The document discusses reading avoidance in scientific research. It notes that researchers are navigating materials more quickly and spending less time reading each item in order to assess and exploit content with as little actual reading as possible. Researchers rely on indexing, citations, abstracts, literature reviews, colleagues, and article formatting to understand research without fully reading articles. The document also discusses different types of reading researchers engage in and how ontologies and new technologies could help move beyond traditional PDF formats to better integrate papers and data.
3. Context: “Beyond the PDF” workshop My goal: Provide use cases, drawing from library & information science research findings (What do we know about how scientists read?) and existing or needed ontologies Workshop Goal: Move “beyond the PDF” with better integration between papers & data Identify a set of requirements A group of willing participants to develop open source code to accelerate knowledge sharing
4. Kinds of Reading (my theory) “Active Reading” purposeful often non-linear reading, often accompanied by skimming, scanning, highlighting, and note-taking “Just-in-time” Reading delving into the literature at the end-stages of the writing process, to scan for omitted literature or new findings "Reading Avoidance” assessing and exploiting content with as little actual reading as possible.
8. Freeing our time for new tasks! Eisenstein, E. L. (1979). The printing press as an agent of change: communications and cultural transformations in early modern Europe. Cambridge University Press.
10. “In fact, researchers may be practicing active reading avoidance. (Palmer, 2007; Renear, 2006, 2007) Researchers are rapidly navigating through more material, spending less and less time with each item, and attempting to assess and exploit content with as little actual reading as possible.”
11.
12.
13. Intensification of longstanding practices Indexing and citations help us decide whether or not articles are relevant … without reading them. Abstracts and literature reviews help us take advantage of articles … without reading them. The articles we do read provide summaries and discussions that help us take advantage of other articles… without reading them. Colleagues, and graduate students, help us learn about and understand articles… without reading them. And the apparatus (tables of contents, references, figures, etc.), distinctive formatting of text components (such as lists, equations, scientific names, etc.), help us exploit articles … without reading them. Slide Credit: Carole Palmer
14. But researchers do “read”, in many different ways probing in new areas conference lurking to web exploration learning textbook-like explanations positioning directed searching of topic competing directed searching of people scanning, stay aware reviews to alerting services & blogs rereading personal collections reading around following leads to thematic collections Slide Credit: Carole Palmer
15. Other uses of the literature are equally important consulting - experimental resource to identify protocols instrumentation comparative results compiling – customized personal collections laptops full of PDFs extracting – core knowledge base “facts” for ontology development building - source for database enrichment annotation, evidence Slide Credit: Carole Palmer
17. Fundamental papers Renear, Allen H., and Carole L. Palmer. 2009. “Strategic Reading, Ontologies, and the Future of Scientific Publishing.” Science 325:828-832. doi:10.1126/science.1157784(Open access ISWC 2009 workshop paper:http://esw.w3.org/images/c/ce/HCLS$$ISWC2009$$Workshop$Renear.pdf ) Tenopir, Carol, Donald W. King, Sheri Edwards, and Lei Wu. 2009. “Electronic journals and changes in scholarly article seeking and reading patterns.” Aslib Proceedings 61:5-32. doi:10.1108/00012530910932267
18. Paper screenshots Swanson, D. R. (1986). Undiscovered Public Knowledge. The Library Quarterly, 56(2), 103-118. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4307965 XiaohuaHu, Guangrong Li, Yoo, I., Xiaodan Zhang, & XuhengXu. (2005). A semantic-based approach for mining undiscovered public knowledge from biomedical literature. In Granular Computing, 2005 IEEE International Conference. doi:10.1109/GRC.2005.1547229
19. Slide Credits Geoffrey Bilder. “Social Media and Scholarly Communication”. ISMTE 2010 Oct 19, Oxford, UKhttp://www.slideshare.net/CrossRef/social-media-and-scholarly-communication James Evans, Carol Tenopir. “Electronic Publication: The Narrowing of Science and Scholarship?” 11th Fiesole Collection Development Retreat, Glasgow, Scotland, July 23-25, 2009 via http://digital.casalini.it/retreat/retreat_2009.html Carol Palmer. “Research Practice and Research Libraries: Working toward High-Impact Information Services” http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch/dss/ppt/dss_palmer.ppt OCLC, Dublin, Ohio, June 19, 2008
