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The use of U.S. government publications as bibliographic references in doctoral dissertations
The Use of U.S. Government Publications as Bibliographic References in Doctoral Dissertations by Newkirk Barnes Available online 25 July 2006
Through a citation analysis of dissertations at Mississippi State University from 2000–2004, the author examines doctoral students’ use of federal government publications as bibliographic references in light of the ongoing migration of these sources to the Internet. The study indicates an increase in the use of federal government documents in Web formats but an overall decrease in the use of these materials as a whole.
INTRODUCTION Publications produced by the United States government provide information on a wide range of topics such as health and nutrition, transportation, the environment, technology, consumer rights, national security, agriculture, and crime and justice. This information comes in a variety of both print and electronic formats, including reference books, monographs, microforms, maps, pamphlets, patents and trademarks, technical reports, laws and regulations, treaties and court cases.1
‘‘In which academic fields do doctoral students refer to U.S. government publications the most?’’ Such information resources are valuable tools for American citizens performing any number of activities. This includes doctoral students performing research for their dissertations. However, the use of U.S. government publications by these students is not well documented in the professional library literature. To what extent do doctoral students utilize the breadth of U.S. government publications in their research, and which formats do they primarily use? In which academic fields do doctoral students refer to U.S. government publications the most? Citation analyses are one method of identifying such trends. This study examines the bibliographic references cited in dissertations at Mississippi State University, in order to determine usage patterns for U.S. government publications among the University’s doctoral students.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Newkirk Barnes is an Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 5408, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA [email protected].
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 32, Number 5, pages 503–511
Various citation analyses and other studies have been conducted to determine usage of publications from various levels of government (federal, state, and local), but most of them have not focused on doctoral dissertations. In 1978 Weech documented seven citation analyses that included government publications as a category.2 Each of these studies focused on literature in the social sciences. Citations to government publications accounted for 10 percent of the total number of citations in sociology journals, while they accounted for 36
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percent of the total number of citations in economics monographs.3 The median for these studies was almost 17.5 percent, which Weech considered to be a significant percentage of the total number of citations, thus emphasizing the importance of government publications as information resources for the social sciences. In 1982 McClure and Harman conducted a citation analysis of 88 doctoral dissertations from the University of Oklahoma’s Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Education, examining their bibliographies and source citations (footnotes) for references to government publications as a whole.4 They found that only 4 percent of the source citations in the dissertations were to government publications, and only 5 percent of the bibliographic references were to government publications.5 In 1990 Haner studied the use of government publications as references in seven core journals in the geological sciences for 1985.6 She found that 15.8 percent of the total number of references were to government publications; 5 percent of the total number of references were to publications from the U.S. Geological Survey, and 2 percent were to other federal agencies.7 The same year, Brill performed a similar study of periodicals in the field of international relations, comparing the use of government publications in these periodicals for 1964, 1974 and 1984.8 She found that the number of citations to government publications as a percentage of the total number of citations decreased from 22 percent in 1964 to 16 percent in 1984; however, the number of citations to government publications increased over this same period (from 168 in 1964 to 261 in 1984), due to the increase in the total number of citations.9 In 1991 Weech and Postema did a review of citation analyses that focused on the use of government publications and that had been issued from 1977 to 1989.10 Then, in 1997, Caswell updated this review by examining similar studies published in the professional library literature between 1990 and 1996.11 He found nine studies published within this time period that examined the use of government publications: three citation analyses, two librarian surveys, and four user studies.12 In addition to the studies conducted by Brill and Haner, Caswell found a study of citations in the literature on American Indian issues, led by Metoyer-Duran and Hernon.13 In this study, 48.1 percent of the citations were to government publications as a whole, and 88.4 percent of these were to federal government publications.14 Metoyer-Duran and Hernon also found that at least 59 percent of the cited government publications were court cases and Congressional publications (Caswell). Caswell noted that none of the studies he reviewed addressed the area of electronic information sources, government-produced or otherwise; however, he predicted that future studies would most likely explore this topic.15 Finally, in 2002 Hogenboom examined the effect of Internet migration of government information (federal, state, local, and foreign) on citation patterns in four population studies journals from 1990 to 2000.16 She found that the total number of citations to government publications increased over this period (from 462 to 584); however, the number of citations to government publications as a percentage of the total number of citations decreased from 16.4 percent to 15 percent.17 In particular, Hogenboom found that citations to U.S. government publications decreased 1.1 percent over the ten-year period.18 In 1990, 9 percent of these citations were to print sources, while none of them were to electronic sources.19 Then, in 2000,
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7 percent of the citations were to print sources, while .8 percent were to electronic sources.20 Citation analyses such as those previously mentioned have several advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage of citation analyses is that their results do not always reflect the totality of sources consulted by the authors, doctoral students in this case; they do not account for the fact that authors may use particular publications for research purposes but may not actually cite them.21 Furthermore, if doctoral students only use literature that is locally available, citation analyses of their dissertations will reflect this, thus providing skewed results.22 Despite their drawbacks, however, citation analyses have the advantage of being an unobtrusive method of determining usage patterns for particular academic fields, publication types, or user groups.23 This study specifically looks at the use of U.S. government publications as cited references in doctoral dissertations. Traditionally, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has distributed numerous federal publications to depository libraries in tangible formats, namely print and microfiche.24 However, since the early 1990s, in response to the rapid development of the Internet and other communications technologies, the GPO has shifted its focus to electronic formats.25 Additionally, Congress has directed the GPO to make its Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) almost entirely electronic. In 1993, Congress passed the GPO Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act, which conveyed its expectation that the GPO would incorporate more electronic titles into its collections, in order to provide the American public with broader access to federal government information.26 This legislation eventually led to the Office’s 1996 ‘‘Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program.’’27 Since that time, the number of tangible publications the GPO distributes through the FDLP has significantly decreased. For example, the GPO sent 26.4 million paper and microfiche copies to depositories in 1991 but sent only 11.6 million in 2000.28 As of February 2005, the GPO had distributed a total of 14,274 online and tangible publications for Fiscal Year 2005; 92 percent of these were electronic, when multiple formats of the same title were removed.29 At the same time that the FDLP has become more electronic, the American public has witnessed an explosion of federal government information on the Internet, mainly in the form of agency Web sites. For instance, in 2003 the General Services Administration reported that the widely acclaimed FirstGov search engine provided access to over 51 million Web pages of information from the federal government.30 This phenomenon has dramatically reduced the volume of materials that the GPO directly controls; some of the information that various federal agencies include in their own electronic collections does not circulate through the GPO and is therefore not formally distributed to participants in the FDLP. Given the increasing migration of U.S. government publications to the Internet, are doctoral students more likely to consult these information sources for their research? To answer this question, the author examines bibliographic references listed in doctoral dissertations at Mississippi State University. This analysis may provide some insight into doctoral students’ use of federal government publications, particularly which academic disciplines use these materials, and which formats
they use. It may also help determine the effects of migration of U.S. government publications to the Internet on the usage of these materials by doctoral students.
