Lesson -2 AEX 5109

Scientific Information Sources Broadly categorised into two according to the physical format. PRINT Sources – Books/Monographs,Periodicals, Reports,Theses etc. Non-Print-AV materials, digitised materials, microforms etc.

Scientific Information Sources Further Information Resources can be divided into three Primary Secondary Tertiary

Scientific Information Sources Primary sources: Provides access to information directly- Journals, Reports, theses, patents, conference proceedings (print or electronic format) Secondary sources- Guides to primary sources- Bibliographies, indices, abstracts, reviews etc.

Scientific Information Sources Tertiary Text BOOKS/Monographs

Primary Sources-Periodicals/Journals Definition: ALA Glossary of Library & Information Scienec A serial appearing or intended to appear indefinitely at regular or stated intervals, generally more than annually, each issue of which is numbered or dated consecutively and normally contains separate articles. The origin of periodicals draws back to 16th century. Periodicals differ in scope of publicetion Magazines: More light reading types. Eg Readers Digest, News week etc. Journals: More specialized, Mostly published by learned societies A collection of scientific writing in very specific subject area Primary channel of scholarly communication First scientific journal was started in France “Journal des Scavans

Journals Special Features Authors are given a format to send their papers (Instructions)- Abstract, Introduction, Objectives of the study, methodology, results and discussion, refernce list Refereeing Process –originality, validity, quality

Journals Serves as archival records of scientific studies scrutinized and validated by scientists. Refereed papers in journals provide basic source material for writing text books, reviews hand books etc. Medium of disseminating current information- Scientists depend on keeping uptodate

Journals Published papers are being used for evaluation purposes of scientists work. Problems Increase of research and development lead increase of journals- Difficult to scan a large number of journals Cost Delays in publication

Reports Applied research first appear as reports- More details can be found in reports- Different formats. Technical reports, Annual reports, Commission reports etc. Theses/Dissertations_ Research carried out for higher degrees submitted for universities Original work

Theses Evaluated materials- Supervisor, pannel of evaluators etc. A review of literature with a reference list Patents : Industrial research with commercial value is published as patents. Patent right is granted by the government to produce or manufacture the item/process for a limited period. Carries original information

Conference Proceedings Research presented at conferences . Some presentations will be published in journals. Proceedings will include comments of learned groups.