Historical research in the atmospheric sciences: The value of literature reviews, libraries, and librarians

Abstract

Based on a talk given at the sixth annual meeting of the Atmospheric Science Librarians International, this paper explores the author's experiences performing reviews of the scientific literature as a tool to advancing meteorology and studying the history of science. Three phases of performing literature searches with varying degrees of interaction with a research librarian are considered: do it yourself, librarian assisted, and librarian as collaborator. Examples are given for each phase: occluded fronts, conditional symmetric instability, and static instability terminology, respectively. Electronic availability of information is changing the relationship between scientists and librarians. Yet, despite these changes, books on library shelves and knowledgeable human librarians remain essential to the scientific enterprise.