‘‘Given the increasing migration of U.S. government publications to the Internet, are doctoral students more likely to consult these information sources for their research?’’
usage by doctoral students across the various Colleges. Specifically, the author wanted to determine which Colleges’ doctoral students refer to federal government publications the most, and which formats they primarily use.
‘‘The author hypothesized that usage of U.S. government publications in Web formats by MSU doctoral students would increase over the five-year period as more of these materials became available online.’’
METHODOLOGY Mississippi State University (MSU), originally established as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi, is a land grant university and is designated as a Doctoral/Extensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. MSU enrolls about 16,000 students and employs over 1,000 faculty members in its eight Colleges. The MSU Libraries include Mitchell Memorial Library (the main library) and branch libraries for the College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Architecture. Copies of doctoral dissertations are housed in Mitchell’s Special Collections Department, as well as in the Library’s Circulating Collection. The author chose to examine doctoral dissertations from 2000–2004, the time period following Hogenboom’s citation analysis. In the fall of 2005, the author identified 464 doctoral dissertations in the MSU online catalog for the five-year period, which was reduced to a random sample of 275 dissertations, with 55 dissertations for each year. The author obtained the reference lists from the dissertations and collected the following data: the total number of bibliographic references, the number of U.S. government publications included in these references, the format of the U.S. government publications (print, Web or other), the doctoral candidate’s College and Department at MSU, and the year the dissertation was published (2000–2004). Table 1 lists the Colleges at MSU and the corresponding Departments for each (Table 1). For the purposes of this study, the author defined a U.S. government publication as ‘‘informational matter which is published as an individual document at government expense, or as required by law,’’ as stated in Title 44 of the United States Code.31 The author categorized the formats of the U.S. government publications as print, Web or ‘‘other.’’ Print formats of these materials included monographs, serials, pamphlets, brochures, conference papers, proceedings, legal texts (federal cases, Congressional legislation, administrative rules/regulations), technical reports, patents, and maps. Web formats referred to online versions of any of these print publications, including documents obtained from LexisNexis Academic, GPO Access, THOMAS, or the websites of U.S. government agencies or departments. ‘‘Other’’ formats included microfiche, CD-ROM, and audiovisuals. The purpose of the study was to identify usage patterns for U.S. government publications for the period 2000-2004. The author hypothesized that usage of U.S. government publications in Web formats by MSU doctoral students would increase over the five-year period as more of these materials became available online. The study also sought to identify patterns of
RESULTS Table 2 summarizes the overall results of the citation analysis for each year and for the five-year period (Table 2). The total number of bibliographic references for the five-year period was 30,538. The total number of cited U.S. government publications for this time period was 707, representing 2.3 percent of the total number of references. The number of cited U.S. government publications was highest in 2001 (222) and lowest in 2004 (95). This number decreased every year after 2001. Results by College Table 3 shows the results of the citation analysis with respect to the seven Colleges with doctoral programs at MSU (Table 3). In 2000, the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (41), while the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Business and Industry provided the lowest (1). The College of Arts and Sciences had the highest percentage of references that were U.S. government publications (3.5 percent), while the College of Business and Industry had the lowest (.2 percent). Cited U.S. government publications comprised 1.8 percent of the total number of references for 2000. In 2001, the College of Arts and Sciences gave the highest number of cited federal government publications (88), while the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Business and Industry gave the lowest (0). The College of Engineering had the highest percentage of references that were federal government publications (8.1 percent). Cited federal government publications made up 3.4 percent of the total number of references for 2001. In 2002, the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (76), while the College of Business and Industry provided the lowest (0). The College of Education had the highest percentage of references that were U.S. government publications (4.1 percent). Cited U.S. government publications accounted for 2.7 percent of the total number of references for 2002. In 2003, the College of Forest Resources had the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (31), while the College of Veterinary Medicine had the lowest (0). The College of Forest Resources had the highest percentage of references that were U.S. government publications (6.3 percent). Cited U.S. government publications comprised 1.6 percent of the total number of references for 2003.
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Table 1 MSU Colleges and Corresponding Departments
Table 1 (continued) Education
Agriculture and Life Sciences
Instructional Systems, Leadership and Workforce Development
Human Sciences
Kinesiology
Agricultural and Biological Engineering*
Music Education
Agricultural Economics Agricultural Information Science and Education
Engineering
Animal and Dairy Sciences
Chemical Engineering
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Aerospace Engineering
Entomology and Plant Pathology
Agricultural and Biological Engineering*
Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion
Civil Engineering
Landscape Architecture
Computer Science and Engineering
Plant and Soil Sciences
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Poultry Science
Industrial Engineering Mechanical Engineering
Architecture, Art and Design (no doctoral program) Interior Design
Forest Resources
Art
Forest Products
Architecture
Forestry Wildlife and Fisheries
Arts and Sciences Aerospace Studies
Veterinary Medicine
Biological Sciences
Basic Sciences
Chemistry
Clinical Sciences
Communication
Pathobiology and Population Medicine
English Foreign Languages Geosciences History Mathematics and Statistics Military Science Philosophy and Religion Physics and Astronomy Political Science and Public Administration Psychology
In 2004, the College of Education gave the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (41), while the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Business and Industry gave the lowest (3). The College of Veterinary Medicine had the highest percentage of references that were federal government publications (3.1 percent), while the College of Engineering had the lowest (.6 percent). Cited federal government publications made up 2 percent of the total number of references for 2004. For the five-year period, the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest total number of cited U.S. government publications (255), followed by the Colleges of Education (143), Agriculture and Life Sciences (132), Engineering (100), Forest Resources (58), and Business and Industry (11). The
Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Table 2 Cited U.S. Government Publications by Year
Business and Industry Accountancy Finance and Economics
Year
Total References
U.S. Gov.
%
Management and Information Systems
2000
5840
104
1.8
Marketing, Quantitative Analysis and Business Law
2001
6489
222
3.4
2002
6279
171
2.7
Education
2003
7124
115
1.6
Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education
2004
4806
95
Curriculum and Instruction
Total
30,538
707
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2 2.3
Table 3 (continued)
Table 3 Cited U.S. Government Publications by MSU College Total References 2003
U.S. Gov. 2003
%
Agriculture and life sciences
1548
26
1.7
Arts and sciences
1177
College
Business and Industry
41
3.5
College
Total References 2003
U.S. Gov. 2003
%
Forest Resources
495
31
6.3
Veterinary Medicine
236
0
0
7124
115
1.6
Total References 2004
U.S. Gov. 2004
%
Total
463
1
0.2
1385
22
1.6
Engineering
580
4
0.7
Forest Resources
467
9
2
Agriculture and Life Sciences
1240
15
1.2
1186
27
2.3
344
3
0.9
1437
41
2.9
Engineering
346
2
0.6
Forest Resources
156
4
2.6
97
3
3.1
4806
95
2
Education
Veterinary Medicine
220
1
0.5
Arts and Sciences
5840
104
1.8
Business and Industry
Total References 2001
U.S. Gov. 2001
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
1212
45
3.7
Arts and Sciences
1725
88
349
0
1491
16
1.1
Engineering
777
63
8.1
Forest Resources
681
10
1.5
Veterinary Medicine
254
0
6489
222
Total References 2002
U.S. Gov. 2002
Total
Education
Business and Industry Education
Total
Veterinary Medicine
Total References 2000–2004
Total U.S. Gov. 2000–2004
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
6585
132
2
0
Arts and Sciences
7793
255
3.3
3.4
Business and Industry
2557
11
0.4
Education
6508
143
2.2
Engineering
3491
100
2.9
Forest Resources
2273
58
2.6
Veterinary Medicine
1331
8
0.6
30,538
707
2.3
%
1097
Arts and Sciences
1920
76
4
Business and Industry
429
0
0
Education
951
39
4.1
Engineering
884
13
1.5
Forest Resources
474
4
0.8
Veterinary Medicine
524
4
0.7
6279
171
2.7
Total References 2003
U.S. Gov. 2003
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
1488
11
0.7
Arts and Sciences
1785
23
1.3
972
7
0.7
1244
25
2
904
18
2
Business and Industry Education Engineering
Total
0
Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total
35
5.1
3.2
Total
College of Veterinary Medicine provided the lowest total number of cited U.S. government publications (8). There were no major trends within each College over the five-year period, but the data clearly indicate that the Colleges of Business and Industry and Veterinary Medicine cite consistently lower numbers of U.S. government publications than the other Colleges.
