Information seeking and searching habits of Greek physicists and astronomers: a case study of undergraduate students

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the information seeking and searching behavior of Greek physicists and especially astronomers. More specifically, it attempted to shed a light on students’ information needs and their familiarity with different ways of satisfying them. The interest for this research emanated from a lack of relative studies among Greek astronomers, despite the fact that the investigation of astronomers’ information behaviour has already been an area of research abroad. The target group of the study was the undergraduate students of the Department of Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. They were invited to complete a questionnaire focused on investigating their personal information, such as semester and gender, frequency and capabilities of information searching, interest in keeping up-to-date, frequency and reasons for use and non-use of specific information sources, searching behavior and reading preference and methods used for getting access to full-text articles. Results revealed that undegraduate students show a preference for familiar, flexible, and easy-to-use information resources that provide quick access to information. In addition, they seldom or never attend seminars or conferences, rarely or never visit their faculty library and are not aware of the existence of some basic information sources. Regarding their searching abilities, they are ordinary searchers using only one or two terms, with no use of advanced searching techniques such as Boolean operators or truncation.