| Abstract: | ABSTRACT Although printed information on secondary reading has expanded, adequate synthesis across types of publications is lacking. This study suggests and tests the hypothesis that professional textbooks serve a major role in broad synthesis of information for secondary reading. Research results from the bibliometric analysis of five secondary textbooks indicate: (1) no consistent pattern of reference use by authors, (2) wide author variation in the types of publications cited, (3) predominance of monographic over serial, dissertation, report and research literature citation, (4) referencing of older archival rather than more recent sources, (5) relatively few materials cited which appeared within 1 to 4 years of the publication dates of the five texts, and (6) low percentages of citation overlap and minor referral to a common body of literature by the five authors. According to this Investigation, it appears that individual professional texts do not necessarily reflect the extant information base or state‐of‐the‐art in secondary reading. The authors recommend existing information tools be modified to incorporate more effective perpetual literature synthesis or new tools be created by learned societies to fill the information synthesis gap. |
