; (4) the degree of of Argentine humanities and of user/use studies describing the needs subject dispersion of the information they social science scholars and and behavior of humanities and social sci- need; and (5) the language they prefer the found no substantial ence researchers in their search for infor- literature to be in. Furthermore, the find- mation. In addition, reviews synthesize ings are compared to analogous research, differences between them and and integrate findings from these studies, principally in Anglo-Saxon countries. scholars in Anglo-Saxon listing the characteristics that describe LITERATURE REVIEW countries. Scholars in these and typify these researchers. For years, LIS professors in Latin America have In Argentina, no line of ongoing research two areas, regardless of provided their students with somewhat focuses on user/use studies. In the late country studied, have similar accurate portrayals of these scholars 1960s, at the Centro de Investigaciones information-seeking behavior. based on research in the United States and Bibliotecolo´gicas de la Facultad de Great Britain. Is it valid to apply the con- Filosofı´a y Letras (UBA), Gustavo F. J. clusions of these studies to scholars in Cirigliano studied the information-seek- countries with access to less developed ing of senior university students and re- cent graduates, regardless of discipline or library systems and services? Further- 3 more, does information-seeking behavior area of study. In 1977, Dominique Ba- bini investigated Argentine political sci- related to the conduct of research exist 4 despite a dissimilarity in resources readily entists, but it was not until 1995 that a available? Are there common traits that new user-study program was initiated (see characterize humanities and social sci- below), and further data on information ence researchers in how they access infor- seeking was gathered. mation, in what their preferences and in- User/use studies in the United States formative needs are? and Great Britain identify information us- Based on answers to these questions, ers and the characteristics of the informa- tion they rely on, their information needs this article, which is based on a three-year and uses, and the structure of the special- project (1995–1997), is the first longitu- ized literature they consult: its size, dinal study in Argentina to profile the growth, and composition. Table 1 offers a preferences and the information-seeking general comparison between the two ar- behavior of researchers at the Facultad de eas, whereas this section highlights each Filosofı´a y Letras, Universidad de Buenos area and literature from other countries. Aires (UBA), in nine disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences: phi- Humanities losophy, literature, classic languages and Rebecca Watson–Boone notes that: (1) literature, art, history, anthropology, edu- researchers have a limited need for devel- Susana Romanos de Tiratel is Directora at cation, geography and library science.1,2 oping or using general bibliographic the Instituto de Investigaciones The purpose of this study is to determine: tools; (2) they consult colleagues and ini- Bibliotecolo´gicas, Facultad de Filosofia y (1) how they found necessary information tial print source material for explicit and Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, about the latest advances in their respec- implicit references to other works; (3) Buenos Aires, tive disciplines and that supports their re- book reviews and personal collections are ArgentinaϽ[email protected]Ͼ. search tasks; (2) their preferred format for the leading information sources; and (4) 346 The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 26, Number 5, pages 346–354 Table 1 Comparison of Characteristics Studied in Humanities and Social Sciences in Anglo-Saxon Bibliography Analyzed Aspects Humanities Social Sciences Access to information ● Limited use of bibliographic tools and ● Low use of bibliographic tools secondary information services ● Consultations with colleagues and experts ● Consultations with colleagues and experts ● Tracing of citations found in books and journals ● Tracing of citations found in journals ● Use of library catalogs to locate previously identified material Format ● Preference for book format to journal ● Equal preference for books and journals Obsolescence ● Inordinate age of the studied sources ● Intensive use of current material ● Critical/Theoretical literature valid for ● Average use validity of literature: nine 20 to 30 years years Use of periodicals: six years Subject dispersion ● Large size of subject matter used ● Significant number of citations from other fields ● High rate of autocitation within the whole of social sciences Language ● Important use of material in mother tongue ● Important use of material in mother tongue they use catalogs to find known, second- “Having retrospective coverage may be noticeably higher than most citation stud- ary source materials. It would seem that more important to the humanist than hav- ies in the humanities indicate. “For the 38 there is an inadequacy among access tools ing access to current material.”10 How- NHC [National Humanities Center] re- and that “secondary services may not be a ever, Watson–Boone states that most of search fellows in Special Humanities the matter of much concern to humanities re- the citations and primary and secondary requests for English language materials searchers. And what may be perceived as references have to do with material pre- were 82.3% of the total.”14 John Cullars, an attitude of indifference may instead ceding the past 20 or 30 years of the who studied the characteristics of cita- simply reflect a general lack of need.”5 research. This does not imply that older tions in French and German literary Ron Blazek and Elizabeth Aversa af- items are not used, but rather that a large monographs, shows similar percentages firm that humanistic researchers still pre- proportion generally falls within this pe- in reference to the respective mother fer the monograph to the periodical arti- riod. In other words, the theme of the tongues (75% for German and 84.4% for cle.6 Sue Stone, in an article summing up research will dictate the exact time span French).15 Elsewhere, he registers like research published between 1970 and (e.g., the older the subject is, the further amounts in the fine arts when analyzing 1982, states that books and journals were back in time the citation is likely to be).11 citations in the monographs of American cited as the most frequently used research Robert N. Broadus indicates that “The researchers: 70.2% are in English.16 material, noting that there was conflicting mean number of subjects per fellow, 26.3, evidence as to which is used more heavi- shows something of the remarkable Social Sciences ly.7 On this point, Watson–Boone con- breadth of interest” and this: In a review, Mary B. Folster identifies cludes that: different methods employed over the past . does suggest a need for reference librar- 30 years to study the kind of information Although the assumption holds true that ians to remind themselves of the widely- that social science researchers use and books play a greater role than do journals, it dispersed sources of information that may be needs to be tempered: the subjects and peri- how they utilize it. These methods in- useful to humanists. The wide range of clude: citation analysis, questionnaires, a ods covered by the research topic determine subjects represented by these requests lends whether the scholar will use a greater or support to the view that, for humanities combination of questionnaire and inter- lesser percentage of articles, and whether the scholars, centralization is more practical.12 view techniques, or structured observa- monographic material will be the primary tion together with interviews.17 Folster works of the individual(s) under study or the Stone had already warned that it is affirms that: critical (secondary) literature.8 impossible for only one collection or li- Humanities researchers are likely to be brary to satisfy totally the needs of hu- social scientists place a high amount of im- portance on journals.” Furthermore, “most of interested in older works (e.g., dating manities studies. Thus, because of the their citation identification comes from jour- back 20, 40, or 50 years). Of course, if breadth of topics and the material a re- nals, a practice that has been referred to as one considers the “classics” in each field, searcher needs, interlibrary lending is es- ‘citation tracking’; . Informal channels, 13 interest can extend to items dating back sential to the humanities. Broadus states such as consulting colleagues and attending 2,000 or 3,000 years in time.9 Stone says, the percentage of items in English was conferences, are an important source of in- September 2000 347 formation; and . library resources, such as empirical components is determined by To that end, an interview guide was de- catalogs, indexes, and librarians, are not very the methodological courses of action. At signed and the data were tabulated to fa- 18 heavily utilized. the core lies the design of the object of the cilitate analysis and comparison. As Folster discusses, “social scientists research that consists of choosing a way A compilation of the publications by are very print-oriented. Their use of to delimit the object and to work on the the scholars under study, edited between 26 sources is limited basically to printed ma- defined data matrix system. Samaja sus- 1990 and 1996, yielded a total of 499 terials. Monographs and periodicals are tains that all of the data produced from articles and 11,379 references.