Reading practices in scholarly work: from articles and books to blogs

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 online survey was developed and distributed in Finland in 2016–2017 (n=528). Participants were asked their finding and use of scholarly information resources of all types. 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.

Who are the users of national open access journals? The case of the Finnish Journal.fi platform

“…Our results also suggest that students make use of the older articles more often than other users, especially researchers. This is consonant with findings of a study regarding the reading patterns of Finnish scholars, according to which 'doctoral students and postdocs use more articles published more than five years ago' (Late et al, 2019).…”

“…A recent study on reading practices in Finnish academia points to PhD students and professors as the most frequent users of journal articles, and the articles were almost always accessed electronically (with the exception of humanities scholars who still read printed journals). Moreover, scholars were mainly interested in recent publications, and this was especially noticeable in the case of journal articles (Late et al, 2019).…”

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

“…Publishing practices in humanities and social sciences favour national publishing while publishing in, for example, natural sciences and medicine is focused on international publications (Kulczycki et al ., ; Kyvik, ). Scholars also read more national publications in humanities and social sciences (Late, Tenopir, Talja, & Chirstian, ). This is explained with lower degree of mutual dependence between scholars in social sciences and humanities (Whitley, ).…”

Predicting knowledge creation through the use of knowledge acquisition tools and reading knowledge sources

“…A nationwide research conducted by Late et al (2019) in Finland reported reading practices among scholars. Scholars were found reading books, blogs, conference proceedings, research reports, magazines and newspapers with differences in disciplines, ranks, work responsibilities and type of research performed.…”