Content User Profile: Update On Scientists

The information content (IC) consumption of scientists has a notable impact on the information market. Aside from the large-scale centralized IC purchases that libraries, market research departments, and the like make on behalf of scientists, individual scientists in corporations in the United States

- and the departments in which they reside

- also spend over $1 billion annually on independent content purchases. This Briefing updates clients with the latest data on scientists' information habits, behaviors, and buying patterns. Based on Outsell interviews with thousands of individual scientists, the Briefing identifies three key issues: slow improvement in efficient access to information for scientists; lack of embedded content solutions for scientists; and a higher level of 'information savvy' as scientists learn to choose when to use the open Web versus their internal Intranets. The Briefing also includes an updated table of key attributes of scientists as information users. For commercial content vendors, this Briefing is an up-to-date snapshot of a key content-buying population. For content deployment professionals, it identifies the key challenges and issues facing their internal customers.