MAGISTERUPPSATS I BIBLIOTEKS- OCH INFORMATIONSVETENSKAP VID BIBLIOTEKS- OCH INFORMATIONSVETENSKAP/BIBLIOTEKSHÖGSKOLAN
2003:112
Information overload and its implications for a corporate library:
As perceived by eight researchers at AstraZeneca
MAUD SALIM
© Författaren/Författarna
Mångfaldigande och spridande av innehållet i denna uppsats – helt eller delvis – är förbjudet utan medgivande av författaren/författarna.
Engelsk titel: Information overload and its implications for a corporate library:
as perceived by eight researchers at AstraZeneca.
Svensk titel: Informationsbelastning och dess konsekvenser för ett
företagsbibliotek: ur upplevelsen av åtta forskare på Astra Zeneca.
Författare: Maud Salim
Kollegium: Koll 4
Färdigställt: 2003
Handledare: Elena Maceviciute
Abstract: The aim of the present study is to develop an understanding of how researchers perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload related to maintaining currency.
AstraZeneca was chosen to conduct this study because the pharmaceutical industry is a very intensive information industry.
Eight willing researchers were chosen via a contact person to participate in the qualitative interviews. Researchers work in different departments and their time of employments differs
The results revealed that the problem of information overload is an individual approach and it is related to maintaining currency. To overcome the problem researchers have adopted individual coping strategies; specialization was the most useful strategy adopted by most of the researchers. Personal information management, as sorting and filing, seemed to play an important role in handling the current information. At the organizational level, the Information Science & Library was perceived as updated, professional and necessary. The library staff helps researchers to stay up-dated and to cope with information overload, by acting as information providers and as research assistants and by offering end-users’- education.
Nyckelord: Informationsbelastning, läkemedelsindustri, Astra Zeneca, företagsbibliotek, Forskning och Utveckling,
informationshantering.
Content
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Background... 1
3. Problem, goal and objectives... 3
4. Definitions and limitations ... 3
4.1. Discussion of core concepts ... 4
Information management... 4
Personal information management ... 4
Information overload ... 4
Currency in Research and Development ... 5
4.2. Limitations ... 6
4.3. Literature search ... 6
5. Inforrmation overload: Earlier researches and theory ... 6
5.1. Historical background ... 7
5.2. Information overload as a research problem ... 7
5.3. Causes of Information overload ... 8
5.4. Approaches to coping with information overload... 10
5.4.1. Individual- approaches ... 10
5.4.2 Organisational approaches ... 12
5.5. The library role... 13
5.5.1. Current Awareness Services... 14
5.5.2. Implications of information overload for the library... 15
6. The pharmaceutical industry... 17
6.1. AstraZeneca... 18
6.2. The library at AstraZeneca ... 19
7. Metod... 22
7.1. Interview... 23
7.2. Analysis ... 24
7.3. Problem with the application of the method ... 25
8. Results the empirical study... 26
8.1. Information overload at AstraZeneca... 26
8.1.1. The researchers information tasks... 26
8.1.2. Information sources and databases... 26
8.1.3. Sources of information overload ... 28
8.1.4. Information overload and currency ... 30
8.1.5. Other kinds of overload... 30
8.2. The researchers’ coping strategies ... 32
8.2.1. Strategies to cope with information overload... 32
8.2.2. Personal information management... 33
8.2.3. The researchers’ information literacy... 34
8.3. The library as perceived by researchers ... 35
8.3.1. The library services and currency ... 35
8.3.2. The library role in countering information overload... 36
8.3.3. General approaches to information overload ... 37
9. Analysis and discussion... 39
9.1. The researchers’ experience of overload... 39
9.1.1. Overload and maintaining currency ... 39
9.1.2. Other kinds of overload... 40
9.2. The researchers’ coping strategies ... 41
9.2.1. Strategies to cope with information overload... 41
9.2.2. Personal information management... 43
9.3. The perceived role of the library ... 44
9.3.1. The library role and currency ... 44
9.3.2. The library role in coping with information overload... 45
10. Conclusion... 48
11. Summary ... 50
References ... 52
Unpublished references... 52
Printed references, Unpublished ... 52
Printed references, published ... 52
Electronic references... 55
Annex 1 ... 56
Annex 2 ... 57
1. Introduction
Information has become the driving force of most people’s lives and the world that once, during the age of industry, was ruled by natural sources, is now run by information that seems infinite. To survive in the workplace or simply to function in the society we are obliged to assimilate a huge amount of information. This is very true in research where information is the life-blood of industrial research and development (further referred as R&D) and the scientist may feel overwhelmed by current literature while s/he strives to keep abreast of his field. Wilson stated that:
Everyone engaged in research is aware of the problem of information overload. It is always a threat if not a reality. It is perhaps most familiar as a problem of maintaining currency.
(Wilson 1996b, p. 192)
Relevant information, known to be available, may go unused in R&D because of information overload (Wilson 1995, p. 45).
The problem of information overload has been identified in many contexts, including business organizations, managers’ decision making and research companies. Various factors have been identified and a wide range of coping strategies both individual and organizational has been adopted. Considering the special library as a part of a larger organization, its principal function is research support and informational. It shares and supports the objectives and mission of that organisation (Taylor 1985, p. 91). That means while providing researchers with the current literature, the library may have some role in helping them to cope with overload.
The subject of information overload in relation to published literature is revealed interesting because I was always fascinated by the researchers who can stay current- i.e. keeping up with what other research workers are doing and which is relevant to one’s own work. I wondered all the time how do they succeed to keep up with the flow of literature.
I just try to read the literature that is of close relevance to the subject of my thesis and I find this difficult. I feel overwhelmed by old and new literature that seems relevant to my subject and, because of shortage of time I cannot read it all.
I connected the problem of information overload to Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies’
research area because the pharmaceutical industry, especially its research activity, is well- known as the archetypal information intensive industry (Spilker 1994, p. 461).
This work will discuss the role of the library in countering the problem of information overload, seen by a small group of researchers at AstraZeneca, further refer as AZ.
2. Background
Over the last 35 years the international pharmaceutical industry has been developing in different areas. One of some major developments was in the area of data management and
and management, integrated systems to manage information and national and international project teams (Spilker 1994, p. 33). Clearly information is the central basis for operations of a pharmaceutical company. It is needed to discover new medicine, to assess one’s competitors accurately and to make correct decisions. A large quantity of information is obtained from external sources and is generated internally. Information that is systematically recorded for easy retrieval falls into different categories as raw data, published literature, in-house company documents, information on chemicals synthesized, media reference to the
company’s products, competitive intelligence and institutional memory (ibid. p. 461, 465).
