The American Mathematical Society produces, at great expense, Mathematical Reveiws, which provides a capsule summary of every paper published in a mathematics journal. Here’s something that just occurred to me today: does anyone actually use these reviews? I’ve used MR as a bibliography of papers by a particular author, but I can’t say I’ve ever read one of the reviews out of anything but idle curiousity. Does anyone else rely on this feature of MR?
Update. Apparently, it’s just me. I’ve been informed via email that everyone uses MR reviews.
Sure, I use MathSciNet (the online version of MR) at least a couple of times a week.
(Actually, now that I think about it, that’s overzealous — in weeks where I’m actively researching something new, I use it constantly, while other months [when finals loom etc.] I don’t open it at all. It probably averages to slightly less than once a week over the long term.)
What do you use the reviews for?
To find out the content of the papers, mostly. Also to get a sense of whether they’re worth reading.