Annual Reviews, a US-based nonprofit publisher that synthesises critical research literature, has released a new white paper that explores how today's researchers are coping with information overload. The paper titled 'The Role of the Critical Review Article in Alleviating Information Overload' shares the results of research conducted by Annual Reviews, along with expert opinion from leading scientists.
The white paper charts the topic from the advent of Annual Reviews in the 1930s, through the continuing importance of helping researchers assimilate and apply new knowledge, to expectations for how skills, responsibilities, technologies, and content itself will help address the ongoing challenges. The paper draws on a survey of early-career researchers conducted by Annual Reviews to examine their approach to academic literature, such as how and why they read it, how much time they dedicate to it, what informs their reading choices, and how they assess quality?
One-on-one interviews were then conducted with a range of prestigious scientists including Eugene Garfield (Thomson Reuters Scientific) and Richard Zare (Stanford University) to interpret the results in the broader research environment. Finally, current and past members of Annual Reviews staff explain the lifecycle of a critical review article, in terms of how it helps scientists address the challenge of information overload.
The white paper brings together these different perspectives and proposes future ways in which authors, readers, editors, librarians, and publishers may filter the flow of scholarly content. The white paper is available for download from http://www.annualreviews.org/r/infooverload.
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