Scientists’ Use of Journals: Differences (and Similarities) Between Print and Electronic

Carol Tenopir (ctenopir@utk.edu)

Donald W. King, Randy Hoffman,

Elizabeth McSween, Christopher Ryland,

Erin Smith

ORNL Surveys1984

• survey of sample of scientists

• journal information seeking and reading

• pre-electronic

2000• replicated 1984

survey

• journal information seeking and reading

• print vs. electronic

• awareness of e-print services

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)

• Established in 1943 in Oak Ridge, TN, for wartime weaponry research

• Employs 1,500 scientists and engineers for energy, environment, and other R&D

• Largest energy program among Dept. of Energy Labs

Study Methods1984

• random sample from ORNL, Rocky Flats, and Rockwell

• 68.5% return rate (137 out of 200)

2000• random sample

from ORNL

• 25.3% return rate (76 out of 300)

Distribution of Respondents by Scientific Field: ORNL 2000

Chemistry13%

Other24%

Engineering39%

Physics24%

The predominantsciences at ORNL are those found by others to be most likely to use electronic journals.

Amount of Reading

1984

averaged reading

99

articles per year

2000

averaged reading

113

articles per year

engineers ~ 6 per month

physicists ~ 17 per month

chemists ~ 23 per month

Age of Last Article Read

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1 year 2-3 years 4-10 years 11+ years

19842000

Proportion of Sources Used to Obtain Articles--Percent

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

PersonalSubscription

LibrarySubscription

Shared Dept/Unit

Collection

SeparateCopy

19842000

Sources of Readings

Scientists appear to be reading from more journals—at least one article per year from approximately 23 journals, up from 13 in the late 1970s and 18 in the mid-1990s.

% and amount of readings from separate copies

use of personal subscriptions

Some Causes for Increase in Range of Journal Titles and

Amount of Readings from Separates

• Increase in readings 7.5% in 1984

identified by 13.3% in 2000

online searches

• Increase in readings 8.6% in 1984

identified by 24.0% in 2000

other persons

Electronic Journal Reading in 2000

• 35% of all readings

• Over ½ of these from browsing library electronic subscriptions (16%)

• also from free web sites (2.7%)

• Personal electronic subscriptions (1.3%)

Time Spent

Electronic

• Browsing: 13.3 min

• Locating: 17.7 min

• Reading (from the screen): 20 min

Print

• Browsing: 6.5 min

• Locating: 8.2 min

• Reading (downloaded/ print): 62 min

Preprints

• Electronic preprints accounted for 3.6% of total readings

• 1/3 of ORNL scientists were aware of LANL’s arXiv.org and 1/4 were aware of the DOE PrePrint Network.

Eprint Usage

• 3/4 of those aware of arXiv.org had read 7.9 articles per person in the past year, but only 14% had ever submitted papers to the service.

• 1/2 of those aware of the DOE PrePrint Network read an average of 6 preprints from the service in the past year

Conclusions

• ORNL scientists are reading more• Differences by work field• Rely more on separate copies and less on

subscriptions• Read from more journal titles• 1/3 of readings are electronic• ORNL scientists don’t use preprint servers

much