By published literature Spilker means the scientific or technical books and journals that are housed in company library and meet most basic information needs of employees. Articles from the worldwide biomedical literature are gathered, analyzed, indexed, and entered into in- house, on-line bibliographic databases to make information rapidly available (Spilker 1994, p.
462).
In offering information to in-house professionals, Spilker suggested that one of the essential principles for many information services to follow is to provide a few valuable and useful references or documents to assist users in reaching a decision or solving a problem. This approach may be considered as “value-added service”. According to Spilker, large quantities of information dishearten the recipient and may be counterproductive to the goals of the data search (1994, p. 464).
The inability to respond to the abundance of information available is called information overload (Marcusohn 1995, p.26-27). Garfield E. stated that all working scholars live in a world of information overload that attends frustration (see Wilson 1996a, p. 22). Wilson argued that:
There can never be enough time to read all the things one should read or enough time to discuss with others all the things about which discussion would be beneficial...information overload is a gap between what one can do and what one wants to do, a gap between what one can do and what one thinks one should do with existing information. (Wilson 1996a, p.
22)
In this sense information overload is seen as a great problem in research and development because it is a world of conceptual change and the overwhelming magnitude of the
biomedical literature is a threat for the physicians who want to keep up with advances in the knowledge in their discipline (Wilson 1996a, p. 22). Butcher had also mentioned this point and he believes that one of seven causes behind information overload is that people like to collect current information because they don’t accept to be left behind or shown up as being less well informed than others (Butcher 1999, p. 54).
Wilson distinguished between two kinds of information overload: task overload and upkeep overload. Task overload appears in the context of research projects or particular inquiry and it is explained by the overabundance of available date relevant to the particular inquiry. Upkeep overload is related to maintaining currency (1996b, p.192-193). Keeping up with the literature is necessary to keep up with the competitive edge. Although there is a fact to be admitted that people cannot know everything about everything and it is impossible to keep up-to-date with the literature (Laskin 1994, p. 661). If researchers admit this reality can we say that they are not supposed to experience overload that is related to maintaining currency? It is unlikely that one perfect answer reduces or eradicates the problem of information overload.
Scholars and scientists set up their own information systems to receive what they believe relevant to their work. They subscribe to journals, ejournals, exchange preprints with colleagues, and visit the library to look at new issues of journals or to browse. While
searching they come across more interesting references. This huge flow of information must be managed (Wilson 1996a, p. 25). Individual strategies must then be adapted to adjust to the immense amount of information and to prevent overload. But there is still a question whether if the individual coping strategies are the best solution to overload or there is still some role for the library to play in helping researchers to cope with information overload?
Since the world of medicine discovery and development is rapidly changing, the
pharmaceutical industry was thought an ideal sector to conduct this study because of its very information intensive nature. The research area is thought to be the significant primary activity in the pharmaceutical industry that is why this study emphasis on the researchers’
perspectives on information overload and the perceived role of the library to counter this problem. AZ has been chosen to conduct the present study due to the study: “How does the organisation of Library and Documentation fulfil the needs of information at Astra Hässle”
made by Christian Karlsson and Elisabeth Letmark in the 1998. The study reported that the scientists at Astra Hässle (which is known at the present time as AstraZeneca), complained that they suffer from information overload.
3. Problem, goal and objectives
The proliferation of publication, printed and electronic, is the main cause of information overload (Bawden, Holtman & Courtney 1999, p. 252). Since a main part of the literature used by researchers goes through the library, it may be logical to think that the library has a role to play in helping researchers to manage information overload.
According to this, the goal of the present study is to develop an understanding of how
researchers perceive the role of the library in helping them to cope with information overload related to maintaining currency.
This goal will be reached through these questions:
1. Do the researchers at AZ suffer of information overload?
- How much information overload is related to staying current?
- What else causes overload?
2. What Kind of strategies (if any) do the researchers at AZ adopt to cope with overload?
3. How do the researchers at AZ perceive the role of the library in helping them to counter information overload?
4. Definitions and limitations
Here below follow the discussion of the core concepts as well as the limitations of the present study. The literature search will also take place in this chapter.
4.1. Discussion of core concepts
Information management, personal information management, information overload and currency in Research and Development are revealed important to the present study. The reader of this work will come across some other concepts as work overload, process overload and communication overload, but they will not be discussed here because they were not revealed essential to understand the present work.
Information management
Wilson defined information management as:
The application of management principles to the acquisition, organization, control, dissemination and use of information relevant to the effective operation of organizations of all kinds. (Wilson 1997, p. 189)
With information Wilson means all types of information derived from various sources, produced internally or externally and that have value for the organisation. According to Wilson, information management deals with the value, quality, ownership, use and security of information in the context of organizational performance. Choo defined information
management as:
A set of processes that support and are symmetrical with the organization’s learning activities. (Choo 1998, p. 199)
Wilson’s definition is seen as more suitable for this work because it is wider in defining what information management deals with and because it considers the organizational performance while Choo’s definition is related to the organization’s learning activities.
Personal information management
To define personal information management, referred as PIM, Etzel (1995) started by
defining each term. By personal Etzel means information that belongs to the person doing the job and by information anything that a person uses to do her or his job. Although anything may include many things, according to Etzel it may be a department wall chart to look at to see what co-workers are doing. It may be paper files, journals, faxes, e-mails or voice mail, computer word processing documents and spreadsheets. Management refers to the strategy one uses for coping with all of this information-i.e. where to put the journals? Where to store all the e-mail? How long to keep information? Etc. Etzel meant that PIM helps the user to cope with information overload by helping her or him to define what information is important and to select the most appropriate tools to manage information (Etzel 1995, p. 2/1-2/2).
In this thesis PIM is included in the individual coping strategies that also include the strategies that the scientists use to deal with information overload.
Information overload
The problem of information overload is widely recognised today. The fact that we are living in an information society puts us in the presence of a huge amount of information that reaches us from different sources. From a management point of view “information overload” implies an inability to respond to the abundance of information available (Marcusohn 1995, p. 26).