‘‘For the five-year period [under study], the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest total number of cited U.S. government publications.’’ For 2000–2004, the percentage of references that were U.S. government publications was highest for the College of Arts and Sciences (3.3 percent), followed by the Colleges of
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Table 4 Cited U.S. Government Publications by Format Year
Print
% U.S. Gov.
Web
% U.S. Gov.
Other
% U.S. Gov.
2000
78
75
25
24
1
0.1
2001
177
79.7
45
20.3
0
0
2002
132
77.1
38
22.2
1
0.6
2003
74
64.3
40
34.8
1
0.9
2004
61
64.2
34
35.8
0
0
Total
522
73.8
182
25.7
3
0.4
Engineering (2.9 percent), Forest Resources (2.6 percent), Education (2.2 percent), Agriculture and Life Sciences (2 percent), Veterinary Medicine (.6 percent), and Business and Industry (.4 percent). Interestingly, there did not seem to be a connection between the number of cited federal government publications and the percentage of references that were federal government publications. Although the College of Arts and Sciences had the highest values for both, and the Colleges of Business and Industry and Veterinary Medicine had the lowest, there were discrepancies in the other Colleges. For example, the College of Education had the second highest number of cited federal government publications, but it had the fourth highest percentage of references that were federal government publications. Likewise, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences had the third highest number of cited federal government publications, but it had the fifth highest percentage. Then, the College of Engineering had the fourth highest number of cited federal government publications, but it had the second highest percentage. Finally, the College of Forest Resources had the fifth highest number of cited federal government publications and the third highest percentage. Thus, although the Colleges of Education and Agriculture and Life Sciences provided higher numbers of cited U.S. government publications than the Colleges of Engineering and Forest Resources, these references did not make up as high a percentage of the College’s total number of references as they did for the latter Colleges. Results by Format Table 4 shows the results of the citation analysis with respect to the various formats of U.S. government publications. (Table 4). The total number of print publications cited over the five-year period was 522. The total number of Web publications cited was 182, and the total number of publications cited in other formats was 3. The number of print publications increased from 2000 to 2001 but then steadily decreased from 2001 to 2004; the same trend occurred for print sources as a percentage of the total number of U.S. government publications. The number of Web publications increased from 2000– 2001, and from 2002–2003. Additionally, Web documents as a percentage of the total number of U.S. government publications decreased from 2000 to 2001 but then steadily increased from 2001 to 2004. As the use of U.S. government publications in print formats decreased over the five-year period, the use of these materials in Web formats increased. This trend supports the author’s hypothesis that usage of federal government publications from the Web would increase over the five-year
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period, due to their growing availability. Nevertheless, print publications comprised the largest percentage of the total number of U.S. government publications for all five years (73.8 percent).
‘‘As the [citation] of U.S. government publications in print formats decreased over the five-year period, the [citation] of these materials in Web formats increased.’’
Use of Formats by College Table 5 shows which formats of U.S. government publications doctoral students from the various MSU Colleges use (Table 5). From 2000–2004, the College of Arts and Sciences gave the highest number of print publications (221), followed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (84), Engineering (79), Education (77), Forest Resources (51), and Veterinary Medicine (8). The College of Business and Industry gave the lowest number of print publications (2). The College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest number of print publications from 2000-2002, while the Colleges of Forest Resources and Education provided this number in 2003 and 2004, respectively. From 2000-2004, the College of Education provided the highest number of Web publications (66), followed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (48), Arts and Sciences (31), Engineering (21), Business and Industry (9), and Forest Resources (7). The College of Veterinary Medicine provided the lowest number of Web publications (0). The College of Arts and Sciences provided three references to microforms. The College of Education provided the highest number of Web publications every year except 2001; the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences provided this figure for that year.
CONCLUSION The total number of U.S. government publications cited in doctoral dissertations from seven of the eight Colleges at MSU decreased over the five-year period. This trend is problematic given the growing abundance of these materials
3 0 1 1 0 1 182 34 40 38 25 132 78 Total
177
74
61
522
45
0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 7
0 0
0 5
0 0
0
0
1 1
8
4
4
0
4
1 Veterinary Medicine
0
8 Forest Resources
9
26
3
51
0
0 0 0 0 0 0 21 2 5 4 3 9 1 Engineering
56
13
0
79
7
0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 9
66 13
3 6
16 17
0 0
9
0
11
2
77 28
0 1 0
22 Education
7
1
11
Business and Industry
0
9
3 0 1 1 0 1 31 4 4 5 5 62 35 Arts and Sciences
83
18
23
221
13
0 0 0 0 0 0 48 12 4 4 5 31 21 Agriculture and Life Sciences
22
7
3
84
23
Total 2004 2003 2002 2000 2002 2000 College
2001
2003
2004
Total
2001
2002
2003
2004
Total
2000
2001
Other Web Print
Table 5 Formats of U.S. Government Publications by MSU College
on the Internet. However, the migration of federal government publications to the online environment is not necessarily the cause of the decline in citations to these information sources. The number of cited U.S. government publications listed in dissertations from each MSU College for a given year, and for the total five-year period, is based on samples of individual dissertations from those Colleges; the dissertations in each sample may or may not rely heavily on federal government publications, depending on the authors’ familiarity with these materials, the availability of these materials in a particular format, the authors’ departmental affiliations, and a variety of other factors. Thus, the results of the citation analysis with respect to the use of federal government publications by a specific College are not necessarily representative of the entire College. Even with this disclaimer, we can infer from the results that doctoral students in certain Colleges, namely the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Engineering, make more extensive use of U.S. government publications than those in the other Colleges. Perhaps the students in these Colleges are more familiar with the various publications produced by the federal bodies relevant to their fields, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) or the U.S. Department of Education (College of Education). This awareness may come from these doctoral students’ exposure to coursework or faculty research that draws from federal government information sources. Faculty who regularly consult U.S. government publications in their research, whatever their field, can increase their doctoral students’ awareness of these materials and their value as information tools in the dissertation process.
