I'm sure that somewhere in all my ramblings I have covered the questions posed by Prof. Marsteller but I thought I should go through and try to get the ideas organized.
1. Where might you find a more complete description of their research?
The Internet truly is amazing. I found that one of the best places to find out about my scientist's research is her website. Her page has a statement of her research interests, a few citations of publications (no links) and links to her lab and personal web page.
The monkey lab page is much more extensive than the short bio page. Here she has posted bios of all her lab assistants, descriptions of their current research, a list of publications with PDF links, and links to other labs and her field stations.
Also linked from her main web page is her personal page. This is very similar to the monkey lab page. Here she posts publication links (some with PDF links but not as up to date as the monkey lab site), short bios of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory workers (graduate students mostly), and this is also where her CV is posted.
Investigating this site and the links alone would give anyone interested in this type of work a wealth of information.
2. Can you see any patterns in their literature use?
Dr. Santos has cited publications related to cognition both human and animal, animal science and behavior, psychology, brain science, language, and human development. From my brief survey of her publications for this assignment it seems she cites "Cognition" and "Animal Behavior" quite a bit.
3. Would they serendipitously scan for ideas? Where?
If she scans for ideas it would probably be form journals that are related to her research but that do not directly cover it, such as some of the human development journals. Because she is interested in the evolution of cognition and psychology reviewing the work of scientists that deals with infants and children could lead to interesting insight to non-human research. Also, Dr. Santos is on the editorial board of at least one on-line publication and she lists many publications for which she is an ad hoc reviewer; these too would serve as sources for idea discovery.
4. Where might they systematically look for information?
It is probably in the journals that she cites more frequently that Dr. Santos looks systematically for information. While I couldn't find which organizations to which she has membership it would be very unlikely that she does not belong to any. I'm sure she receives newsletters, publications and even list-serve e-mails from these associations. I know she attends conferences as her CV lists papers she has presented at conferences such as the International Primatological Society and the International Conference On Comparative Cognition. She probably also looks at the research her colleagues are publishing via their web sites.
5. Are there interdisciplinary aspects to their work? If so, how would this complicate their information seeking behavior?
In Dr Santos' own words
My research explores the evolutionary origins of the human mind by comparing the cognitive abilities of human and non-human primates. It provides an interface between evolutionary biology, developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. My experiments focus on non-human primates (in captivity and in the field) incorporating methodologies from cognitive development, animal learning psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
While these are related fields anyone exploring the evolution of cognition would have to keep appraised of research being done with humans and non-humans. An information seeker would also have to look in journals that deal with the physical structure of the brain as well as behavior patterns.
6. Is there a possibility that their work pulls information from sub-disciplines or disciplines that have historically been working somewhat in isolation from one another?
I'm not sure how disparate these would be but I noticed that Dr. Santos' work in cognition pulls from research done in sub-disciplines such as language acquisition, child development and primate behavior. I would guess that these fields are not entirely isolated from one another but do overlap to some degree.
7. Is there any evidence that they participate in some form of social (computerized or otherwise) networking – especially ones where they are exchanging information with colleagues?
I did not find any direct evidence of social networking, however Dr. Santos has links on her web page to many of her colleagues web-pages (both at Yale and other institutions), has co-written many papers, and as mentioned above has presented papers at conferences.
8. Are the journals, or other information that they are citing, open access?
Dr. Santos cites journals that are both open access and publisher restricted.
Many of the journals cited are published by the APA. APA journals are available free on their web site -
Some of the other journals she cites are from publishers such as Elsevier which allow the author to archive pre- and post-publication; these type of articles may be available on sites such as PubMed, a personal web page like Dr. Santos' own, or a university repository. But many times this type of archiving can be difficult to discover, part of the "hidden web".
Recommendations
If I were asked by a patron to help with research in this field, after my initial moment of panic, I would probably start them off with an EBSCO search using PsycARTICLES, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, Medline, Philosopher's Index, and Biological Abstracts. If we were not in a library with access to those EBSCO options I might start them off with a Google Scholar search. I would also suggest looking at APA's offerings. While we were exploring one of those options I would calm down and remember how helpful PubMed can be and direct the patron there as well. Once the patron found a some useful articles I would suggest checking the authors in the ISI to see who is frequently cited; this would give the patron an idea of who's work is being most widely read by others in the field. I would also encourage them to look for authors' web sites. If the patron was not just doing one research paper but really planned to delve into the field, I would also suggest setting up a "comprehensive" Google news alert (scanning regular news, blogs, groups, etc.) with keywords such as "primate cognition" and "evolutionary psychology".
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