Physics: Literature Distribution 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)

PRIMARY

LITERATURE

publication process (year)

article (or series) in conference proceedings [usually book,
primary journal, govt pub) Often only editor reviews it, sometimes earlier than journal article

article (or series) in scientific journals

dissertation or thesis (libraries often don't carry,
many indexed in Dissertation Abstracts or other database)

patent (libraries often don't carry,
many indexed in Chem Abstracts or other database)

final report to funding agency (libraries often don't carry, many indexed in Chem Abstracts or other)

books (some disciplines publish 50/50 in books/journals)

SECONDARY LITERATURE

0-1 month from primary lit.

current awareness services (or journals)

0-9 months from primary lit.

indexing service or database

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