‘‘...we can infer from the results that doctoral students in certain Colleges, namely the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Engineering, make more extensive use of U.S. government publications than those in the other Colleges.’’ The number of cited print U.S. government publications, and the percentage of the total number of references that were U.S. government publications, decreased over the five-year period. At the same time, the number of cited U.S. government publications from the Web, and Web publications as a percentage of the total number of cited U.S. government publications, increased. Although the types of publications were not tracked in detail, print federal government publications included federal court cases, Congressional legislation and historical monographs (College of Arts and Sciences); USDA reports and surveys (Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Forest Resources and Veterinary Medicine); technical reports from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Department of Energy (College of Engineering); reports from
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the U.S. Department of Education (College of Education); and reports from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (College of Forest Resources). With the exception of court cases, Congressional legislation, and historical monographs, all of these categories of publications were present in the citations to U.S. government publications on the Web (but not necessarily the same publications). Some of the various federal government publications may be available in print formats only, Web formats only, or both. Doctoral students who utilize federal government publications that are only available in print may eventually find that these materials have shifted to the Internet. Will these students be able to access these publications, assuming they do not consider them to be less accurate or stable than the print versions? Doctoral students who consult federal government publications on the Web, especially the growing number of distance education students, need to know that they can find and access these materials in the future, and that these materials will retain the same information. Students who use federal government publications available in both print and Web formats may soon find these publications are exclusively online; they, too, will need to be assured continuous access to these resources. For its part, the GPO has made a concerted effort to preserve and archive its electronic collections. For example, the Office has been working with OCLC to create PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) for publications that originate from the websites of federal agencies.32 A PURL redirects the user to a permanent Internet address for a specific federal government document whose URL is no longer valid.33 This ongoing project addresses the library community’s concern that publications posted on the Internet by the GPO and various federal agencies will not be accessible in the future due to broken URLs. The PURLs ensure that the public, including doctoral students, have electronic access to federal government publications as authentic materials from legitimate U.S. government bodies.34 Dissertations from the College of Education listed the highest number of federal government publications from the Web. These references may have come from distance education students, who would be more likely to consult the Web for information before visiting the nearest branch of their physical university library. Perhaps the students providing the citations to Web federal government publications (mainly publications from the U.S. Department of Education) learned about these materials from faculty or government documents librarians; if this is the case, both groups should continue to promote them as viable research tools in order to increase their use by doctoral students writing their dissertations.
QUESTIONS
FOR
FURTHER RESEARCH
One possible explanation for the overall decline in the total number of cited U.S. government publications in this study is that some doctoral students may be hesitant to use or cite electronic information sources because they fear that their content will not be available in the future.35 Since the vast expanse of federal government publications encompasses not only the GPO’s collections, which are increasingly electronic, but also the countless number of websites from federal agencies, some doctoral students may doubt the stability of
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these otherwise valuable resources. Further citation analyses and similar studies need to be conducted to monitor the continued use of U.S. government publications as more and more of these materials migrate to the Internet, which may be their only location. These analyses may provide additional insight into doctoral students’ perceptions of migrating federal government publications. This study examines the use of federal government publications among doctoral students at only one institution. Future citation analyses might compare the use of these resources among doctoral students, or other select user groups, at several academic institutions. Future studies should also examine the use of government publications as a whole (federal, state, local and international). Successful measures taken to preserve the broad spectrum of federal government publications may eventually be applied to the publications produced by other levels of government where financial and human resources are available. Finally, more analyses of citations to federal government publications should be performed to determine which agencies are most frequently cited. Such studies may help identify which agencies are most actively promoting their online resources, either independently or through the conduit of the GPO. Meanwhile, the GPO will proceed with its plans to offer a primarily electronic FDLP. This evident in its Strategic Vision for the 21st Century, which states, ‘‘In today’s environment, in which 50% of all Government publications are born digital and may never be printed by the Government , the GPO remains commited to its mandate to gather and catalog these electronic publications, distributing them electronically, and ensuring their perpetual availability to the public.’’36
NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Barbara Miller, ‘‘What Does an Information Literate Student Need to Know About Government Information?’’ in Proceedings of the 13th Annual Federal Depository Library Conference. Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su _ docs/fdlp/pubs/proceedings/ 04Miller_Barbara.ppt (2004). 2. Margaret S. Brill, ‘‘Government Publications as Bibliographic References in the Periodical Literature of International Relations: A Citations Analysis,’’ Government Information Quarterly 7 (1990): 429. 3. Ibid. Karen Hogenboom, ‘‘Has Government Information on the Internet Affected Citation Patterns? A Case Study of Population Studies Journals,’’ Journal of Government Information 29 (2002) 394. 4. Brill, ‘‘Government Publications as Bibliographic References,’’ p. 429. 5. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 394. 6. Ibid, p. 395. 7. Thomas Reed Caswell, ‘‘Studies on Government Publications’ Use, 1990-1996,’’ Government Information Quarterly 14 (1997): 364. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 394. 10. Caswell, ‘‘Studies on Government Publications’ Use,’’ p. 363. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid, p. 365. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid, p. 369. 16. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 392. 17. Ibid, p. 397. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid, p. 398. 20. Ibid. 21. Laurel A. Haycock, ‘‘Citation Analysis of Education Dissertations
for Collection Development,’’ Library Resources and Technical Services 48 (2004, April): 103; Terry L. Weech, ‘‘The Use of Government Publications: A Selected Review of the Literature,’’ Government Publications Review 5 (1978): 178. 22. Haycock, ‘‘Education Dissertations,’’ p. 103. 23. Weech, ‘‘Use of Government Publications,’’ p. 178. 24. Daniel C. Barkley, ‘‘Public Service Guidelines in an Electronic Environment,’’ Government Information Quarterly 15 (1998): 74. 25. John P. Heintz, Migration of Government Information Products to the Internet,’’ Portal 3 (July 2003): 492. 26. ‘‘FDLP Guidelines on Substituting Electronic for Tangible Versions of Depository Publications,’’ GPO Access. Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/coll-dev/subguide.html (September 27, 2003). 27. Ibid.
28. Heintz, ‘‘Migration of Government Information,’’ p. 482. 29. ‘‘GPO Access Statistics,’’ Administrative Notes: Newsletter of the FDLP 26 (April/May 2005). Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/ su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/ad04_051505.html (January 15, 2005). 30. Heintz, ‘‘Migration of Government Information,’’ p. 482. 31. Charles R. McClure & Keith A. Harman, ‘‘Government Publications as Bibliographic References and Sources in Dissertations,’’ Government Publications Review 9 (1982): 63. 32. Kathy Hathaway, ‘‘How the GPO Got its Groove Back: Government Printing Office and Government Information on the Internet,’’ The Reference Librarian 93 (2006): 113. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 399. 36. ‘‘Strategic Vision,’’ Administrative Notes: Newsletter of the FDLP 26 (January 2005). Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/ fdlp/pubs/adnotes/ad011505.html (January 15, 2005).
