FEATURE
Physical Sciences
Physical sciences need ‘collective conversation’
Each to their own: the RIN case studies demonstrate the richly varied ways in which physical scientists work, collaborate, and share information and data
From astrophysics to nanoscience, a series of case studies casts an investigative lens over changing information practices in the physical sciences. Ellen Collins and Joe McEntee examine the key findings of the studies for publishers, librarians, funding agencies and scientists
F
unding agencies, publishers, librarians and learned societies need to think radically and work creatively together in order to realise more compelling information
products and services for researchers in the physical sciences.
Publishers and libraries, for example, can 24 Research Information APR/MAY 2012
better serve practising scientists and students, not just by talking to one another about subscription models and dissemination tools, but by engaging with funders and professional bodies to deliver the training needed to improve information practices. Scientists, for their part, need to work with all of these constituencies to ensure that next-generation
information tools – as well as the training to use them – are aligned with the needs, behaviours and cultures of different scientific disciplines.
That call for a ‘collective conversation’ is perhaps the principal take-away from a new study commissioned by the UK’s Research Information Network (RIN) and co- sponsored by the Institute of Physics (IOP), IOP Publishing and the Royal Astronomical Society. Entitled Collaborative Yet Independent: Information Practices in the Physical Sciences, the report comprises a series of qualitative case studies that examine how researchers in various disciplines across the physical sciences find and use information – and specifically how information practices are changing as a result of new digital technologies (see ‘Changing practice: the headline findings’).
www.researchinformation.info
Jesse Karjalainen/IOP Publishing
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