Breadth and Depth of Insight into Current Awareness and Research
Jinfo Blog

By Shimrit Janes

Abstract

We kick off the final month of 2014 and of our FreePint Topic Series: News, and Beyond with both breadth and depth of insight into current awareness and research trends. Co-producer Shimrit Janes takes a look at what's recently been published, and what is yet to come.

Item

As we enter the final stretch of the FreePint Topic Series: News, and Beyond, we have a great roster of content and guidance for all information managers, as well as those operating within specific sectors.

Breadth of Insight: Product Reviews, Survey Analysis, and Copyright

Following FreePint's 2014 News Needs & Preferences Survey, FreePint's director of research, Robin Neidorf, has been providing us with her analysis of trends that the results reveal. Having already looked at premium news content and preferences, purchase criteria, and key suppliers and satisfaction, Robin's latest post turns to the question of non-cost resources. Robin's final instalment will be focusing on "A Closer Look at News Use-Cases and Value", something that she also explores in her piece 'What's the Value of Current Awareness?'

Amongst other insights, in "A Look at Non-Cost Resources", we find that the majority (61%) of respondents don't have guidance in place for usage of web resources, and that the tension for spending budgets on premium sources is showing no signs of flagging. Readers interested in these areas will find Sarah Hinton's piece "Evaluating Premium News Services Against Free Sources" of particular use, while we'll be following Sophie Alexander's look at copyright compliance with a piece on "Copyright and Issues of Redistribution in an Increasingly-Connected World".

In addition to trends in practice, we also have currently two product reviews running. Andrew Grave has been looking at Factiva and, after providing us with an introduction and a review of sources, his latest piece turns to an in-depth look at the technology. Meanwhile, Sophie Alexander has kicked off a product review of BBC Monitoring Library.

Depth of Insight: Specialist Sector Knowledge

In addition to a broad look at trends across current awareness and research, we have been taking a deeper look at trends and guidance within particular sectors.

For those in the pharmaceutical industry, Ashish Shukla's piece takes a look at key categories of news for companies looking at developing and selling innovative products, as well as three specialist sources.

Moving over to the legal sector, James Mullan tackles the question of how legal firms can best monitor, manage, and disseminate news from multiple resources.

For more guidance on specialist resources, readers can head over to FreePint's Sources Categories page, or drop either me (shimrit.janes@freepint.com) or my co-producer Chris (chris.porter@freepint.com) an email to let us know of areas of particular interest.

This Blog Item is part of the FreePint Topic Series: News, and Beyond.

« Blog