Information Studies

R. Guruprasad ¹, Khaiser Nikam ², P. Marimuthu ³, Vidyadhar Y. Mudkavi ⁴

Affiliations
1 KTMD, National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR); Bangalore, IN
2 DOS, LIS, University of Mysore, IN
3 Dept. of Biostatistics, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, IN
4 CTFD, National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR), Bangalore, IN

Abstract

The coming of the Internet has transformed the way scientific communication among the scientists and engineers in general across the world and more specifically amongst the aerospace scientists and engineers. The Net has changed the way scientists look for information, the various means by which they get their required information from the Internet and most importantly how much they depend on the Internet for their scientific pursuit. In this information age, it is practically impossible for a scientist or engineer to carry out his/her research work without using network and Internet technologies. They use these electronic tools for accessing electronic information resources in the form of e-journals related to their field of specialization right at their desktops through their organization's networking facilities. We highlight the role of the Net in spreading scholarly scientific communication. The major findings of this survey study from a total of 583 questionnaires distributed to selected Indian aerospace organizations in Bangalore reveals that: (a) The most popular place of use of the Internet amongst the aerospace scientists and engineers is 'Right at their Desktop', followed by 'Access from their Homes'. Access from 'Cyber Caf6', 'The Organization's Library', 'Access from other Departments' and 'Access from another Library' occupy lesser priorities, (b) The overall average monthly usage of the Internet gets a mean value of 84.19 which implies that on an average the selected aerospace organizations are familiar and have had exposure to the Net for at least 7.01 years, (c) The main purpose of using the Internet amongst this 'niche' aerospace engineering community happens to be for 'Sending and receiving e-mails', followed by 'Collecting general information' and 'Accessing e-Resources (e-Joumals, e-Books and e- Databases)', and 'Download software for scientific research', (d) The main motivation factors to use the Net amongst this community are 'To update self-knowledge in the area of research' followed by 'User-friendly search engines' and 'Easy access to resources'. (e) The most frequently used search engines are 'Google', followed by 'Yahoo' and 'Alta Vista', (f) The most popular scientific web sites accessed and used are 'Google Scholar', followed by 'Google Book' and 'SCIRUS'. (g) The biggest bottleneck faced by these scientists and engineers while accessing the Net are 'Very poor Internet connectivity (low speed)' followed by 'Getting irrelevant information' and 'Internet charges are high'.

Keywords

Internet, Scholarly Communication, Aerospace Engineers and Scientists, e-Joumals, Search Engines, Scientific Web Sites, Bottlenecks in Internet Access.

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R. Guruprasad ¹, Khaiser Nikam ², M. Gopinath Rao ³, Vidyadhar Y. Mudkavi ⁴

Affiliations
1 Knowledge and Technology Management Division, National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR), PB No.1779, Airport Road. Rangivlor, IN
2 Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore 570 006., IN
3 College of Agriculture, Dept. of Statistics, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore, IN
4 Computational and Theoretical Fluid Dynamics Division, National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR), NWTC, Belur Campus, NAL, Bangalore, IN

Abstract

At present most scientists have access to full-text e-joumals. In most cases, this facility is provided right at the desktop. In this paper, we present a case study of full-text e-journal use patterns among the scientists and engineers at the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), a constituent of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The faciUty at NAL is provided right at the desktop through the NAL-CSIR-NISCAIR e-conglomerate. National Institute of Science Communication and Information Research (NISCAIR) provides e-access to more than 4040 world-class e-journals to all science and technology personnel of the CSIR fraternity. This CSIRNISCAIR initiative allows any scientist in any CSIR Laboratory to access this electronic information to keep abreast of the technological developments in his / her area of specialization. The analysis of data of the full-text ejoumal use patterns covers the period 2005 to 2007. The major findings highlighted are: (a) the mean number (per-month) of full-text downloads for the above three years was found to be different through Kruskal Wallis test of 'One Way Analysis of Variance' at 1% level of significance and (b) when the Chi-Square test was applied to test whether there is independence between the years and the publishers, the calculated value of Chi-Square was 845, which is highly significant. Hence we conclude that for the full-text downloads data, the years and the publishers are not independent. This Chi- Square test was carried out for only those publishers (8 in number) for which the data was available for all the three years (2005-2007).

Keywords

Scholarly communication, Electronic Information Usage Patterns. Scientists, Scientific Communication. Electronic Journals, NAL, CSIR, NISCAIR, Full-Text e-Joumal Download Statistics.

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