Use and Users of Electronic Journals

To present the latest results of research at the Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia (CBUC). To quantify the usage of electronic journals at Catalan Universities when the digital environment is a fact. Actually, this research hopes to complete the previous studies. A whole range of methods has been employed to assess the use of electronic journals, typically online questionnaire surveys (Rusch-Feja, 1999), and surveys/interviews/focus groups. Online surveys are ubiquitous, while log transactions studies are not so common, but on the increase (Gargiullo, 2003). The use of different methods makes comparison and establishing a consensus difficult. Tenopir reports findings from a number of research studies on the use of electronic sources. She notes that “although the use of electronic versions still varies from discipline to discipline, almost all will adopt peer-reviewed electronic journals that make their work easier and for which the cost is free or subsidised by the library”. Jamali, Nicholas and Huntington (2005) explained that the literature review had offered different kind of conclusions related to the success or failure of Big Deals. At the same time, these studies had given dates about behaviour search use. Log analysis from 2000 to 2006 of the use of Emerald, Elsevier, Wiley and Kluwer. To complete it, we will send e-mail surveys at Research Staff. An increase of use year by year and a proliferation of new tittles. University of Barcelona (UB) is in the first position of downloads, followed by University Autònoma of Barcelona (UAB). Dates of use and production are close to the size of the institution. Natural Science and Biomedicine are the disciplines that have a high use of electronic journals. The preference for PDF format instead of HTML. There is a greater dispersion in the consumption between the titles than in the paper world, with 80 per cent of the requests corresponding to 35 per cent of the titles. Demonstrate a powerful method, deep log analysis, complemented by e-mail surveys for evaluating information seeking behavior.