September 2006 511
Through a citation analysis of dissertations at Mississippi State University from 2000–2004, the author examines doctoral students’ use of federal government publications as bibliographic references in light of the ongoing migration of these sources to the Internet. The study indicates an increase in the use of federal government documents in Web formats but an overall decrease in the use of these materials as a whole.
INTRODUCTION Publications produced by the United States government provide information on a wide range of topics such as health and nutrition, transportation, the environment, technology, consumer rights, national security, agriculture, and crime and justice. This information comes in a variety of both print and electronic formats, including reference books, monographs, microforms, maps, pamphlets, patents and trademarks, technical reports, laws and regulations, treaties and court cases.1
‘‘In which academic fields do doctoral students refer to U.S. government publications the most?’’ Such information resources are valuable tools for American citizens performing any number of activities. This includes doctoral students performing research for their dissertations. However, the use of U.S. government publications by these students is not well documented in the professional library literature. To what extent do doctoral students utilize the breadth of U.S. government publications in their research, and which formats do they primarily use? In which academic fields do doctoral students refer to U.S. government publications the most? Citation analyses are one method of identifying such trends. This study examines the bibliographic references cited in dissertations at Mississippi State University, in order to determine usage patterns for U.S. government publications among the University’s doctoral students.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Newkirk Barnes is an Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 5408, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA [email protected].
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 32, Number 5, pages 503–511
Various citation analyses and other studies have been conducted to determine usage of publications from various levels of government (federal, state, and local), but most of them have not focused on doctoral dissertations. In 1978 Weech documented seven citation analyses that included government publications as a category.2 Each of these studies focused on literature in the social sciences. Citations to government publications accounted for 10 percent of the total number of citations in sociology journals, while they accounted for 36
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percent of the total number of citations in economics monographs.3 The median for these studies was almost 17.5 percent, which Weech considered to be a significant percentage of the total number of citations, thus emphasizing the importance of government publications as information resources for the social sciences. In 1982 McClure and Harman conducted a citation analysis of 88 doctoral dissertations from the University of Oklahoma’s Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Education, examining their bibliographies and source citations (footnotes) for references to government publications as a whole.4 They found that only 4 percent of the source citations in the dissertations were to government publications, and only 5 percent of the bibliographic references were to government publications.5 In 1990 Haner studied the use of government publications as references in seven core journals in the geological sciences for 1985.6 She found that 15.8 percent of the total number of references were to government publications; 5 percent of the total number of references were to publications from the U.S. Geological Survey, and 2 percent were to other federal agencies.7 The same year, Brill performed a similar study of periodicals in the field of international relations, comparing the use of government publications in these periodicals for 1964, 1974 and 1984.8 She found that the number of citations to government publications as a percentage of the total number of citations decreased from 22 percent in 1964 to 16 percent in 1984; however, the number of citations to government publications increased over this same period (from 168 in 1964 to 261 in 1984), due to the increase in the total number of citations.9 In 1991 Weech and Postema did a review of citation analyses that focused on the use of government publications and that had been issued from 1977 to 1989.10 Then, in 1997, Caswell updated this review by examining similar studies published in the professional library literature between 1990 and 1996.11 He found nine studies published within this time period that examined the use of government publications: three citation analyses, two librarian surveys, and four user studies.12 In addition to the studies conducted by Brill and Haner, Caswell found a study of citations in the literature on American Indian issues, led by Metoyer-Duran and Hernon.13 In this study, 48.1 percent of the citations were to government publications as a whole, and 88.4 percent of these were to federal government publications.14 Metoyer-Duran and Hernon also found that at least 59 percent of the cited government publications were court cases and Congressional publications (Caswell). Caswell noted that none of the studies he reviewed addressed the area of electronic information sources, government-produced or otherwise; however, he predicted that future studies would most likely explore this topic.15 Finally, in 2002 Hogenboom examined the effect of Internet migration of government information (federal, state, local, and foreign) on citation patterns in four population studies journals from 1990 to 2000.16 She found that the total number of citations to government publications increased over this period (from 462 to 584); however, the number of citations to government publications as a percentage of the total number of citations decreased from 16.4 percent to 15 percent.17 In particular, Hogenboom found that citations to U.S. government publications decreased 1.1 percent over the ten-year period.18 In 1990, 9 percent of these citations were to print sources, while none of them were to electronic sources.19 Then, in 2000,
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7 percent of the citations were to print sources, while .8 percent were to electronic sources.20 Citation analyses such as those previously mentioned have several advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage of citation analyses is that their results do not always reflect the totality of sources consulted by the authors, doctoral students in this case; they do not account for the fact that authors may use particular publications for research purposes but may not actually cite them.21 Furthermore, if doctoral students only use literature that is locally available, citation analyses of their dissertations will reflect this, thus providing skewed results.22 Despite their drawbacks, however, citation analyses have the advantage of being an unobtrusive method of determining usage patterns for particular academic fields, publication types, or user groups.23 This study specifically looks at the use of U.S. government publications as cited references in doctoral dissertations. Traditionally, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has distributed numerous federal publications to depository libraries in tangible formats, namely print and microfiche.24 However, since the early 1990s, in response to the rapid development of the Internet and other communications technologies, the GPO has shifted its focus to electronic formats.25 Additionally, Congress has directed the GPO to make its Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) almost entirely electronic. In 1993, Congress passed the GPO Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act, which conveyed its expectation that the GPO would incorporate more electronic titles into its collections, in order to provide the American public with broader access to federal government information.26 This legislation eventually led to the Office’s 1996 ‘‘Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program.’’27 Since that time, the number of tangible publications the GPO distributes through the FDLP has significantly decreased. For example, the GPO sent 26.4 million paper and microfiche copies to depositories in 1991 but sent only 11.6 million in 2000.28 As of February 2005, the GPO had distributed a total of 14,274 online and tangible publications for Fiscal Year 2005; 92 percent of these were electronic, when multiple formats of the same title were removed.29 At the same time that the FDLP has become more electronic, the American public has witnessed an explosion of federal government information on the Internet, mainly in the form of agency Web sites. For instance, in 2003 the General Services Administration reported that the widely acclaimed FirstGov search engine provided access to over 51 million Web pages of information from the federal government.30 This phenomenon has dramatically reduced the volume of materials that the GPO directly controls; some of the information that various federal agencies include in their own electronic collections does not circulate through the GPO and is therefore not formally distributed to participants in the FDLP. Given the increasing migration of U.S. government publications to the Internet, are doctoral students more likely to consult these information sources for their research? To answer this question, the author examines bibliographic references listed in doctoral dissertations at Mississippi State University. This analysis may provide some insight into doctoral students’ use of federal government publications, particularly which academic disciplines use these materials, and which formats
they use. It may also help determine the effects of migration of U.S. government publications to the Internet on the usage of these materials by doctoral students.
‘‘Given the increasing migration of U.S. government publications to the Internet, are doctoral students more likely to consult these information sources for their research?’’
usage by doctoral students across the various Colleges. Specifically, the author wanted to determine which Colleges’ doctoral students refer to federal government publications the most, and which formats they primarily use.
