The sharing of scholarly articles is an intrinsic and often ignored facet of the value and mission of scholarship. It is so entwined in the daily work life of scholars that it has almost become second nature, an integral part of the research process itself. This article addresses this often overlooked area of research in usage studies. In an international survey of 1,000 published scholars, the Beyond Downloads project examined their sharing behaviours in order to gain a more contextualized and accurate picture of their usage beyond download patterns and citation counts. Scholars share published articles with others as a mode of content discovery and dissemination, particularly if they work in groups, and most expect to increase their sharing in the future. While their methods of sharing articles may change, and their reasons for sharing may vary from self‐promotion to the more altruistic motives of scientific progress, they desire to share the final published versions of articles with their colleagues.
With more scholarly journals being distributed electronically rather than in print form, we know that researchers download many articles. What is less well known is how journal articles are used after they are initially downloaded. To what extent are they saved, uploaded, tweeted, or otherwise shared? How does this reuse increase their total use and value to research and how does it influence library usage figures? University of Tennessee Chancellor's Professor Carol Tenopir, Professor Suzie Allard, and Adjunct Professor David Nicholas are leading a team of international researchers on a the project, "Beyond Downloads," funded by a grant from Elsevier. The project will look at how and why scholarly electronic articles are downloaded, saved, and shared by researchers. Sharing in today's digital environment may include links posted on social media, like Twitter, and in blogs or via e-mail. Having a realistic estimate of this secondary use will help provide a more accurate picture of the total use of scholarly articles.The speakers will present the objectives of the study, share the approach and avenues of exploration, and report on some preliminary findings. Furthermore, the speakers will discuss how the potential learnings could yield benefits to the library community.
This article describes and discusses consortia models in Europe. Emphasis is given to those consortia that support content provision and access to electronic information resources in society. Four country cases are introduced as examples of the heterogeneous solutions chosen by the consortia. The main results and impact of the consortia are discussed. International cooperation has played an important role in the development of consortia in Europe. Regional and global collaboration initiatives are also discussed.
Considers the preliminary findings of the Cafe Jus research project, investigating end user reactions to electronic journals. Issues explored include: access to e‐journals; reading habits; human factors; financial implications; and the future roles of librarians, subscription agents and publishers in the electronic environment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.