20. Other related presentations Palmer, Carole L. (2007). “Adapting digital information to scientific practices”. International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers STM Spring Conference: The Next Generation: Endless Choices & Economic Constraints. Cambridge, MA, 24-26 April 2007. http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/700/palmer-stm-final5-07.ppt.pdf?sequence=3 Renear, A.H. (2007). “How we will [^won’t] read in 2017”. Time Odyssey: Visions of Reference and User Services RUSA President's Program American Library Association Washington DC, June 25th, 2007, revised August 13, 2007.http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~renear/renearRUSA07.pdf Renear, A. H. (2007).” Standard domain ontologies: The rate limiting step for the "Next Big Change" in scientific communication”. The 233rd American Chemical Society National Meeting, Chicago, IL, 25-29 March, 2007. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/9258/acs07stmFinal.pdf?sequence=2 Renear, A. H. (2006). “Ontologies and STM publishing”. STM Innovations, London, UK, 1 December, 2006. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/9259/stm06Final.pdf?sequence=2
Editor's Notes
“Nation Shudders at Large Black of Uninterrupted Text” – the Onion http://onion.com/dD593t
In preparation for a workshop presentation - http://sites.google.com/site/beyondthepdf/workshop-papers/supporting-readingSupporting Active Reading, Just-in-Time Reading, and Reading AvoidanceJodi SchneiderI'd like to contribute to use cases and examples in our Beyond the PDF discussions. Reading is an activity that has been heavily studied in the library & information science and usability communities. It's also key to our preference for the scientific paper over other forms (i.e. the fact-based database, the oral presentation). My goal is to translate these findings into ideas for future prototypes.At the moment, three main topics stand out in my mind: active reading, just-in-time reading, and reading avoidance. By "active reading", I mean purposeful often non-linear reading, often accompanied by skimming, scanning, highlighting, and note-taking. By "just-in-time" reading, I mean delving into the literature at the end-stages of the writing process, to scan for omitted literature or new findings. "Reading avoidance" means assessing and exploiting content with as little actual reading as possible.Renear & Palmer call for ontologies to be used not only for retrieval, but also for "ontology-aware reading tools". In order to envision the reading tools of the future, we need to look at what is known about what scientists actually do when they read, their underlying reasons for reading, and the ways in which the PDF (and other forms of the scientific paper) are meeting and falling short of their needs.Selected references:Renear, Allen H., and Carole L. Palmer. 2009. “Strategic Reading, Ontologies, and the Future of Scientific Publishing.” Science 325:828-832. Tenopir, Carol, Donald W. King, Sheri Edwards, and Lei Wu. 2009. “Electronic journals and changes in scholarly article seeking and reading patterns.” Aslib Proceedings 61:5-32. Marshall, Catherine C. 2009 Reading and Writing the Electronic Book. Morgan and Claypool Publishers.
Slide Carol Tenopir via Geoffrey Bilder: “Average number of Article Readings per Year and Average Minutes per Reading by University Faculty in the US (percent change)”SeeCarol Tenopir and Donald W King. November 2007. “Perceptions of value and value beyond perceptions: measuring the quality and value of journal article readings.” Serials 20(3).Based on a paper presented by Carol Tenopir at the UKSG seminar ‘Measure for Measure, or Much Ado About Nothing? Measuring the quality and value of online journals’, London,Thursday 14 June 2007
Renear, Allen H., and Carole L. Palmer. 2009. “Strategic Reading, Ontologies, and the Future of Scientific Publishing.” Science 325:828-832.
For more on this, see Palmer, Carole L. (2007). “Adapting digital information to scientific practices”. International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers STM Spring Conference: The Next Generation: Endless Choices & Economic Constraints. Cambridge, MA, 24-26 April 2007. http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/700/palmer-stm-final5-07.ppt.pdf?sequence=3Renear, A.H. (2007). “How we will [^won’t] read in 2017”. Time Odyssey: Visions of Reference and User Services RUSA President's Program American Library Association Washington DC, June 25th, 2007, revised August 13, 2007.Renear, A. H. (2007).” Standard domain ontologies: The rate limiting step for the "Next Big Change" in scientific communication”. The 233rd American Chemical Society National Meeting, Chicago, IL, 25-29 March, 2007. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/9258/acs07stmFinal.pdf?sequence=2Renear, A. H. (2006). “Ontologies and STM publishing”. STM Innovations, London, UK, 1 December, 2006. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/9259/stm06Final.pdf?sequence=2
Swanson, D. R. (1986). Undiscovered Public Knowledge. The Library Quarterly, 56(2), 103-118. ArrowsmithUI Chicago A->B, B->C, A->Swanson, Don R. 1986. “Undiscovered Public Knowledge.” The Library Quarterly 56:103-118.
2005XiaohuaHu, Guangrong Li, Yoo, I., Xiaodan Zhang, & XuhengXu. (2005). A semantic-based approach for mining undiscovered public knowledge from biomedical literature. In Granular Computing, 2005 IEEE International Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. 22-27 Vol. 1). Presented at the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Granular Computing. doi:10.1109/GRC.2005.1547229http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1547229
Added link to http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~renear/renearRUSA07.pdf for completeness and ease-of-refinding 2011-04-18