Early current awareness results show intriguing data
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

Early results of Jinfo's survey on current awareness provision show significant changes in user needs - give your input and receive a summary of the results as a thank you.

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The "Jinfo survey: trends in current awareness provision" has already generated intriguing early data.

The systems and processes now used to deliver current awareness have been in place on average for 6 years. Yet over that same period of time, the activities using news resources have changed a great deal.

More than 50 information managers have completed the survey so far, sharing their priorities and pressures around providing current awareness within their organisations.

We ask how long their current system for providing current awareness has been in place. On one end, some respondents have just implemented new systems. On the other end, some have been using their current system for 20 years.

The average number of years is 5.9 years, with a median of 4 years.

Tracking changing current awareness needs

We also ask respondents how frequently they perform certain activities with their news and current awareness content - the same question we have asked in the same way since 2010. 

Figure 1 shows how responses have changed over time on three activities: 

• Searching a deep archive of news
• Using audio or video news source
• Accessing news on a mobile device.

Figure 1: How frequently do you do the following? (range from “rarely” to “multiple times per day”) Higher score = greater frequency

Searching a deep archive earned very consistent frequency ratings in 2010-2014, but data so far for 2017 indicates a significant drop in frequency.

Meanwhile, use of audio or video, while still not very frequent, has jumped in 2017, and use on a mobile device continues the upward trend.

These results beg the question: do 6-year-old processes and systems still support the need for current awareness, if activities have changed significantly over that period of time?

Give your input

The "Jinfo survey: trends in current awareness provision" remains open until Friday, 8th September.

Please take 15 minutes to respond to the survey. If you provide an email address at the end of the survey, we'll send you a summary of the results upon publication.

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