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discussion was actually a trichotomous study of the habits and patterns of American medical scientists in the use of information in general, foreign-language information in general, and Soviet information in particular.
The thinking behind this project design was that the most expeditious way to make useful Soviet information available to American medical scientists was by utilizing the already established channels and mechanisms by which they obtain other types of information. Obviously, if Soviet information is channeled to American scientists through uncommon or unfamiliar media, it will not be used as effectively as it would be if it were channeled to them through media that they are already using. Thus, the purpose of the project was to determine the media used by the respondent-scientists to obtain Soviet information at present and in the very recent past. Where respondents had made no recent use of Soviet information, the study sought to determine how they gained access to other foreign-language information. In cases where respondents had not made recent use of any foreign-language information, the study turned to their use of information in general. The focus always was on existing, familiar channels of information.
The findings of the respondents’ use of Soviet and other foreign-language information have already been disseminated in the form of a report entitled, “The Use of Soviet Medical Research Information by American Medical Scientists,” which was prepared and distributed in 1957. The present paper treats of the findings of the part of the study dealing with their use of information in general.
Method of study
The study was conducted by means of detailed interviews with the 500 respondent-scientists. The interviews were conducted by trained interviewers, all of whom had had experience in face-to-face interviews with working scientists. The interviewers were guided by carefully designed and pretested questionnaires. While the majority of the questions in the questionnaire were of the preceded or check-off type, they were kept sufficiently open-ended to permit answers other than those anticipated. The interviewers were instructed to record verbatim all information volunteered by respondents in answer to questions. In the case of discussion questions, the interviewers probed to obtain the most detailed answers possible. The average interview consumed approximately an hour and a quarter.
The 500 respondent scientists were selected randomly in 59 medical research institutions and organizations in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, and Cleveland. These scientists represented all the major
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