Information seeking behavior of science and engineering faculty: The impact of new information technologies

This paper describes preliminary findings from an ongoing study of a group of university faculty who are engaged in use and production of scientific and technical information, It examines the extent to which the Digital Revolution has altered their information seeking behavior and other scholarly activities, Innovations in information delivery that were investigated include locally-mounted databases, client/server databases, and Internet resources, as well as opportunities offered for training in use of the Internet. The focus in this paper will be on the analysis of data derived from a survey conducted during autumn 1995 of basic sciences and engineering faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Comparisons will be made to a baseline study that was carried out during autumn 1991 of faculty in the same departments who were surveyed regarding their use of library resources, particularly those paper and electronic indexes and abstracts that provide access to journal literature.