Reading practices in scholarly work: from articles and books to blogs
| Date | 13 May 2019 |
| Pages | 478-499 |
| Published date | 13 May 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2018-0178 |
| Author | Elina Late,Carol Tenopir,Sanna Talja,Lisa Christian |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Reading practices in scholarly
work: from articles and
books to blogs
Elina Late
Unit of Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Carol Tenopir
College of Communication and Information,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Sanna Talja
Unit of Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland, and
Lisa Christian
College of Communication and Information,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of reading in scholarly work among academics in
Finland. This study analyzes readings from a variety of publication types including books, conference
proceedings, research reports, magazines, newspapers, blogs, non-fiction and fiction.
Design/methodology/approach –An onlinesurvey was developed and distributedin Finland in 2016–2017
(n¼528). Participants were asked their findingand use of scholarly information resources of alltypes.
Findings –Scholars read from a variety of publications. Different types of publications are read and used
differently. Reading also varies between disciplines, ranks, work responsibilities and type of research performed.
Research limitations/implications –The study was a nationwide study of researchers in Finland;
therefore, all findings are within the context of researchers in a single country. All results are self-reported;
therefore, the authors assume but cannot be sure that respondents accurately recollect the specifics of their
use of scholarly information.
Practical implications –The results of this study are relevant to publishers, research librarians, editors
and others who serve consumers of scholarly information resources, design information products and
services for those scholars, and seek to better understand the information needs and use of a variety of types
of scholarly publications.
Originality/value –This study replicates previous studies in a variety of countries and provides a more
up-to-date and single-country contextualized overview of how researchers find and use scholarly information
in their work.
Keywords User studies, Information behaviour, Scholarly reading, Scholarly communication
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
It can be almost taken for granted that academics –faculty members, graduate students and
other researchers and scholars –use scholarly publications to inform their work. However,
their work is not monolithic. Scholars need information for a wide variety of purposes,
including research, teaching, administration and keeping informed. Furthermore, sources
are not the same –articles, books, blogs and reports –and may be used for different
purposes. Therefore, scholarship is not homogenous –researchers in different disciplines or
with different responsibilities read and use information sources in different ways.
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 3, 2019
pp. 478-499
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-11-2018-0178
Received 1 November 2018
Revised 4 February 2019
Accepted 8 February 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
This research project was funded in part by the Finnish Cultural foundation and the Finnish
Fulbright-Nokia Foundation. Thanks to FinELib and librarians in Finnish universities for distributing
the link to the questionnaire.
478
JD
75,3
The study reported here looks in depth at reading patterns from the variety of sources
that scholars in Finland use for their work and variations in their reading patterns based on
such things as type of resources, subject discipline, work responsibilities, type of research
and scholars’rank. Our overall research question is:
RQ1. What is the role of different types of publications in scholarly work?
The paper is divided into two parts. Part 1 examines the self-reported number of readings each
month of a variety of types of publications and focuses on the readers themselves by examining:
•How much do scholars read monthly for their work from a variety of types of
publications?
•How important do scholars rank the reading of different types of publications for
their work?
Part 2 examines the critical incidents of specific readings of a wide variety of types of
resources to examine how individual readings and reading practices may vary. We examine
how reading different types of publications differs by:
•purpose of readings;
•importance of readings;
•thoroughness of readings;
•citing practices;
•original and re-reading;
•source of readings;
•format of readings;
•where reading took place;
•age of readings (when the publications were published); and
•in what language the publications were written.
In both sectionsof the paper, variations betweendisciplines, work responsibilities (i.e.research
focused vs teachingfocused), type of research performed (i.e. basic and applied research) and
scholars’status (rank) are studied.
Taken together, Parts 1 and 2 provide a detailed picture of how much and what scholars
read for work and howthose reading patterns may vary by thecharacteristics of the readers
and the purposesof the readings. The results of this studyare relevant to publishers, research
librarians,editors and others who serve consumersof scholarly information resources,design
information products and services for those scholars, and seek to better understand the
information needs and use of a variety of types of scholarly publications by scholars.
Related research
This study builds on a long tradition of scholarly information use research. Donald W. King
and, later, Carol Tenopir and Donald W. King, have studied scholarly article reading
patterns since the 1970s (e.g. King et al., 1981; Belefant-Miller and King, 2001; Tenopir and
King, 2000, 2004; Tenopir, King, Edwards and Wu, 2009; Tenopir et al., 2010, 2015). Many
other studies such as Jamali et al. (2005) and Rowlands (2007) have focused on the use of
e-journals as well. In Finland, several studies examined how scholars use e-journals in their
work (Talja and Maula, 2003; Vakkari and Talja, 2005, 2006; Vakkari, 2006; Talja et al., 2007;
Tenopir et al., 2010). This study continues those research traditions and expands it beyond
journal articles.
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Reading
practices in
scholarly work
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