‘Reading’ in the digital environment

For ten years CIBER has been studying the logs of scholarly publishers, and what was clear from the very beginning was that scholars conducted very brief visits to websites and spent very little time reading when there, yet publishers envisaged they would dwell; and if not dwell, then at least deep read the PDF later. Yet CIBER's research points to the fact that ‘lite’ reading is in fact endemic: younger people prefer it anyway and older people are getting used to it for the speed and convenience it brings. PDFs are largely a means of archiving and collecting and are not the gold standard reading metric people think. User satisfaction comes not from a PDF but from the ability to deep dive into a site and snatch what you are interested as quickly as possible. Publishers are still not comfortable with that and this article helps explain why they have to be.     

‘Finding’ and ‘discovering’: How understanding researchers’ search and discovery behaviour informed the building of Cambridge Core

Key points

• Researchers most often visit publisher platforms to ‘find’ a specific article or chapter after ‘discovering’ available resources elsewhere.
• Keywords in the title and author names are the two most important criteria for identifying relevant material.
• Students consider access to be an important criterion for item selection.
• For both humanities and social sciences (HSS) and science, technology, and medicine (STM), user behaviour when identifying relevant content is remarkably similar.
• Students and researchers tend to gather content for later use rather than read it in detail as soon as they find it.

     

Unpublishable research: examining and organizing the ‘file drawer’

It is well known that a number of research outcomes are not reported (the so‐called ‘file drawer problem’). It is generally assumed that what is not reported are ‘negative results’. Our study approaches the issue from a new angle by exploring what researchers perceive to be ‘unpublishable’. A survey regarding ‘unpublishables’ was sent out to 2,535 faculty members at Indiana University. Forty of these individuals consented to in‐depth interviews, which more fully explored these academics' views on the issue of unpublishable work. Our results indicate that there are several types of research besides negative results that are perceived to be unpublishable yet worthy of publication. Moreover, there is a great diversity within and across disciplines as to what constitutes ‘unpublishable’ research. Respondents indicated that academic discourse would benefit from the formal dissemination of papers that included inconclusive or null results, as well as replication and refutation studies. The results of our study suggest that there is a perceived gap in scholarly communication, which is to the detriment of science. These results can be used by administrators, educators, and publishers in order to refine scholarly communication practices so as to create a more robust, accurate literature and to inform future generations of researchers.     

‘Healthline’: a new service from the College of Health

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The Covid‐19 ‘infodemic’: a new front for information professionals

The virus, commonly known as COVID‐19 which emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, has spread in 213 countries, areas or territories around the globe, with nearly 144 683 deaths worldwide on 18 April 2020. In the wake of this pandemic, we have witnessed a massive infodemic with the public being bombarded with vast quantities of information, much of which is not scientifically correct. Fighting fake news is now the new front in the COVID‐19 battle. This regular feature comments on the role of health sciences librarians and information professionals in combating the COVID‐19 infodemic. To support their work, it draws attention to the myth busters, fact‐checkers and credible sources relating to COVID‐19. It also documents the guides that libraries have put together to help the general public, students and faculty recognise fake news.     

The story continues: an overview of the ‘Dissertations into Practice’ feature

The ‘Dissertations into practice’ feature began life in March 2012 with a dual aim: to encourage students, recent graduates and new professionals to write for publication and to highlight the impact of student research on policy and practice. This article reflects on the initiative and demonstrates that it has been extremely successful in achieving both aims. It highlights the diverse range of contributions to the feature so far and proves that student research can and does influence policy and practice. It also demonstrates that, with the right encouragement and support, students are willing and able to write for academic publication and that they gain a lot from the experience. A. M.     

“You're My Parent but You're Not”: Dialectical Tensions in Stepchildren's Perceptions About Communicating with the Nonresidential Parent

The nonresidential parent plays a role in the lives of stepchildren and in stepfamily households. The focus of the present study was on the interaction between the nonresidential parent and his/her child who resides as part of a stepfamily household. Grounded in relational dialectics theory, the researchers performed an interpretive analysis of 50 transcribed interviews with college-aged stepchildren. Stepchildren's perceptions of communication with the nonresidential parent were animated by two contradictions: parenting/nonparenting and openness/closedness. These two contradictions form a totality, interwoven with one another. The parenting/nonparenting contradiction reflected stepchildren's ambivalence over parenting attempts of nonresidential parents. Stepchildren wanted nonresidential parent involvement and parenting, and at the same time they resisted it, often finding communication to be awkward and challenging. In addition, stepchildren wanted open and intimate communication with their nonresidential parents, yet they found openness to be problematic and managed these contradictory demands via segmentation. Implications of these findings are discussed, along with insights to guide professionals working with stepfamilies and adults co-parenting children to better understand and interact in ways that promote healthy stepfamilies.     

The ‘market’ for medical and health information in transition: the case of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority libraries

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