According to Wilson (1996a) information overload is a challenge to the rationality of
scholarship and science. Overload means that one cannot use information efficiently. Wilson defined efficiency as the full and correct use of all relevant information. If rationality requires the use of all available relevant information then overload means irrationality. The
consequences of overload result in inability to use all relevant information. This implies inefficiency and irrationality of research and development (Wilson 1996a, p. 22-23).
To understand the problem of information overload it is necessary to define two terms information load and information overload. Information load is:
The amount of information acquired by a processing system, e.g., a library user. (Rudd &
Rudd 1986a, p. 315)
Rudd and Rudd stated that an increase in the amount of information in the library does not necessarily produce an increase in the information load carried by library users. When an increase in information supply results in an increased information load, users may feel the overload effects (1986a, p. 316). Information overload is then information load that cannot effectively be absorbed by the user.
Wilson (1995) stated that information overload may mean many things as:
Being presented with more information than one could absorb. It might mean being burdened by a large supply of relevant information, that is, forced to spend more time and energy on assimilating new information than one would like to do...The serious kind of overload is the possession, or the knowledge of the existence, of information one thinks to be probably relevant but does not use because of lack of time (Wilson 1995, p. 45-46).
Wilson by this definition does not make a difference between information load and
information overload, when he admits that overload is the possession or the knowledge of the existence of relevant information that cannot be absorbed. In this sense information overload is used in the present study. Information overload in the present study is also related to maintaining currency that why, information overload and upkeep overload are used in this work to describe the same state.
Currency in Research and Development
To understand the relation between information overload and maintaining currency, it is important to review the importance of currency, especially in R&D. Wilson considered that almost everyone tries to keep up with some part of life but everyone differs in pattern of interest of pursuing currency. Staying current is a requirement of the social world imposed on persons of occupational positions. The social requirement is not the only motivation for maintaining currency the preservation of self or capital is a strong private motivation. This implies that anyone working in a competitive field is unlikely to be successful unless she or he maintains current knowledge of the state of play in her or his own field (Wilson 1993, p.
634-637).
In R&D maintaining currency means keeping up with what other research workers are doing that is relevant to one’s own work. One wants to be able to claim intellectual command of a field and this requires deep and wide knowledge of what has been done and is being done by others in the same field. It is very clear that differences in the scope of current knowledge will
precise rules on how deep and wide one’s knowledge must be. There is a requirement and it ordinarily means that one must devote time and effort to reading what others have published or are going to publish or have otherwise communicated. The time devoted will vary with the size and level of activity of the field (Wilson 1996b, p. 192-193). Time is the principal price of currency and different people will pay very different prices for the currency they attain (Wilson 1993, p. 637-638).
4.2. Limitations
This study emphasis on the relation between information overload and the current, research published literature and not the current information get when researchers intend the
conferences or through the oral communication. Information overload is admitted in the present study as upkeep overload.
4.3. Literature search
First I started looking for theories and researches about information overload in general. Then I concentrated on information overload in research and development, especially while keeping current. I specified my searches to overload in pharmaceutical research in particular. There was not too much literature in this area. While looking for the literature I faced also a problem in finding literature about the library role, as perceived by its users, in countering information overload. It is important to point out that there is no earlier research that directly studies the role of the library as perceived by researchers. For all these reasons, a part of the literature used in the present study covers the problem of information overload in general.
Some of the articles and books used were found at the library of the Högskolan of Borås.
Most of the articles were obtained through interlibrary loan from other universities in Sweden and sometimes from other European countries.
I looked too for information about AstraZeneca. Initial information about AZ was gained from unpublished material about AZ and from AZ’s website. Information about the
Information Science and Library at AZ was gained from interviews with the library manager and with three librarians.
5. Inforrmation overload: Earlier researches and theory
This chapter discusses the historical background of the problem of information overload and earlier researches in this problem. It also presents the causes of information overload and the individuals’ strategies to counter information overload. The provision of current literature in special library and the perceived role of the library to cope with information overload, according to the literature will take place in this chapter too.
5.1. Historical background
There is a discussion around the problem of information overload, whether is it an old or a recent phenomena? Though Wilson stated that information overload is not a new phenomenon and that the potential for overload has existed since information became an important input to any human activity (2001, p. 3), Klapp claimed that the problem of information overload was noticed by a social scientist who described in the 1950 the problem of overload of the
sensations in the urban world that makes habitants incapable to react to new situations with the appropriate energy. Klapp writes about communication overload as a disease of cities (Klapp 1986, p. 6-7). Noyes and Thomas stated that it is impossible to know when the problem of information overload started to be noticed, but it started to become a serious problem towards the end of the last century (1995, p. 2).
Bawden, Holtham and Courtney affirmed that information overload started to be well
recognized as a problem by the late 1950s and early 1960s with the expansion of publication, especially in science and technology. They indicate that innovations in information
technology in terms of printed books, periodical magazines, abstracting journals and the computer make it impossible to keep up with the information available (Bawden, Holtham &
Courtney 1999, p. 249).
Garvey W. D. stated that researchers moved from a period (1947) where the typical scientist was just able to keep up with the literature of direct relevance to the topic at hand, and not to other literature in the same discipline, to a period (1977) where the scientist could keep up with the fifth to tenth of the literature that is directly relevant to his work (see Wilson 1996a, p. 22). The time of the scientist was considered very precious to face rivers of current
literature. This led to express the need for techniques of controlled selectiveness in supplying her or his information needs (Badwen, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 249).
By 1973, Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) was considered as specific
information services used to overcome information overload. By the 1990s the problem of information overload began to be seen as a major problem with the emergence of the Internet and e-mail, and the emergence of new techniques became an urgent request (Ibid, p. 249). The development in communication systems increases the amount of information in the
workplace. The rise in paper documentation created the need for the development of the information retrieval systems (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 19).
5.2. Information overload as a research problem
Information overload is not considered all the time as a problem. The argument used is that people are overloaded to the extent that one wishes to be overloaded. This was seen in the more pragmatic comments of some scientists in a pharmaceutical research organization (Bawden, Holtman & Courtney 1999, p. 251). Rudd and Rudd considered that library users rarely experienced information overload. The belief that they do is due to the confusion between information explosion and information overload. True overload is likely to appear under very specific circumstances (Rudd & Rudd 1986b, p. 304). Tidline looked at the question of information overload as a problem in popular culture that had not been
documented through rigorous investigations. Tidline affirmed that information overload is a myth of modern culture. Tidline represented the findings of a pilot project to study
the presence of information overload and revealed people coping with overload. Tidline concluded that the results of the project confirm that a human is able to adapt to altered circumstances (Tidline 1999, p. 501-505).
