Dissertations and discussions: engineering graduate student research resource use at New Mexico State University

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to determine whether the accelerated growth of web content during the years 1989-2011 had an effect on New Mexico State University engineering PhD students' use of the library's collections. The research also solicited direct input from PhD advisors regarding their expectations for and perceptions of present day PhD reference lists. If the collections were being used with less frequency, there would be reason to increase outreach to the engineering graduate student population, as well as to review current engineering collection development policies. Design/methodology/approach – Reference lists from College of Engineering PhD dissertations produced 1989-1991 (pre-web), 1999-2001 (web-emergent), and 2009-2011 (post-web) time periods were analyzed using descriptive statistics. PhD faculty advisors from the College of Engineering were interviewed about their expectations for, and perceptions of, research resources used in PhD dissertations. Findings – The number of resources cited, percentages of type of resource (e.g. book, journal, patent, etc.) and age of citation did not vary substantially over time, although the percentage of journal articles cited to total number of citations per dissertation increased post-web. Some websites were cited in the post-web period, but not in significant numbers. Engineering faculty expressed concerns that some PhD students were not critically evaluating and fully synthesizing the information they were citing in the literature review sections of their dissertations. Originality/value – The results of the citation study provided PhD faculty advisors with the positive news that there appears to be no degradation in the quality of references post-web. However, the expressed faculty interest in seeing some dissertators undertake a more robust analysis of the literature created an outreach opportunity for the engineering librarian: a graduate student workshop in how to use the library collections to perform a thorough survey of the relevant research in order to write an effective literature review.