The aim of this article was to examine the relations of physical and human geography with selected disciplines of natural and exact sciences as well as social sciences. The results shows that: (1) the position of geography among other disciplines is relatively high, however the relative position of human geography in social sciences is higher than that of physical geography in natural and exact sciences, (2) both geographical disciplines show an adverse 'trade balance' in scientific exchange, (3) human geography is more 'introverted', (4) relations between human geography and other disciplines are stronger than in the case of physical geography.
Hypothesizing that workplace significantly affects information-seeking patterns, this study compared accessibility and use of information sources among 233 Israeli computer scientists and software engineers, employed in industry and academy, using a mail questionnaire, which yielded a usable reply rate of 33%. The two groups were found to differ significantly in age, education, seniority, and type of research they performed (basic vs. applied). Printed textbooks, professional journals, and oral discussions with colleagues or experts in the organization were common to both groups, topping almost all lists of accessibility and use. For most information sources, however, the two groups differed significantly and consistently. Printed professional journals as well as printed and electronic conference or meeting papers were consistently more accessible and more often used by the academy group, while the industry group reported greater access to and more frequent use of electronic textbooks and trade or promotional literature. In regard to handbooks and standards, in-house technical reports (printed), government technical reports (Internet), librarians and technical specialists (Internet), and oral discussions with supervisors, no significant differences in accessibility were found, but their use by the industry group was much higher. In both groups, accessibility was only partly related to use, and more so among the academy than the industry group.
It has already been pointed out that the foreign language barrier is probably the greatest impediment to the free flow and transfer of information. This barrier is even growing as scientists of more and more countries publish in their own languages. Almost all studies addressing the language barrier problem were conducted from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, limiting their scope to English-language sources or English speakers. Little research has been devoted to studying and measuring language preference among non-English-speaking scholars.This article reviews measures proposed in former studies such as the "relative own-language preference" indicator, and the "straight odds ratio", pointing out their advantages and drawbacks. Two new refined measures (in both "raw" and normalised versions) are offered, claiming to be free of these drawbacks, and thus enabling a better and more reliable comparison between journals of different languages. Practical use of the proposed measures is illustrated by applying them to findings of a former language-citation study done on nine sociology journals.
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