The problem of information overload was seen elsewhere as a real and continuing issue. It was revealed in the literature of many disciplines such as medicine, business study, and the social sciences as well as in computing and information science. The term is well defined too and there cannot be many who have not experienced the feeling of having too much
information (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 18). The problem of information overload does exist and Butcher mentions that management research into this problem falls into three categories, researches into information overload among individuals, organizations and customers
(Butcher 1995, p. 1). Wilson stated that in R&D, the problem of information overload is as widespread as the constant testimony of scientists and scholars claims it is (1995, p. 46).
Reuters’ researches into information overload in the Western World, in two different periods 1996 and 1998, reported that information overload does exist as a major problem and that it does seriously affect the people at work. Edmunds and Morris presented the results of Reuter’s researches which showed an increase in the majority that experience overload, 65%
in the 1996 to 42% in the 1998. If the problem of information overload is beginning to be seen as less of a problem that may be because people learned how to live with it and they complain less, because overload has become an acceptable state (Edmunds & Morris 2000, p. 21, 28).
5.3. Causes of Information overload
The major contributing factor, if not the most significant one, in information overload is the too much information (TMI) effect (Bawden, Holtman & Courtney 1999, p. 251). Statistics given by Schuman P.G. indicated the problem of TMI:
§ A weekly edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth –century England.
§ The collections of the large US research libraries doubled between 1876 and 1990.
§ Over one thousand books were published each day across the world during 1990 (see Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 251).
The problem of information overload is the same then and now- too much information and too many sources (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 20). Wilson suggested that information overload is a terrible problem for professionals who are obliged to keep up with advances in the
knowledge and techniques of their profession. It is also a great problem for physician as well for those involved in research because of the overwhelming of magnitude of literature facing them (1996a, p. 22). In R&D information overload is affected by the size and level of activity of the field. In a small field with slow producers, researchers will not face a problem in keeping up but in a large and very active field of fast producers researchers may feel overwhelmed (Wilson 1996b, p.193). It is enough to look at the growth of abstracts and indexes to understand the explosion of the literature. For example the 13th collective index of chemicals abstracts is about 150 volumes (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 20).
Laskin estimated that to understand the fact that we are facing information overload, it would be enough to know that each year, the average person reads 3000 notices and memos, 100 newspapers and 36 magazines, listens to 730 hours of radio and watches more than 2400 hours of television. The clinician adds to that the reading of professional journals and books,
listening to audiotapes and viewing videotapes. The proliferation of professional journals has increased overload. One might feel frustrated thinking of all the information that exist in these journals and need to be digested. It can be that the time spent on reading them is a wasted time because of the duplication of information or because they contain deficient data. Laskin wondered whether information users are really dealing with information overload or
publication overload. If this is true it would be better to control the quality of articles before the publication (Laskin 1994, p. 661).
Klassen, Jadad and Moher affirmed that proliferation of books and journals make it
impossible to keep up with the medical literature and it is easy to be overwhelmed by current literature. There are 17 000 new biomedical books published every year, along with 30 000 biomedical journals, resulting with an annual increase of 7%. The physician who attempts to keep abreast of his field need to read on average 19 original articles each day (Klassen, Jadad
& Moher 1998, p. 700).
The problem of information overload, in pharmaceutical research organisation, was related both to the great amount of available information and e-mail. A recent survey of the use of information services and systems in pharmaceutical research organisation looks in a part at information overload. The majority (17) of the interviewees (30 scientists) agreed that they are affected by information overload. Those who are not affected answer that there was too much information available but they could cope with it (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p.154).
Most of the scientists in the same study conducted in pharmaceutical research organization pointed out IT as a cause of information overload, but they added that they had provided the tools to solve it. They mentioned two factors that promote to information overload: The first one is the great amount of information available, both internally and externally, so that even more selection and discrimination is needed to deal with it, when it is actively sought. The second is the amount of information sent directly by e-mail to the participants. The majority could easily find the information they need, but there was some difficulty in finding some external documents, e.g. conference abstracts, some aspect of patents and some supplier data.
A less use of the library and the printed sources was mentioned (ibid, p. 155-156).
The diversity of relevant information is pointed out by Bawden, Holtham and Courtney to be a major cause to information overload. Bawden, Holtham and Courtney mentioned that new information and communication technology aimed of providing rapid and convenient access to information are themselves also responsible of the overload. Internet, Intranet and
electronic mail are considered to be major contributor to information overload (1999, p. 249- 252).Countervailing views concerning the Internet and electronic mail were elaborated by Edmunds and Moris (2000), who argued that the problem of information overload existed before the arrival of the Internet. A research carried out for Reuter in the 1996 revealed that 48% of managers believe that the internet would be a prime cause of overload in the next two years. Two years later a research carried out for Reuters report that only 19% of respondents (managers) believed that the Internet has made things worse (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 19).
Wilson (2001) stated that the causes of information overload is not simply that, today there is more information than people can assimilate, and if it is so, people have adapted ways to cope with overload. Neither is it just a technological cause because the technology is not to blame for causing information overload. Instead there is a miss-use of the technology. Wilson added the human factors as a cause to information overload. By human factors Wilson meant the
propensity of people to seek information and disseminate it to others- information pull and push, in the computer jargon. Information pull is related to the desire of some people to seek information to understand their life-world. This desire can become pathologic if the person seeks information whether it is relevant to her or his work or not. Push technology exist as Wilson stated to facilitate the distribution of information, but it can be miss-used too. The appearance of these pathological states is the results of the organization’s management style (Wilson 2001, p. 6-8). Wilson considered that the root cause of information overload is the stress created by modern management practices which put people’s job under threat, or which increase general workload, or create defensive behaviour (Wilson 2001, P. 11).
Another cause of information overload is mentioned to be the nature of the work being carried out by the user that affects the nature and amount of information required. This is very
familiar in interdisciplinary work (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 252).
Taylor looked at the problem of information overload not as an explosive growth of potential relevant information but as a problem in the information systems that filter, transmit and distribute information. He argues that these systems are not developed in an adequate way to deal with this explosive growth (Taylor 1986, p. 24).
