PurposeThis JISC funded UK National E‐Books Observatory study is a benchmarking survey of e‐book usage and perceptions in more than 120 participating universities. The paper aims to present the results that investigated: use of e‐books in general (methods of obtaining e‐books, reasons for using, viewing/reading behaviour in connection with e‐books); use of e‐books provided by the library; use of JISC collection texts (use and awareness); use of the library and print material in general.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on an online survey which was conducted between 18 January and 1 March 2008, over which period 22,437 full or partial responses were received.FindingsThe study shows that e‐book penetration is very strong (61.8 per cent of all students are already using them in connection with their scholarly work, as teachers or students), so the e‐book revolution has already happened but clearly it has some way to go.Originality/valueThe paper presents the results of the biggest survey of its kind ever conducted, which represents a huge advance in one's knowledge of e‐book use on a national scale.
The psychology of tourism is a new, multidisciplinary research field. However, no systematic analyses of the scientific production in this field have been carried out to date. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the area of psychology of tourism between 1990 and 2005. The evolution of scientific production during this period, Price's, Lotka's and Bradford's laws and citation patterns were studied. The results show a significant growth in the literature on the subject, as well as an increase in coauthorship and institutional collaboration. Bibliometric laws and empiric regularities observed in other disciplines are also present in this new research field.
This paper analyses the scientific output and impact of 731 Ph.D. holders who were awarded their doctorate at Spanish universities between 1990 and 2002. The aim was to identify any differences in the amount of scientific output and the impact of publications, in terms of citations, according to gender. The analysis revealed no significant differences in the amount of scientific output between males and females. However, the proportion of female Ph.D. holders with no postdoctoral output was significantly higher than that of their male counterparts, and the median number of papers published after Ph.D. completion was also lower among women. As regards pre-and postdoctoral research, the data showed that early scientific output may be a good predictor of subsequent productivity in both gender groups. The results also indicated that articles by female Ph.D. holders were cited significantly more often, even when selfcitations were excluded.
A qualitative study of the impact of electronic journals on the information behavior of academics at Catalan universities shows that academics now read more, and more widely. However, their reading is becoming more superficial; they are compelled to improve their discrimination skills in order to decide what to read in more depth. The electronic accessibility of journals means that academics now make fewer library visits. Web browsing and TOC e-mail alerts are replacing physical browsing, and searching is a very popular option for keeping up to date with developments. Internet search engines, especially Google and Google Scholar, are becoming important sources of information for academics. However, they face problems in managing their personal scientific information. IntroductionThe amount of electronic information available to academic researchers has increased tremendously during the last decade. During this period, accessibility to electronic contents has improved greatly, especially compared to earlier times when most of the information was availably only in printed format. Today, scientists have a wide range of channels through which they can locate and access published literature -bibliographic databases, alert services, hyperlinks, and so on. In this context, it is essential to establish how the increase in the amount of information available and the improvement in its accessibility have affected scholars' information behavior, in order to make suggestions for redefining and adapting the services offered by academic libraries. This task is especially urgent in view of the fact that most of the acquisition budgets of academic libraries are devoted to electronic contents.
Despite the extensive use of web surveys today, there are certain methodological factors related to participant cooperation and data quality, which remain unclear and require further study. Here, the authors compare responses to a survey administered in two formats—electronic or by post—in terms of overall response rate and the quality of the data collected. Web and mail questionnaires were sent to a sample of 572 PhD holders, asking them about aspects related to their academic career and personal and family data to investigate the factors that determine scientific productivity. The web questionnaire elicited a significantly higher response rate than the mail questionnaire. Response rates did not differ between males and females; however, topic salience had an effect on the response rate. Finally, data quality was higher in web surveys than in the mail surveys, with fewer overall errors, fewer missing items, and longer responses in open-ended questions.
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