‘‘The author hypothesized that usage of U.S. government publications in Web formats by MSU doctoral students would increase over the five-year period as more of these materials became available online.’’
METHODOLOGY Mississippi State University (MSU), originally established as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi, is a land grant university and is designated as a Doctoral/Extensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. MSU enrolls about 16,000 students and employs over 1,000 faculty members in its eight Colleges. The MSU Libraries include Mitchell Memorial Library (the main library) and branch libraries for the College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Architecture. Copies of doctoral dissertations are housed in Mitchell’s Special Collections Department, as well as in the Library’s Circulating Collection. The author chose to examine doctoral dissertations from 2000–2004, the time period following Hogenboom’s citation analysis. In the fall of 2005, the author identified 464 doctoral dissertations in the MSU online catalog for the five-year period, which was reduced to a random sample of 275 dissertations, with 55 dissertations for each year. The author obtained the reference lists from the dissertations and collected the following data: the total number of bibliographic references, the number of U.S. government publications included in these references, the format of the U.S. government publications (print, Web or other), the doctoral candidate’s College and Department at MSU, and the year the dissertation was published (2000–2004). Table 1 lists the Colleges at MSU and the corresponding Departments for each (Table 1). For the purposes of this study, the author defined a U.S. government publication as ‘‘informational matter which is published as an individual document at government expense, or as required by law,’’ as stated in Title 44 of the United States Code.31 The author categorized the formats of the U.S. government publications as print, Web or ‘‘other.’’ Print formats of these materials included monographs, serials, pamphlets, brochures, conference papers, proceedings, legal texts (federal cases, Congressional legislation, administrative rules/regulations), technical reports, patents, and maps. Web formats referred to online versions of any of these print publications, including documents obtained from LexisNexis Academic, GPO Access, THOMAS, or the websites of U.S. government agencies or departments. ‘‘Other’’ formats included microfiche, CD-ROM, and audiovisuals. The purpose of the study was to identify usage patterns for U.S. government publications for the period 2000-2004. The author hypothesized that usage of U.S. government publications in Web formats by MSU doctoral students would increase over the five-year period as more of these materials became available online. The study also sought to identify patterns of
RESULTS Table 2 summarizes the overall results of the citation analysis for each year and for the five-year period (Table 2). The total number of bibliographic references for the five-year period was 30,538. The total number of cited U.S. government publications for this time period was 707, representing 2.3 percent of the total number of references. The number of cited U.S. government publications was highest in 2001 (222) and lowest in 2004 (95). This number decreased every year after 2001. Results by College Table 3 shows the results of the citation analysis with respect to the seven Colleges with doctoral programs at MSU (Table 3). In 2000, the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (41), while the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Business and Industry provided the lowest (1). The College of Arts and Sciences had the highest percentage of references that were U.S. government publications (3.5 percent), while the College of Business and Industry had the lowest (.2 percent). Cited U.S. government publications comprised 1.8 percent of the total number of references for 2000. In 2001, the College of Arts and Sciences gave the highest number of cited federal government publications (88), while the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Business and Industry gave the lowest (0). The College of Engineering had the highest percentage of references that were federal government publications (8.1 percent). Cited federal government publications made up 3.4 percent of the total number of references for 2001. In 2002, the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (76), while the College of Business and Industry provided the lowest (0). The College of Education had the highest percentage of references that were U.S. government publications (4.1 percent). Cited U.S. government publications accounted for 2.7 percent of the total number of references for 2002. In 2003, the College of Forest Resources had the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (31), while the College of Veterinary Medicine had the lowest (0). The College of Forest Resources had the highest percentage of references that were U.S. government publications (6.3 percent). Cited U.S. government publications comprised 1.6 percent of the total number of references for 2003.
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Table 1 MSU Colleges and Corresponding Departments
Table 1 (continued) Education
Agriculture and Life Sciences
Instructional Systems, Leadership and Workforce Development
Human Sciences
Kinesiology
Agricultural and Biological Engineering*
Music Education
Agricultural Economics Agricultural Information Science and Education
Engineering
Animal and Dairy Sciences
Chemical Engineering
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Aerospace Engineering
Entomology and Plant Pathology
Agricultural and Biological Engineering*
Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion
Civil Engineering
Landscape Architecture
Computer Science and Engineering
Plant and Soil Sciences
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Poultry Science
Industrial Engineering Mechanical Engineering
Architecture, Art and Design (no doctoral program) Interior Design
Forest Resources
Art
Forest Products
Architecture
Forestry Wildlife and Fisheries
Arts and Sciences Aerospace Studies
Veterinary Medicine
Biological Sciences
Basic Sciences
Chemistry
Clinical Sciences
Communication
Pathobiology and Population Medicine
English Foreign Languages Geosciences History Mathematics and Statistics Military Science Philosophy and Religion Physics and Astronomy Political Science and Public Administration Psychology
In 2004, the College of Education gave the highest number of cited U.S. government publications (41), while the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Business and Industry gave the lowest (3). The College of Veterinary Medicine had the highest percentage of references that were federal government publications (3.1 percent), while the College of Engineering had the lowest (.6 percent). Cited federal government publications made up 2 percent of the total number of references for 2004. For the five-year period, the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest total number of cited U.S. government publications (255), followed by the Colleges of Education (143), Agriculture and Life Sciences (132), Engineering (100), Forest Resources (58), and Business and Industry (11). The
Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Table 2 Cited U.S. Government Publications by Year
Business and Industry Accountancy Finance and Economics
Year
Total References
U.S. Gov.
%
Management and Information Systems
2000
5840
104
1.8
Marketing, Quantitative Analysis and Business Law
2001
6489
222
3.4
2002
6279
171
2.7
Education
2003
7124
115
1.6
Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education
2004
4806
95
Curriculum and Instruction
Total
30,538
707
506 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
2 2.3
Table 3 (continued)
Table 3 Cited U.S. Government Publications by MSU College Total References 2003
U.S. Gov. 2003
%
Agriculture and life sciences
1548
26
1.7
Arts and sciences
1177
College
Business and Industry
41
3.5
College
Total References 2003
U.S. Gov. 2003
%
Forest Resources
495
31
6.3
Veterinary Medicine
236
0
0
7124
115
1.6
Total References 2004
U.S. Gov. 2004
%
Total
463
1
0.2
1385
22
1.6
Engineering
580
4
0.7
Forest Resources
467
9
2
Agriculture and Life Sciences
1240
15
1.2
1186
27
2.3
344
3
0.9
1437
41
2.9
Engineering
346
2
0.6
Forest Resources
156
4
2.6
97
3
3.1
4806
95
2
Education
Veterinary Medicine
220
1
0.5
Arts and Sciences
5840
104
1.8
Business and Industry
Total References 2001
U.S. Gov. 2001
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
1212
45
3.7
Arts and Sciences
1725
88
349
0
1491
16
1.1
Engineering
777
63
8.1
Forest Resources
681
10
1.5
Veterinary Medicine
254
0
6489
222
Total References 2002
U.S. Gov. 2002
Total
Education
Business and Industry Education
Total
Veterinary Medicine
Total References 2000–2004
Total U.S. Gov. 2000–2004
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
6585
132
2
0
Arts and Sciences
7793
255
3.3
3.4
Business and Industry
2557
11
0.4
Education
6508
143
2.2
Engineering
3491
100
2.9
Forest Resources
2273
58
2.6
Veterinary Medicine
1331
8
0.6
30,538
707
2.3
%
1097
Arts and Sciences
1920
76
4
Business and Industry
429
0
0
Education
951
39
4.1
Engineering
884
13
1.5
Forest Resources
474
4
0.8
Veterinary Medicine
524
4
0.7
6279
171
2.7
Total References 2003
U.S. Gov. 2003
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
1488
11
0.7
Arts and Sciences
1785
23
1.3
972
7
0.7
1244
25
2
904
18
2
Business and Industry Education Engineering
Total
0
Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total
35
5.1
3.2
Total
College of Veterinary Medicine provided the lowest total number of cited U.S. government publications (8). There were no major trends within each College over the five-year period, but the data clearly indicate that the Colleges of Business and Industry and Veterinary Medicine cite consistently lower numbers of U.S. government publications than the other Colleges.
