[nfais-l] How Readers Discover Content in Scholarly Journals

[jilloneill at nfais.org]

NFAIS members may be interested in at least reviewing the summary report of this survey of 19,000 individuals conducted by Tracy Gardner and Simon Inger. (The full report is available at a cost, whereas the 28-page summary is available for free). Visit the Renew Training website: [http://renewtraining.com/publications.htm] http://renewtraining.com/publications.htm for the appropriate link. NFAIS member organization, CABI, was one of the sponsors of this survey.
 
Portions of the press release appear below:
 

Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner publish results of largest ever study into How Readers Discover Content in Scholarly Journals


<snip>
 
The report, which is the culmination of a 6-month research project and has the backing of leading publishers within STM, Humanities and Social Science, compares the changing reader behaviour between 2005 and 2012 and as a result looks at the impact on publisher and library web site design and function.
 
<snip>
 
The research repeats two earlier studies performed in 2005 by Scholarly Information Strategies (for whom the authors were consultants) and in 2008 by the authors. The shifts in reader preferences over time provide a valuable insight into reader navigation, the features that readers find useful in publisher web sites, and the role and effectiveness of library technologies. The 2012 survey was also updated to include questions about search engine preference and app use.


<snip>


So, for example, answers to all the following questions can be found in the report:
In which subject areas, regions, job roles and sectors do readers make the most use of aggregated databases when searching for online articles?
Is Baidu, Google or Google Scholar the most popular search engine amongst students in China?
Which features do students, lecturers and academic researchers find most useful on Publisher web sites?
Which sectors make the most use of journal homepages and ToC Alerts?

<snip>


The survey was supported by BMJ Group, CABI, Cambridge University Press, IOP Publishing, Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Publishing Technology, RSC Publishing and SAGE.
 
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