Conversations with Chemists Redux: Preliminary Results from an Interview-Based Study on the Information Needs and Habits of Chemistry Faculty

In the spring of 2018 librarians at the University of Texas at Austin interviewed 15 chemistry PIs as part of a local replication of Ithaka S+R’s ongoing series of reports on how faculty in various disciplines gather, manage, and use information and data in the course of their research. Topics explored in the interviews included information access behaviors, data generation and management, publishing preferences, and attitudes toward open science. We will present preliminary findings from this study, including common themes and challenges expressed by the faculty, which we hope will inform the next generation of library services to a clientele that is at the same time demanding (in terms of access to content) and aloof (in terms of regular interactions with the traditional library).