To conclude, information overload is thought in terms of keeping up with new ideas and new publications and it is very clear that the proliferation of publication has contributed to increase the problem. The technological development in part causes information overload but is not the only to blame. The problem may arise from the organization culture and management
practices as Wilson (2001) declares it. Whatever is the cause of information overload, the problem exists and it is seen to be a personal experience and it is affected by the individuals’
way of dealing with information generally and by the complexity of most participants’ job.
The solution then will have to be individual and will involve personality as much as subject specialism and work role (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 154-155).
5.4. Approaches to coping with information overload
Solutions to information overload, like its causes, are multi-faceted, and there is no single tool that will correct the problem. The solutions proposed fall into two categories: Managerial, includes both individual and organizational approaches, and technological (Bawden, Holtham
& Courtney 1999, p. 253). Some of the technological approaches and which are related to the library will be discussed under § 5.5. The managerial approaches will be discussed here below and these include the individual approaches and the organizational approaches.
5.4.1. Individual- approaches
Wilson gave two solutions to the problem of information overload in R&D. The first is specialization and the second is satisfaction. Satisfaction is normative and evaluative. This means that the best response to overload is specialization. Scientists solve their information problem by narrowing the scope of their interests. It is a way by which scientists and scholars adjust the size of the field in which they want to maintain expertise so that the burden of keeping up is manageable. Every scientist who has been in research for a long period knows that to remain an expert in some area she or he needs to narrow the width of her or his interest. Specialization is a solution to the problem of overload but one cannot think that research and development cope successfully with overload (Wilson 1996a, p. 23-25).
Bawden, Holtham and Courtney summed that the individual skills required to cope with information overload may be placed under the general heading “time management”. The first one is a prioritisation of information seeking related to work goals and objectives. A second one is to deal with a piece of paper as soon as it is touched. A third one is to join mailing lists and newsgroups very selectively, to delete many messages unread and only keep material that would be very difficult to find again (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253).
In a survey conducted in pharmaceutical research organisation the solutions were largely seen to be self-discipline in focusing on important things, and self-education in managing
information. Several participants saw scope for formal training and support for personal information management as file handling, what to store and how, best practice in using e-mail (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 156-157).
Wilson mentioned some other personal strategies to manage the flow of information that come to a person from different sources and may cause overload. One of these strategies is prioritizing. People tend to assign incoming material to different categories. Many categories were identified:
- Mandatory to be dealt with as soon as possible;
- Documents of potential interest;
- Documents which are good to know about but not necessary to read now;
- Documents that are categorise as of no interest (Wilson 1996a, p. 25-26).
This categorisation explains that under condition of overload people tend to postpone what they feel can be postponed. People accumulate a backlog of things to be read. Dealing with the most urgent items may take up all the time allocated for reading. The backlog may grow bigger and bigger and it comes a time when people start to discard things unread from the backlog. There is nothing wrong with backlog and the viewpoint of a rational information management is for it. Wilson tries to explain that by contrasting two strategies used in
information management: keeping up and catching up. The first one is to read the literature as it is published. In this case the filter of time may thin out the stream of current literature.
Catching up in that case may be better. Under the pressure of overload older publications may be abandoned. One can think that everything useful in the older literature is incorporate in the current one. Wilson estimated that this is an appropriate thing to do in condition of
unavoidable overload (Wilson 1996a, p. 26-29). Although prioritization may be a solution for information overload it may also appear that priorities used may be wrong and the problem of information overload may become a sign of strategic error. For this reason Wilson suggested that the most important kind of response to overload is team work (Wilson 1995, p. 49).
A general solution proposed by Laskin has some implications on the individual level. The solution is to control the quality of publication but this does not mean that the problem of information overload will be solved in the future years. One needs to find best ways to manage the situation. Laskin stated that one solution is to focus on concepts and principles, rather than details and data. Laskin affirmed that information users must learn to be discerning readers, to scan the abstract and focus on what looks to be significant (Laskin 1994, p. 661).
Skimming or scanning in place of careful reading was seen by Klapp as a strategy to cope with information overload. Klapp suggested reading reviews and abstracts instead of books and passing up long for short conversation. One cost of this rapid scanning is distraction and
the information user may have the feeling of being disconnected or disengaged from the information (Klapp 1986, p. 106).
Information literacy is an approach to the problem of information overload that can be applicable both at the individual as well as the organisational level. Generally there is no accepted definition of information literacy, Bawden, Holtham and Courtney stated that:
It refers to a set of information-handling skills going considerably beyond the simple ability to retrieve information, and usually including elements of evaluation, organisation and use.
(Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253)
According to Abell (2000) the essential components of information literacy are the ability to find, create, organize and use information from a variety of sources (Abell 2000, p. 1).
The importance of information literacy in countering information overload, at the individual level, is in the regaining of control lost in the overload situation. This means that people know what information they need, they evaluate it and organise it. They approach information with critical thinking (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253).
In the findings of the survey conducted in pharmaceutical research organization, the researchers, who experienced the provision of desktop information systems, expressed the need of enhancement of personal “information literacy” as file handling and storing and practices in using email (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 156). Mutch admitted that to be information literate goes much deeper than becoming proficient at personal information management i.e. filing and organising, to the nature of information creation (Mutch 1997, p.
378).
5.4.2 Organisational approaches
Wilson (2001) who written about the problem of information overload within organisation from a management point of view, affirmed that the appearance of the pathological states of information pull and push are the results of the organization management style. The
management ethos and the organization culture cause organizational stress which in its turn causes pathological information behaviour. All these with the mediation of the technology are the responsibles of creating information overload in organizations (Wilson 2001, p. 7-9). To overcome organizational pathologies there is a need for organizational therapies and the problem of information overload needs to be on senior management’s agenda. Organizations need to know the existence of the problem of information overload; they need to ensure that senior management are aware of the problem. There is also a need to advocate the
development of an information strategy for the organization which is not confused with the information technology strategy and which considers the problems of information overload.
In disseminating information, information providers must be selective according to
established needs. To institute some policy on appropriate use of technology and a training policy for the use of e-mail, voice mail and other technologies is also a part of the solution to the problem of information overload (Ibid, p. 11-12). To have an e-mail policy that regulates forwarding, copying material, attachments, etc. Similar policy for meetings and voice mail were also mentioned by Bawden, Holtham and Courtney (1999, p. 254).
