Implications of Dissemination from Physician Habits

In surveys from 30,000 scientists and social scientists on using journals and journal articles between 2003-2006 in U.S. and Australia, Tenopir (2006) discussed how librarians need to be user centric in their focus when providing services to their patrons. Two facts caught my attention.

In a comparison to astronomers and academic faculty, 80% of physicians were more likely to read current journals than journals that were two years old.

Also for pediatricians in the preference for readings by source, preferred browsing (70%) to online searching (<10%), cited in other publications (<5%), colleague (<10%), and other sources (<5%).

The point of the article by this 2006 Miles Conrad Award Lecturer (given by the National Federation of Abstracting Services) was to inform on journal reading patterns. Advise that the author gives was to know your user behavior and work habits. The users also wanted convenience on their terms - any adoption of using a new tool that helps increase productivity but is needs to be intuitive for adoption. Also skimming and scanning appeared to be how reading was done.

Tenopir, C. (2006). Building bridges to information products and services. Information Services & Use, 26, 213-221.