11.1 Accessing information use by humanists and social scientists: A study at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

11.1 Accessing information use by humanists and social scientists: A study at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

de Tiratel, SR

This is one of the articles from my group presentation week. I liked that the article was directly comparing humanities and social sciences (as two general entities) instead of looking specifically at parts of humanities and other disciplines like so many articles I read. I looked specifically at literature scholars in my presentation, and this article backs up much of what I discussed in my presentation. The library is invaluable as a physical resource to humanities scholars. There is a great feeling about it, and many would rather be in the library researching than many other places. Humanities scholars also have a wide breadth of topics to cover, and many need the interdisciplinary resources of a library. Humanities scholars generally do not use studies or experimental research in their writings. They are interested in the history and context, anything that could have effected what they are researching. While social scientists do not rely completely on experimental research, much of their research must be current. They cannot simply rely on what has happened in the past. I may have a slight bias of understanding towards humanities scholars, since I spent my undergraduate career attempting to become one (literature, specifically). I still find myself researching and analyzing things in the same ways a humanities scholar does, and I do not entirely understand some of the methods of social scientists.

I found it interesting that this study was done in Argentina. In my research of literature scholars I found that many of the studies I was looking at were done in England. It was nice to see a different country. We all seem so surprised when so many of the studies are done in other countries (I know Canada seems to have been popular in many people’s presentations) but there are a lot more countries than just the US. While in one of the articles I read there was a slight difference between “international” and British scholars, in general I doubt there is much difference in scholarly work from country to country.