‘‘For the five-year period [under study], the College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest total number of cited U.S. government publications.’’ For 2000–2004, the percentage of references that were U.S. government publications was highest for the College of Arts and Sciences (3.3 percent), followed by the Colleges of
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Table 4 Cited U.S. Government Publications by Format Year
% U.S. Gov.
Web
% U.S. Gov.
Other
% U.S. Gov.
2000
78
75
25
24
1
0.1
2001
177
79.7
45
20.3
0
0
2002
132
77.1
38
22.2
1
0.6
2003
74
64.3
40
34.8
1
0.9
2004
61
64.2
34
35.8
0
0
Total
522
73.8
182
25.7
3
0.4
Engineering (2.9 percent), Forest Resources (2.6 percent), Education (2.2 percent), Agriculture and Life Sciences (2 percent), Veterinary Medicine (.6 percent), and Business and Industry (.4 percent). Interestingly, there did not seem to be a connection between the number of cited federal government publications and the percentage of references that were federal government publications. Although the College of Arts and Sciences had the highest values for both, and the Colleges of Business and Industry and Veterinary Medicine had the lowest, there were discrepancies in the other Colleges. For example, the College of Education had the second highest number of cited federal government publications, but it had the fourth highest percentage of references that were federal government publications. Likewise, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences had the third highest number of cited federal government publications, but it had the fifth highest percentage. Then, the College of Engineering had the fourth highest number of cited federal government publications, but it had the second highest percentage. Finally, the College of Forest Resources had the fifth highest number of cited federal government publications and the third highest percentage. Thus, although the Colleges of Education and Agriculture and Life Sciences provided higher numbers of cited U.S. government publications than the Colleges of Engineering and Forest Resources, these references did not make up as high a percentage of the College’s total number of references as they did for the latter Colleges. Results by Format Table 4 shows the results of the citation analysis with respect to the various formats of U.S. government publications. (Table 4). The total number of print publications cited over the five-year period was 522. The total number of Web publications cited was 182, and the total number of publications cited in other formats was 3. The number of print publications increased from 2000 to 2001 but then steadily decreased from 2001 to 2004; the same trend occurred for print sources as a percentage of the total number of U.S. government publications. The number of Web publications increased from 2000– 2001, and from 2002–2003. Additionally, Web documents as a percentage of the total number of U.S. government publications decreased from 2000 to 2001 but then steadily increased from 2001 to 2004. As the use of U.S. government publications in print formats decreased over the five-year period, the use of these materials in Web formats increased. This trend supports the author’s hypothesis that usage of federal government publications from the Web would increase over the five-year
508 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
period, due to their growing availability. Nevertheless, print publications comprised the largest percentage of the total number of U.S. government publications for all five years (73.8 percent).
‘‘As the [citation] of U.S. government publications in print formats decreased over the five-year period, the [citation] of these materials in Web formats increased.’’
Use of Formats by College Table 5 shows which formats of U.S. government publications doctoral students from the various MSU Colleges use (Table 5). From 2000–2004, the College of Arts and Sciences gave the highest number of print publications (221), followed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (84), Engineering (79), Education (77), Forest Resources (51), and Veterinary Medicine (8). The College of Business and Industry gave the lowest number of print publications (2). The College of Arts and Sciences provided the highest number of print publications from 2000-2002, while the Colleges of Forest Resources and Education provided this number in 2003 and 2004, respectively. From 2000-2004, the College of Education provided the highest number of Web publications (66), followed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (48), Arts and Sciences (31), Engineering (21), Business and Industry (9), and Forest Resources (7). The College of Veterinary Medicine provided the lowest number of Web publications (0). The College of Arts and Sciences provided three references to microforms. The College of Education provided the highest number of Web publications every year except 2001; the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences provided this figure for that year.
CONCLUSION The total number of U.S. government publications cited in doctoral dissertations from seven of the eight Colleges at MSU decreased over the five-year period. This trend is problematic given the growing abundance of these materials
3 0 1 1 0 1 182 34 40 38 25 132 78 Total
177
74
61
522
45
0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 7
0 0
0 5
0 0
0
0
1 1
8
4
4
0
4
1 Veterinary Medicine
0
8 Forest Resources
9
26
3
51
0
0 0 0 0 0 0 21 2 5 4 3 9 1 Engineering
56
13
0
79
7
0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 9
66 13
3 6
16 17
0 0
9
0
11
2
77 28
0 1 0
22 Education
7
1
11
Business and Industry
0
9
3 0 1 1 0 1 31 4 4 5 5 62 35 Arts and Sciences
83
18
23
221
13
0 0 0 0 0 0 48 12 4 4 5 31 21 Agriculture and Life Sciences
22
7
3
84
23
Total 2004 2003 2002 2000 2002 2000 College
2001
2003
2004
Total
2001
2002
2003
2004
Total
2000
2001
Other Web Print
Table 5 Formats of U.S. Government Publications by MSU College
on the Internet. However, the migration of federal government publications to the online environment is not necessarily the cause of the decline in citations to these information sources. The number of cited U.S. government publications listed in dissertations from each MSU College for a given year, and for the total five-year period, is based on samples of individual dissertations from those Colleges; the dissertations in each sample may or may not rely heavily on federal government publications, depending on the authors’ familiarity with these materials, the availability of these materials in a particular format, the authors’ departmental affiliations, and a variety of other factors. Thus, the results of the citation analysis with respect to the use of federal government publications by a specific College are not necessarily representative of the entire College. Even with this disclaimer, we can infer from the results that doctoral students in certain Colleges, namely the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Engineering, make more extensive use of U.S. government publications than those in the other Colleges. Perhaps the students in these Colleges are more familiar with the various publications produced by the federal bodies relevant to their fields, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) or the U.S. Department of Education (College of Education). This awareness may come from these doctoral students’ exposure to coursework or faculty research that draws from federal government information sources. Faculty who regularly consult U.S. government publications in their research, whatever their field, can increase their doctoral students’ awareness of these materials and their value as information tools in the dissertation process.
