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Access to scientific literature by the conservation community

Access to the scientific literature is perceived to be a challenge to the biodiversity conservation community, but actual level of literature access relative to needs has never been assessed globally. We examined this question by surveying the constituency of the International Union for Conservation...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Larios, Daisy, Brooks, Thomas M., Macfarlane, Nicholas B.W., Roy, Sugoto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7354838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32714657
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9404
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author Larios, Daisy
Brooks, Thomas M.
Macfarlane, Nicholas B.W.
Roy, Sugoto
author_facet Larios, Daisy
Brooks, Thomas M.
Macfarlane, Nicholas B.W.
Roy, Sugoto
author_sort Larios, Daisy
collection PubMed
description Access to the scientific literature is perceived to be a challenge to the biodiversity conservation community, but actual level of literature access relative to needs has never been assessed globally. We examined this question by surveying the constituency of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a proxy for the conservation community, generating 2,285 responses. Of these respondents, ∼97% need to use the scientific literature in order to support their IUCN-related conservation work, with ∼50% needing to do so at least once per week. The crux of the survey revolved around the question, “How easy is it for you currently to obtain the scientific literature you need to carry out your IUCN-related work?” and revealed that roughly half (49%) of the respondents find it not easy or not at all easy to access scientific literature. We fitted a binary logistic regression model to explore factors predicting ease of literature access. Whether the respondent had institutional literature access (55% do) is the strongest predictor, with region (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and sex (male) also significant predictors. Approximately 60% of respondents from Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have institutional access compared to ∼50% in Asia and Latin America, and ∼40% in Eastern Europe and in Africa. Nevertheless, accessing free online material is a popular means of accessing literature for both those with and without institutional access. The four journals most frequently mentioned when asked which journal access would deliver the greatest improvements to the respondent’s IUCN-related work were Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Nature, and Science. The majority prefer to read journal articles on screen but books in hard copy. Overall, it is apparent that access to the literature is a challenge facing roughly half of the conservation community worldwide.
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spelling pubmed-73548382020-07-24 Access to scientific literature by the conservation community Larios, Daisy Brooks, Thomas M. Macfarlane, Nicholas B.W. Roy, Sugoto PeerJ Biodiversity Access to the scientific literature is perceived to be a challenge to the biodiversity conservation community, but actual level of literature access relative to needs has never been assessed globally. We examined this question by surveying the constituency of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a proxy for the conservation community, generating 2,285 responses. Of these respondents, ∼97% need to use the scientific literature in order to support their IUCN-related conservation work, with ∼50% needing to do so at least once per week. The crux of the survey revolved around the question, “How easy is it for you currently to obtain the scientific literature you need to carry out your IUCN-related work?” and revealed that roughly half (49%) of the respondents find it not easy or not at all easy to access scientific literature. We fitted a binary logistic regression model to explore factors predicting ease of literature access. Whether the respondent had institutional literature access (55% do) is the strongest predictor, with region (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and sex (male) also significant predictors. Approximately 60% of respondents from Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have institutional access compared to ∼50% in Asia and Latin America, and ∼40% in Eastern Europe and in Africa. Nevertheless, accessing free online material is a popular means of accessing literature for both those with and without institutional access. The four journals most frequently mentioned when asked which journal access would deliver the greatest improvements to the respondent’s IUCN-related work were Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Nature, and Science. The majority prefer to read journal articles on screen but books in hard copy. Overall, it is apparent that access to the literature is a challenge facing roughly half of the conservation community worldwide. PeerJ Inc. 2020-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7354838/ /pubmed/32714657 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9404 Text en ©2020 Larios et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Larios, Daisy
Brooks, Thomas M.
Macfarlane, Nicholas B.W.
Roy, Sugoto
Access to scientific literature by the conservation community
title Access to scientific literature by the conservation community
title_full Access to scientific literature by the conservation community
title_fullStr Access to scientific literature by the conservation community
title_full_unstemmed Access to scientific literature by the conservation community
title_short Access to scientific literature by the conservation community
title_sort access to scientific literature by the conservation community
topic Biodiversity
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7354838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32714657
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9404
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