Electronic journal use and E Guide - Resources and Review

Final report of an eLib Supporting Study conducted between March and July 1997. It covers several issues of relevance to the electronic libraries community in promoting the use of electronic resources or planning future activities, and highlights changes of particular importance to the assessment of quality, to ways of forming relationships, to the use of language and to the ownership of knowledge.
 
Ongoing article (updated October 1998) reporting studies undertaken to determine the level of use of electronic information resources, and whether student attitudes depend on subject studied. Results indicated that over 80% of students used CD
ROMs, over 76% used the Internet, only 46% claimed to use library OPACs, 37% used electronic journals, and 36% used BIDS, but usage varied considerably according to subject studied.
 
This paper outlines a series of quantitative and qualitative models for understanding and evaluating the use of electronic scholarly journals, and summarises data based on the experience of Project Muse at Johns Hopkins University and early feedback received from subscribing libraries.
 
This study reports on faculty response to the Journal STORage project (JSTOR), an online system for accessing digital archives of core journals in history and economics. Data were collected about general journal use, Internet use, and JSTOR use via a survey administered to 160 historians and economists at the University of Michigan and at five liberal arts colleges. Results show that most faculty do not yet use JSTOR.
 
The Pilot Site Licence Initiative (PSLI) and the Electronic Libraries (eLib) research programme have been catalysts for dramatic change in journals publishing in the UK. Covering over 30 publishers and over 20 other electronic journals and related research projects, this report marks the extent of the change and reflects on how electronic journals will develop next.
 
Article from The Serials Librarian which outlines different methods of measuring usage of electronic journals, suggests that different types of access may be mapped to the user activities of browsing, reading and searching, and draws inferences about why different titles have different patterns of usage, eg whether they are primarily used for research and reference, current awareness or casual browsing.
 
Conference paper (January 1999) which reports on a case study of the library at the Australian National University and its client community. The research examined the effect of enhanced electronic access to information on patterns of scholarly communication, and showed that disciplinary culture does affect academics' adoption of the new technologies. This has implications for academic libraries as they plan and develop training programmes, and for the designers of electronic databases and electronic journals.
 
JISC Electronic Libraries Programme supporting study, published in November 1997, which compares the impact of electronic journals in the natural sciences, the social sciences and humanities and in applied disciplines.
 
It is widely expected that a great deal of scholarly communication will move to an electronic format. The Internet offers much lower cost of reproduction and distribution than print, the scholarly community has excellent connectivity, and the current system of journal pricing seems to be too expensive. Each of these factors are helping push journals from paper to electronic media. This paper puts forward ideas about the impact this movement will have on scholarly communication.
 
Article intended to help library professionals who wish to provide access to electronic journals. It considers issues such as what titles to provide, what will it cost, and whether to use an aggregator service.
 
Paper assessing the value and user perception of electronic journals. With reference to studies conducted since 1980 onwards, various behaviours and attitudes are described which suggest that electronic journals may not be as popular as publishers believe.
 
Discussion of research to assess the impact of electronic journals on scholarly communication, by measuring the extent to which they are being cited in the literature, both print and electronic. Provides a picture of the impact electronic journals were having on scholarly communication at the end of 1995.
 
Article discussing whether or not electronic publications are likely to replace primary journal literature. Includes information on barriers to independent scholarly publishing, prestige of editorial work and standardisation of material.
 
Papers from this conference covering topics such as the economics of electronic scholarly publishing, incorporating technology into academia, the future of consortia and access versus ownership, electronic content licensing, and updates on several electronic scholarly initiatives such as the Columbia University Online Books Project, Project Muse at Johns Hopkins University, and JSTOR.
 
Article about the impact of electronic publishing, and how its capabilities have influenced the distribution of information.
 
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