Indiana State University LibGuides - ISU Library Basics

Timetable

IDEA		IDEA
GREY LITERATURE? OR PRIMARY LITERATURE?	research being conducted	invisible college
		seminar within researcher's organization
		written progress report to funding agency
		e-mail
		electronic newsgroup
		discussion list
		conference lecture
		laboratory notebook
	research completed	rapid communication journals (short report)
		letters journals (short report)
		news journals (short report, weekly)
		preprint
		technical report
		personal Web site (if before formal publication)
		books (old old old stuff OR stuff that couldn't get published in a journal)
PRIMARY LITERATURE	publication process (year)	article (or series) in conference proceedings [usu. book, primary journal, govt pub) Often only editor reviews, sometimes sooner than journal article
		article (or series) in scientific journals
		dissertation or thesis (libraries often don't carry, many indexed in Dissertation Abstracts or other)
		patent (libraries often don't carry, many indexed in Chem Abstracts or other)
		final report to funding agency (libraries often don't carry, many indexed in Chem Abstracts or other)
SECONDARY LITERATURE	0-1 month from primary lit.	current awareness services (or journals)
	0-9 months from primary lit.	indexing service or journal
		standard interest profiles
		SDI (selective dissemination of information)
	3-9 months from primary lit.	abstracting service or journal
	1-3 years from primary lit.	review (serial) - summary of topic, less detail, 1-2 years later (Advances in..., Progress in..., Review) within conference proceedings or special of primary journal
	2-5 years from primary lit.	monographs - one author writes chapters on new topics in science, strong editorial control, broader scope than monograph or multigraph, requires knowledge of discipline
		treatise - multi volume; logical, classified order; covers entire subject field, requires knowledge of discipline
		multigraphs (managed texts, composite works, multi-authored books) - experts write chapters on new topics in science, strong editorial control, requires knowledge of discipline
		data compilation - data, numbers, & equations
	?	symposium talk which summarizes a field
SECONDARY? OR TERTIARY?	2-5 years from primary lit.	encyclopedia - few references, broad but less detail
		handbook - data, numbers, & equations
		dictionary
		textbook
	?	bibliographies
		citation indexes
		atlases, scientific
		thesauri
		biographical sources
TERTIARY LITERATURE	7-10 years	works that are designed to teach you how to use primary and secondary works
		guides to the literature
		directories
		lists of periodicals
		buyers guides
		biographical sources
	?	compendia
		full-text computer databases
		review articles, sometimes
		popular literature
		library catalogs

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Shelley Arvin

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Anthony Kaiser

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Susan M. Frey

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Carol Lunce

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