Information literacy may be another approach to the problem of information overload that could be applicable at the organizational level. Promoting information literacy in individuals, by means of appropriate training, seems to be a powerful way of minimising the effects of information overload (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999, p. 253). The fact that end-users have desktop access to the web does not necessarily mean that they have a high level of information literacy. This implies that librarians still have a continuing role to play within organizations because of knowledge about web resources that contain highly relevant, good quality information, and because they provide in-house training for end-users (Pedley 2001, p.
8).
Hopkins affirmed that either the librarian or the information system will ever be able to deal with all the quality information filtering that users require. Part of the solution is training of users to be more selective, to make more quality judgments themselves, about the information they retrieve. This is certainly one of the primary objectives of the information literacy
(Hopkins 1995, p. 327).
The role of the library by enhancing lifelong learning plays an important role in countering information overload, at the organizational level. Knowing the importance of the role of the library to the present study, it will be discussed as a separate paragraph.
5.5.
The library role
Today more and more organizations are involved in research. In order to generate information and to make more information available, special libraries and issue-based information centre have come up (Ghosh & Wesley 2002, p. 135). Special librarians function as change agents and leaders providing the information needed to help the organization achieve its goals. They identify and acquire external sources of information and help to organize internal sources of information. Ghosh and Wesley considered that:
They provide vital information services by preparing abstracts and indexes of current periodicals, organizing bibliographies or analyzing background information and preparing reports on areas of particular interest. They are best positioned to monitor the information products and needs of different departments and deserve a central role in the development of processes and policies that harness an organization’s knowledge base. (Ghosh & Wesley 2002, P. 136)
The vital role of the library in research environment was highlighted by Ghosh and Wesley who presented the role of the library in managing information requirements for research at the Institute of Social Sciences in New Delhi. Ghosh and Wesley affirmed that there is an
increasing recognition by the research community of modern trends in library documentation and information services. Libraries are no longer limited to in-house information; they have become facilities that provide electronic access to global information resources (Ghosh &
Wesley 2002, p. 144).
Ball found that information overload is a dominating term in discussion on new orientation of libraries. Faced with competition from other information providers, special libraries must find new ways of handling their clientele. They need to create 'added value'. They must employ 'customer relationship management', using individual profiles and providing extra services
like content and knowledge management. They must demonstrate good cost management to their sponsor organization (Ball 2002, p. 39).
While Hopkins stated that some librarians expressed that the problem of information overload clearly means a new or enhanced role for the librarian (1995, p. 308), Biggs suggested that the challenges of helping clients in managing information overload caused by the proliferation of available data and publications and ever-more-comprehensive and widespread automated means to access to them is one new direction for service development (Biggs 1989, p. 411).
Recently the efficiency of the information services in face of the increasing flood of
information has become a major question. There is a need to move from building collections to building services. There is a need to look at the investment of user’s time while providing information and to reduce that information to a manageable portion. There is a fact that must be faced and it’s that not all end-users have the time and the expertise to find the information that best serves their work. The solution may be in part to develop information filtering systems, another part is the reorganisation and improvement of services and of course a big part of the answer lies on the technological innovations. In the world of library there’s a need to look at the institutional goals and to separate policies focused on availability and access from those concerned with information management (Dougherty 1991, p. 339).
According to Wilson the problem of information overload poses new challenge for the information science. He stated that maybe it is time to develop new information systems that help scientists to select, evaluate, filter and screen an admittedly over-large corpus of relevant information (Wilson 1996a, p. 30-31).
The role of the library in both providing current literature and countering overload is discussed here below.
5.5.1. Current Awareness Services
The advent of the scientific revolution brought into focus the requirement for being aware of developments. The creation of scholarly societies and scientific periodicals and the active consulting of current literature by scientists and technologists, highlight the term “current awareness”. During the nineteenth century abstracting journals and cumulative indexes were created to assist scientists to staying abreast of the rapidly expanding knowledge base. By the early 1900s special library met the need for fostering current awareness services. Martin and Metcalfe assumed that:
The Current awareness service can be considered as a nascent knowledge management tool in that it tends to capture and manage easy consumption useful information pertinent to the needs of library clients. (Martin & Metcalfe 2001, p. 268-269)
The term “current awareness” was coined to describe the state of keeping up with new development. Current Awareness Services (CAS) were developed to deliver:
• Right information, to the
• Right user, at the
• Right time, in the
• Right format, covering the
• Right sources, at the
• Right cost, and with the right amount of effort to keep users up-to-date. (Fourie 1999, p.
381)
The original definition of CAS was given by Kemp, CAS was seen:
As a system or publication for reviewing newly available documents, selecting items relevant to the needs of an individual or group, and recording them so that notifications may be sent to those individuals or groups to whose needs they are related. (Kemp 1979, p. 12) Kemp estimates that some libraries prepare and issue separate current awareness bulletin for different kind of publications, a patent bulletin is a popular example. A typical current awareness bulletin contains:
• general library publicity and announcements
• general new items from news papers, meetings and conferences
• details of recently received documents, especially periodical articles
• Details of items not available from the library but obtainable through it (Kemp 1979, p. 25-26).
With the new range of services offered via the Internet the definition of CAS is expanded so that they present a selection of one or more systems that provide notification of the existence of new entities added to the system’s database or of which the system took note (Fourie 1999, p. 381). The Internet affords the opportunity for information users to access CAS directly. A major facet of CAS is the alerting of journal contents (Martin & Metcalf 2001, p. 269).
Selective dissemination of Information (SDI) or otherwise known as document filtering is an extension of CAS as it is a targeted service in which the individual’s research interest are profiled, and then matched against the text of incoming documents (Martin & Metcalfe 2001, p. 268). Traditionally they have been performed by a librarian acting as a filterer, scanning the literature with awareness of its value for the client. Today SDI is used to save database search that can be run automatically against future updates of the database. SDI is most useful in interdisciplinary research and it enhances the productivity of basic research scientists working in R&D environment (Ibid. p. 269).
In the past, the libraries and information centres have promoted CAS and SDI, either through print or electronic means, to furnish the need of information seekers. CAS and SDI as
mediated and promoted by librarians are considered to contribute towards reducing the problem of information overload. They help to filter the ceaseless flow of information so as information users receive only the materials that are relevant to their area of interests.
