INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR OF HEALTH-SCIENCE FACULTY - THE IMPACT OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

This paper reports on an ongoing investigation into health sciences fa culty's information-seeking behavior, including their use of new infor mation technologies. A survey was administered to all faculty in medic ine, nursing, and pharmacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. i t was similar to one administered to tile same population in 1991. The survey asked about faculty's use of electronic resources, documented any shift from the use of print to electronic formats, and measured tl -Le utilization of library training. The response rate was 48.5% for m edicine faculty, 45.0% for nursing, and 62.5% for pharmacy. The study found that use of the print Index Medicus among faculty was in transit ion: While 30.5% continued to use the print resources, 68.0% of facult y accessed MEDLINE through electronic means. Faculty preferred accessi ng electronic databases from their offices to doing so from the librar y. Health sciences faculty used a wide variety of databases, in additi on to MEDLINE, to fill their information needs. Most faculty did not t ake advantage of either in-house or electronic training sessions offer ed by librarians. The study concluded that the training preferences of faculty need to be further explored.