Palmer CL, Cragin MH, Hogan TP "Information at the in0tersections of discovery: Case studies in neuroscience" ASIST 2004: Proceedings of the 67TH ASIS&T Annual Meeting, Vol:41,, 204 41.2004. p.448-455 Information Today Inc., Medford

[Eugene Garfield]

Carole L. Palmer : clpalmer at uiuc.edu
Melissa H. Cragin: cragin at uiuc.edu
Timothy P. Hogan : thogan at uiuc.edu

TITLE:          Information at the intersections of discovery: Case
                studies in neuroscience (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Palmer, CL; Cragin, MH; Hogan, TP
SOURCE:         ASIST 2004: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 67TH ASIS&T ANNUAL
                MEETING, VOL  41, 2004 41. 2004. p.448-455 INFORMATION
                TODAY INC, MEDFORD


ABSTRACT:       Within the field of neuroscience there is need for new
information technologies to provide better access to the extensive body
of knowledge related to brain research and better support for discovery
processes. In scientific research, certain intersections of people,
ideas, and techniques lead to advancements, and information plays an
important role in this process. This paper reports on case studies that
investigate how information fuels progress at three multidisciplinary
neuroscience laboratories. The results presented here profile the
research environments and information practices of active
neuroscientists, and a working information-seeking typology is
introduced. New means of quantifying and visualizing data played a role
in most of the breakthroughs reported by researchers, and interpreting
new experimental findings in relation to previous research is a standard
problem. Participants ranked information for solving instrumentation and
technique problems as highly important, and a literature mining technique
for searching PubMed (Arrowsmith) proved to be of value in their daily
work. The mobility of information, a topic of much interest in scientific
informatics, was a central theme in the case studies, but "boundary work"
and the "newness" of information were also important factors in the
discovery process.