Although CAS can be provided via Internet and although the opportunities now exists for information users to access such services directly through online systems, from the desktop, there still remain a vital role for the library (Martin & Metcalfe 2002, p. 267,275).
5.5.2. Implications of information overload for the library
Hopkins presented some of the attempts that have been made in library and information science to help users to cope with information overload. These were categorized as ideas presented in the past but have not been widely adopted and some present approaches. Hopkins presented a speculation about some future ways to deal with information overload (Hopkins
1995, p. 311). Condensed surrogates are a well established coping strategy. This strategy was adapted in the past and it still has relevance in the present. With condensed surrogates Bernier means abstracts in particular, but reviews, extracts, articles in encyclopaedias, textbooks, handbooks and a few publications of terse conclusions (Bernier 1980, p. 313).
The past ideas include also a quality information filtering system which reduces the quantity of journal literature on a specific subject to a few highly relevant and easy accessible items.
This information system was used successfully (Hopkins 1995, 315f). Today the quality filtering system as one of value-added services to user of library and information systems is one that is already established in information analysis centre like the Congressional Research Service, and some special libraries. Although Taylor stated that many special librarians do possess the necessary time and expertise to filter, select, delete or rank output by perceived importance for their clients (Taylor 1986, p. 129). Hopkins suggests that many special
libraries do not have time neither money nor staff to be able to put a great deal of emphasis on the quality filtering of information. Hopkins concluded that it is unlikely that the quality filtering services will offer a radical solution to the problem of information overload (Hopkins 1995, p. 317).
Another present approach (1995) to overload is the provision of printed guides, handbooks and state-of-the-art review articles. These types of sources are effective in assisting the user to make quality judgments about the relevance of documents for a particular information need.
What implications does this approach have for the library and for the librarian? First, is that the librarian must be aware of each type of guides, and identify and purchase them for the collection. Second, the librarian must be adept at accessing the various types of guides. Third, librarian may identify some gaps in the present guides and try to fill these gaps by developing new guides or contribute by informing publishers about desirable new titles. Fourth, make the library users aware of the existence of these guides (Hoppkins 1995, p. 317- 321).
A systematic review was considered by Klassen, Jadad and Moher as strategy to counter information overload. Systematic review is a review in which there is a comprehensive search for relevant studies on a specific topic, and those identified are then appraised and synthesized according to a predetermined and explicit method. The review may have some limitations as the difficulty to identify all potentially relevant studies to include and the variable quality of studies included (Klassen, Jadad & Moher 1998, p. 700-702).
Though it is a fact that new information and communication technologies are partly
responsible for the problem of information overload they also provide something in the way of solution. Many systems and functions were suggested. These systems were regrouped into three classes: a) intelligent search agent, b) systems for automatically ranking and filtering e- mail and c) systems for customising retrieved information after its arrival (Bawden, Holtham
& Courtney 1999, p. 254).
To be really useful, information needs to have value added to it by way of summary or analysis. Intelligent agents that scan and summarise text and automatically route the information for users have been proposed as a tool to help reduce information overload.
Intelligent agents are smarter than average search tools for two reasons: The first is that they act with autonomy while requiring data about the environment and the second is that they have the facility to learn about individual preferences so that they predict the items that will be of interest for the user (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 22).
The request for an intelligent agent to filter incoming material, and/or scan for interesting things in a variety of sources was the only technical solution, to cope with information overload, suggested by several interviewees in pharmaceutical research companies (Bawden, Devon & Sinclair 2000, p. 155). The intelligent agent is designed to act autonomy in the performance of the tasks of gathering, sifting and organizing information on the Internet and corporate Intranet. It basically operates as a collaborative adjunct to knowledge workers’
information needs (Martin & Metcalfe 1994, p. 270).
What relevance has intelligent agents for the library? Martin and Metcalfe stated that the use of intelligent agents, which interface and collaborate with the end user, represents a desirable enhancement to library services. Agents can be used as collection management tools, through seeking, analyzing and delivering information for review. A degree of similarity has been observed between the actions of software agents and the reference librarians. Each take in account the information requirement of a client, discovers and utilizes the best sources and codifies the information for delivery (Martin & Metcalf 2001, p. 272). According to Martin and Metcalfe:
The library community can be seen as a class of cooperative, distributed, but in this case cognitive, agents; and librarian employ knowledge sharing as a matter of course. (Martin &
Metcalf 2001, P. 272)
Since the library client is often best placed to know and act on her or his interests, it remains for the librarian to facilitate access by providing the most efficient and ready methods of delivery. This might be accomplished through customizing contact points such as the library Web pages. As the librarians know their vital role in smoothing access to the library’s range of resources, they have introduced a customizable interface to the library Web site, which allows links like: citation databases, electronic journals, search engines, discipline-specific Internet resources and importantly CAS linked to the library catalogue (Ibid, p. 269-270).
Hoppkins considered that electronic searching tools are admitted to help users to cope with information overload (1995, p. 317- 321).
A recent technological development to reduce overload is push technology that works by pushing notices of pre-selected information sources across the computer screen alerting users to new and updated information. While there is debate about if push technology reduce the problem of information overload or contribute to it, many users who suffer from information overload view push as an annoying nuisance that provides little of value (Edmunds & Moris 2000, p. 20).
6. The pharmaceutical industry
The pharmaceutical industry is defined as the collections of companies that discover, develop manufacture and market medicines for human use. Some research-based companies may fulfil all four of these criteria, while others may only meet one, two or three of these criteria
(Spilker 1994, p. 7). Spilker stated that for research-based pharmaceutical companies, the most critical issue today is maintaining a flow of new, innovative medicines that ensure the company’s growth and survive. To meet this challenge companies are adopting strategies to develop their medicines and attempting to improve their efficiency of medicine discovery and development (Ibid, p. 15).
The research-based pharmaceutical industry is well-known as being one of the most information intensive industries involving many scientific, medical and commercial disciplines, and generating very large amount of data from its own program. Since the existence of diverse disciplines in the pharmaceutical industry, many and varied information sources were required. Information sources may be categorized as formal and informal.
Formal sources include both printed and computerized information services and normally come within the remit of a library and information science service (Desai & Bawden 1993, p.
486-487).
