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Massive projects from the University of Bath in the late 1960's brought knowledge of how scholars use social science information up to the level of similar knowledge for the natural sciences. Persistent themes of selected studies since Bath include: Social, like natural, scientists tend to use private sources and informal networks rather than libraries; value of citation studies as guides to library collection building is disputed: machine access to social science data bases is increasing and is accepted but trained operators are required; social science research findings are reaching and influencing policy makers to a greater extent than previously thought.
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Perry D. Morrison (1979) studied this question.
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