‘‘...we can infer from the results that doctoral students in certain Colleges, namely the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Engineering, make more extensive use of U.S. government publications than those in the other Colleges.’’ The number of cited print U.S. government publications, and the percentage of the total number of references that were U.S. government publications, decreased over the five-year period. At the same time, the number of cited U.S. government publications from the Web, and Web publications as a percentage of the total number of cited U.S. government publications, increased. Although the types of publications were not tracked in detail, print federal government publications included federal court cases, Congressional legislation and historical monographs (College of Arts and Sciences); USDA reports and surveys (Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Forest Resources and Veterinary Medicine); technical reports from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Department of Energy (College of Engineering); reports from
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the U.S. Department of Education (College of Education); and reports from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (College of Forest Resources). With the exception of court cases, Congressional legislation, and historical monographs, all of these categories of publications were present in the citations to U.S. government publications on the Web (but not necessarily the same publications). Some of the various federal government publications may be available in print formats only, Web formats only, or both. Doctoral students who utilize federal government publications that are only available in print may eventually find that these materials have shifted to the Internet. Will these students be able to access these publications, assuming they do not consider them to be less accurate or stable than the print versions? Doctoral students who consult federal government publications on the Web, especially the growing number of distance education students, need to know that they can find and access these materials in the future, and that these materials will retain the same information. Students who use federal government publications available in both print and Web formats may soon find these publications are exclusively online; they, too, will need to be assured continuous access to these resources. For its part, the GPO has made a concerted effort to preserve and archive its electronic collections. For example, the Office has been working with OCLC to create PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) for publications that originate from the websites of federal agencies.32 A PURL redirects the user to a permanent Internet address for a specific federal government document whose URL is no longer valid.33 This ongoing project addresses the library community’s concern that publications posted on the Internet by the GPO and various federal agencies will not be accessible in the future due to broken URLs. The PURLs ensure that the public, including doctoral students, have electronic access to federal government publications as authentic materials from legitimate U.S. government bodies.34 Dissertations from the College of Education listed the highest number of federal government publications from the Web. These references may have come from distance education students, who would be more likely to consult the Web for information before visiting the nearest branch of their physical university library. Perhaps the students providing the citations to Web federal government publications (mainly publications from the U.S. Department of Education) learned about these materials from faculty or government documents librarians; if this is the case, both groups should continue to promote them as viable research tools in order to increase their use by doctoral students writing their dissertations.
QUESTIONS
FOR
FURTHER RESEARCH
One possible explanation for the overall decline in the total number of cited U.S. government publications in this study is that some doctoral students may be hesitant to use or cite electronic information sources because they fear that their content will not be available in the future.35 Since the vast expanse of federal government publications encompasses not only the GPO’s collections, which are increasingly electronic, but also the countless number of websites from federal agencies, some doctoral students may doubt the stability of
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these otherwise valuable resources. Further citation analyses and similar studies need to be conducted to monitor the continued use of U.S. government publications as more and more of these materials migrate to the Internet, which may be their only location. These analyses may provide additional insight into doctoral students’ perceptions of migrating federal government publications. This study examines the use of federal government publications among doctoral students at only one institution. Future citation analyses might compare the use of these resources among doctoral students, or other select user groups, at several academic institutions. Future studies should also examine the use of government publications as a whole (federal, state, local and international). Successful measures taken to preserve the broad spectrum of federal government publications may eventually be applied to the publications produced by other levels of government where financial and human resources are available. Finally, more analyses of citations to federal government publications should be performed to determine which agencies are most frequently cited. Such studies may help identify which agencies are most actively promoting their online resources, either independently or through the conduit of the GPO. Meanwhile, the GPO will proceed with its plans to offer a primarily electronic FDLP. This evident in its Strategic Vision for the 21st Century, which states, ‘‘In today’s environment, in which 50% of all Government publications are born digital and may never be printed by the Government , the GPO remains commited to its mandate to gather and catalog these electronic publications, distributing them electronically, and ensuring their perpetual availability to the public.’’36
NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Barbara Miller, ‘‘What Does an Information Literate Student Need to Know About Government Information?’’ in Proceedings of the 13th Annual Federal Depository Library Conference. Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su _ docs/fdlp/pubs/proceedings/ 04Miller_Barbara.ppt (2004). 2. Margaret S. Brill, ‘‘Government Publications as Bibliographic References in the Periodical Literature of International Relations: A Citations Analysis,’’ Government Information Quarterly 7 (1990): 429. 3. Ibid. Karen Hogenboom, ‘‘Has Government Information on the Internet Affected Citation Patterns? A Case Study of Population Studies Journals,’’ Journal of Government Information 29 (2002) 394. 4. Brill, ‘‘Government Publications as Bibliographic References,’’ p. 429. 5. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 394. 6. Ibid, p. 395. 7. Thomas Reed Caswell, ‘‘Studies on Government Publications’ Use, 1990-1996,’’ Government Information Quarterly 14 (1997): 364. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 394. 10. Caswell, ‘‘Studies on Government Publications’ Use,’’ p. 363. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid, p. 365. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid, p. 369. 16. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 392. 17. Ibid, p. 397. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid, p. 398. 20. Ibid. 21. Laurel A. Haycock, ‘‘Citation Analysis of Education Dissertations
for Collection Development,’’ Library Resources and Technical Services 48 (2004, April): 103; Terry L. Weech, ‘‘The Use of Government Publications: A Selected Review of the Literature,’’ Government Publications Review 5 (1978): 178. 22. Haycock, ‘‘Education Dissertations,’’ p. 103. 23. Weech, ‘‘Use of Government Publications,’’ p. 178. 24. Daniel C. Barkley, ‘‘Public Service Guidelines in an Electronic Environment,’’ Government Information Quarterly 15 (1998): 74. 25. John P. Heintz, Migration of Government Information Products to the Internet,’’ Portal 3 (July 2003): 492. 26. ‘‘FDLP Guidelines on Substituting Electronic for Tangible Versions of Depository Publications,’’ GPO Access. Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/coll-dev/subguide.html (September 27, 2003). 27. Ibid.
28. Heintz, ‘‘Migration of Government Information,’’ p. 482. 29. ‘‘GPO Access Statistics,’’ Administrative Notes: Newsletter of the FDLP 26 (April/May 2005). Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/ su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/ad04_051505.html (January 15, 2005). 30. Heintz, ‘‘Migration of Government Information,’’ p. 482. 31. Charles R. McClure & Keith A. Harman, ‘‘Government Publications as Bibliographic References and Sources in Dissertations,’’ Government Publications Review 9 (1982): 63. 32. Kathy Hathaway, ‘‘How the GPO Got its Groove Back: Government Printing Office and Government Information on the Internet,’’ The Reference Librarian 93 (2006): 113. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Hogenboom, ‘‘Government Information on the Internet,’’ p. 399. 36. ‘‘Strategic Vision,’’ Administrative Notes: Newsletter of the FDLP 26 (January 2005). Available: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/ fdlp/pubs/adnotes/ad011505.html (January 15, 2005).
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