6.1. AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca is one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Its task is to develop and market new and effective medicine. AZ’s goal assumes a constant and strong engagement in innovation in research. This is a part of AZ’s goal; to improve and develop the existing medicine is another part. More than 80 million crown is invested each working day to develop new products. R&D is carried on at nine major research sites situated in five countries:
Sweden, Great Britain, USA, Canada and Indian (AstraZeneca 1, 2003). AZ’s Headquarter is in the UK and the R&D headquarters in Sweden. AZ sells in over 100 countries, manufacture in 20 and have major research centre in five. The number of the employees is 58,000 people worldwide (AstraZeneca 2002a, p. 01).
R&D is formed of three unities: Discovery, development and market. It is focused on improving productivity and efficiency of new drug delivery. In discovery, the aim is to increase the output of high quality candidate drugs (CDs) with a lower risk of failure in development. In development, the aim is to develop better drugs faster. In R&D work over 11,000 people at the nine major sites. The 2002 R&D investment totalled $3,069 million (AstraZeneca 2002b, p.21). Researches at AZ cover seven different disease areas:
Gastrointestinal, Cardiovascular, cancer, Respiratory, Central nervous system, pain control and infection. Developing a new medicine is a lengthy and complex process in which animal studies play a vital role. It starts with the identification of a need for a new medicine and passes through two long phases: drug discovery and drug development. This process takes 10 to 15 years (AstraZeneca 2002c, p. 3-5).
AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal is one of AZ’s larger research centres. Approximately 2,300 employees work for research and development of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal medicines. AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal covers the range of pre clinical, pharmaceutical and clinical trials, and contact with authorities. Over the years, research at Mölndal has
contributed to the production of the most successful and the highest selling medicine Omeprazol that has been marketed under the name Losec. Losec is used to treat a variety of gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. Nexium is a follow-up to Losec and it has been developed at Mölndal centre now. Nexium is an even more effective proton pump inhibitor.
When it come to cardiovascular medicine researchers at Mölndal are also working on several interesting projects such as thrombosis inhibitors that will prevent the occurrence of blood clots (AstraZeneca 2, 2003).
At AstraZeneca, there are many divisions that furnish researchers with information, some of these department are:
§ Knowledge management: they work with publications. They do not make searches.
§ Information support in different Bioinformatics; they are looking for how the information will be delivered. They provide databases, work with international marketing and buy new databases.
§ International market.
§ PR (Public Relation) and Communication deliver different kinds of information. Its mission to present the industry in the mass media, to provide internal journals and internal information (Librarian 4). The information division handle information about the company at a whole. They are responsible for the Intranet which may sometime cause overload (Librarian 1).
§ The library, further referred as IS&L, serves everyone at AZ. According to the information management policy at the library level, IS&L aims to furnish the researchers with the information they need in all areas (Librarian 4).
At AZ different departments do the same things done by the library though partnership in the information policy but they don’t compete with each other. If the library is to do the entire job done by other departments it will need more financial support (Librarian 4).
According to a librarian, there is a huge information flow within AZ, at all levels and
functions, not just the library. The main part of the information is not related to the library at all. The main part of the information and communication is related to research in itself (internal, in-house data). The library does supply information to the scientists and other staff.
They visit the library and use its services when they have a need for external, published information (personal communication 1, 2003).
6.2. The library at AstraZeneca
The library at AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal is known as Information Science and
Library/Documentation Centre. According to a librarian, the Documentation Centre will not be a part of the library IS&L from autumn 2003. IS&L is placed in the centre of the
AstraZeneca’s building on the third floor and it is divided into two floors. The researchers pass the library to the cafeteria and the restaurant. There are 16 librarians working at IS&L.
At the library and next to the information disk researchers can find printed manuals that help them to learn how to use new tools that are provided by the library. The library offers also on- line manuals that can be reached through the library homepage. Opposite to the main library entrance researchers can take a break with a cop of coffee at bubblan where they can read newspapers, current journals and look at new books that are displayed. At bubblan, the researchers can also read some overviews about new papers that came out and advertisement about new issues of medical journals.
IS&L’s mission is:
To provide an industry-leading information capability developing value-added and innovation solutions in support of AZ business goals across all SET in an environment that fosters partnerships, collaboration and empowerment. (IS&L information policy, 2003)
The library policy is to keep itself informed and to inform its clients (Librarian 3). It works to make all the researchers get the information they need. The library manager affirmed that it is
different with a common information policy at AZ because different departments have different information needs. The library cooperates in a very good way with different
departments. It works according to their needs. There are people from the library who work in some departments. IS&L works very closely with the projects and accepts each request. An information specialist works within the project and helps to search information. The idea to work with the researchers in projects was an initiative from the library side and it started in 1995-1996.
IS&L is a corporate library with traditional library services, although in an “electronic environment”. The most important services are:
• Published information in form of journals, ejournals, books etc.
• Copies of articles.
• External and internal databases (structured information: bibliographic databases, chemistry, patent, pipeline and news.
• Professional database searches on behalf of users.
• End user education
• Purchasing books (personal communication 1, 2003).
Books
IS&L provides the book catalogue AZlib that contain more than 12 000 titles held at the AZ site in Mölndal. All books, except reference books are available for lending. Books are kept both in the library and at the research departments (Information Science & Library 2003).
According to librarians, books are not used that much nowadays. About 1500 books are bought every year both for the library and the researchers. On AZ’s homepage can researchers read about new books that come in (Librarian 2).
Journals
At the IS&L there are about 2000 e-journals that are accessible through IS&L’s homepage.
IS&L subscribes also to about 600 printed. Only 500 of these journals are used. Researchers ask by themselves about the new journals they want. Through AZ’s homepage the researchers announce their interest about journals and articles. When these arrive they get e-mail through alert (Librarian 1).
Copies of articles
Library customers can make their own copies of printed and electronic journals from IS&L’s collections. Otherwise the copy requests should be ordered through the document order system Bestis (Information Science & Library, 2003).
Databases
IS&L provides access to a more than 69 databases within the scientific, medical, commercial, patent, safety and technical areas. These databases are available on the Mölndal site (Ibid, 2003). Some of the most used databases at AZ, according to a librarian (1):
§ Ovid: some of databases as Medline, Embass, Biosis and others are available through the OVID system.
§ Medline is a bibliographic database produced by US National Library of medicine, coverage from 1066 to present.
§ Embase, Excerpta Medica database covers the biomedical and pharmaceutical literature, with emphasis on European sources.
