Features and News Teaching Biological Literature

The volume and complexity of bio-logical literature is well known to all those working in the field. Out of the total of 13,000 biological journals cur-rently published, 1,000 are said to pub-lish the truly significant advances re-ported by the scientific community (National Research Council 1970). Keep-ing up with even this smaller number of journals is more than the most in-tensive application by the scientist can accomplish. Given this complexity and size, it is appropriate to ask what courses are provided in the uses of biological literature for graduate students in uni-versities of the U.S. and what is the makeup of those courses. The question was considered for chemistry students by Powell and Schlessinger (1971) and posed earlier by Wyatt and Bottle (1967) who suggested proposals for instruction for biological students. THE STUDY To determine the extent and content of such instruction, a study was under-taken of literature courses provided at American universities whose libraries belong to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and certain other uni-. versltles where substantial graduate programs in biology are offered (Table 1). Only those courses in which the tools of literature research constitute the major portion of the instruction were included in the study. Eight courses analyzed were taught by botanists, zool-ogists, microbiologists, and librarians in a variety of departments. In spite of this diversity of instructors, a sub-stantial body of similarity exists in regard to the material covered in the courses. This material can be grouped into ten categories