The flow of publications is another example. It involves the whole information industry that is responsible for publishing, collecting, storing, representing, delivering and providing access to the publications. Both flows are almost beyond the control of scientists. Though research collaboration in China has increased rapidly since the 1980s, the scale is still very limited both at national and international levels. Though the collaboration in Science in China was less developed in terms of its scope, Chinese scientists extensively used the literature in foreign languages.
Earth sciences are a particular case in which the use of Chinese literature was the highest.
This is probably because research in this field has largely focused on the geological, geophysical or oceanographic phenomena in China. Most of the observational and surveying data are recorded and published in Chinese. Citation age is another indicator for scientific communication. It reflects the currency of the information used by scientists. Conferences are a good way to network people, initiate collaborative research projects and keep abreast of new developments.