Karel, thanks for asking such good questions.  Here's some thoughts.

I'm a strong believer that knowledge should be free, and I'm always happy to 
review papers to be best of my abilities and for free, in the hope that 
reviewers of my papers will feel the same.

My University has an excellent online collection, and I avail myself of it 
frequently.  I go by the paper's title first.  If that captures my attention, 
I download it.  When I go through the downloads, I read the abstracts.  Often 
I skim the rest of the paper - just because there's so many of them to read. 
I have a backlog of about 2GB of papers that I wish I had the time to read.

I have a list of journals that I keep an eye on, and every so often I visit 
one of them through our online library system and check the recent issues.

When I do read them, I read from printouts - easier to read on the subway etc 
- and make notes right on the page.  Then I try to add those notes to my 
online stuff.  I also keep an online bibliography (which I'm of course behind 
in), which helps me look up stuff quickly.

I would like to see a digital library, dspace or something, into which we'd 
deposit our papers - or at least the abstracts and citations if copyrights 
prevent otherwise - and then 'tag' the paper with keywords.

I'm working on a small system that uses both tags and keywords to speed up 
lookups.  It crawls the web for items I've told it to keep track of, so it 
indexes the whole resource.  The tags are on top of that.

Cheers.
Fil

Karel van der Waarde wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> The recent discussion about the dissemination of Design research 
> findings looked at the issue from one side: how can we publish/present 
> papers in journals and conferences.
> 
> It's clear that a deluge of papers caused by 'administrative necessity' 
> will hit us sooner or later. Even more journals, even more conferences.
> 
> 
> Let's turn the question around and look at the 'user side':
> "What would be the best ways to support your research through peer 
> reviewed knowledge of other researchers?" or "How would you like your 
> information to be delivered?".
> 
> [I'm convinced that conference formats are good opportunities to 
> see/hear new ideas and ideal for face-to-face discussions. Developing 
> digital modes might enhance this. As Rosan mentioned: there are at least 
> 8 relevant Design research conferences. [Information designers have a 
> choice of 19 conferences in the rest of this year.] I don't think that 
> conferences are the main problem, although the costs issues (Chris Rust 
> & Uma Chandru) are problematic.]
> 
> 
> I'm not convinced that the current journal formats are ideal from a 
> reader/researcher point of view. Some arguments are:
> 1. it's a continuous stream: each journal publishes 2-4-6-12 issues per 
> year, there are many different journals, there is a continuous 
> development of new journals. Even with unlimited time, it would be 
> difficult to be aware of it all. I have to disregard nearly all.
> 
> 2. in each issue, there are a lot of articles that I'm not interested 
> in. I have to disregard most - I rarely read from cover to cover.
> 
> 3. storage space: keeping every issue is nearly impossible. How to 
> select what can be disposed and what must be kept?
> 
> 4. digital versions of journals make it easier to store and easier to 
> find things. Web-access and web-searching makes it possible to find 
> relevant papers. But it still is an enormous amount of 'potentially 
> interesting material'.
> 
> 
>  From a reader's point of view, peer reviewed journals are not an 
> optimal format. Would it be possible to base the development of 
> alternatives on 'current best practice'?
> 
> 
> Let's start with the basics:
> "How do you currently use publications (paper and digital)?"
> - how do you search? (scan issues in libraries? e-mail notifications of 
> publishers? web-searches? following up references? collections of 
> photocopies?, ...)
> 
> - how do you read a paper article? (first: check author-title 
> combination, second: flick through the pages. Third: Check the 
> illustrations/diagrams and captions. Fourth: Go to the references: scan 
> these for familiar names. Fifth: Go back to begin: read abstract. There 
> is a strong preference for structured abstracts. Sixth: make a 
> photocopy/print and store it for later. Only if it is really 
> interesting: postphone all other activities and start reading it.)
> 
> - how do you store photocopies/prints and pdf-files of articles that are 
> relevant to your work? How do you categorize them?
> 
> 
> I'm fairly sure that I am not using the most appropriate methods, but I 
> am curious how other people search, read and store peer-reviewed 
> information.
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> Karel.
> [log in to unmask]

-- 
Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University                         Tel: 416/979-5000 x7749
350 Victoria St.                           Fax: 416/979-5265
Toronto, ON                                email: [log in to unmask]
M5B 2K3  Canada                            http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/