Use Patterns of Print and Electronic Journals Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences ctenopir@utk.edu

Studies Surveys of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) members in cooperation with the AAS (2001-2002) Two user surveys with over 1,000 responses

Surveys AAS 1 and 2 University of Tennessee Science, Social Science and Engineering Faculty University of Tennessee Medical Faculty ORNL National Surveys since 1977

Two Surveys of AAS Members Explored reading patterns and journal use The questionnaire for Survey 1 can be found at http://web.utk.edu/~tenopir/Astronomy_Survey.html Survey 2 Explored use of electronic journals and asked users to rate electronic journal features the questionnaire for Survey 2 is located at http://web.utk.edu/~tenopir/AAS_Survey.html

Scholarly Article Readings by Work Field

Time Spent Reading by Work Field

Time spent reading per article 81 minutes per article Engineers 45 minutes per article Physicists 43 minutes per article Chemists 39 minutes per article Astronomers 22 minutes per article University Medical Faculty

Time Spent and Number of Articles Read

Age of Readings This is print and electronic together.

Electronic Articles Reading E-journals E-prints Other Total AAS 58.6% 18.3% 2% 78.9%   ORNL 17.3% 3.6% 14% 34.9% UTK 15% ~15% 5% ~35% Proportions of reading vary among groups Astronomers rely most on electronic and eprint UTK Faculty read more print than electronic ORNL Scientists read more print than electronic Electronic sources do not take less time to read

Source of Electronic Articles Electronic subscriptions paid for by libraries are the single largest source for readings. Over one-quarter of the readings came from electronic subscriptions through libraries. The next most common source was from the ADS Archive Other= personal print and electronic subscriptions (15.2%) Library print subscription (6.1%) Shared print subscription (0.8%) Copy from colleague, author, etc. (4.5%) Interlibrary loan (0.6%) Author’s website (0.8%) Unspecified (1.2%)

Age of Digital Articles Read AAS survey showed similar results for astronomers’ readings from digital media 66.6% are 1 year old or less 75% are from within the last 2 years Since AAS has backfile articles available electronically, use of older articles are expected to increase Source: 2002 AAS survey, Tenopir and King, IT paper, 2002

Manner of Reading Total responses= 510

Preferred Formats (AAS) Astronomers prefer electronic access, but generally prefer to read hardcopy documents. 19 percent of articles read by astronomers are from print resources 81 percent of articles read by astronomers are from electronic resources Of those, about 59 percent (58.7%) are downloaded and printed off for reading, only about 22 percent (22.3%) are read directly off the screen.

Time Spent with Articles (Electronic Journals) Locating 15.6 minutes per article 46.8 hours per year Reading 39.4 minutes per article 118.2 hours per year 165 hours per year total Acquiring = Browsing, obtaining, downloading, copying/printing, other This data is only electronic journals and does not include materials from Author’s websites, or Digital e-print archive. CAUTION- Preliminary Analysis Only - These numbers will change.

Time Spent with Articles (Print) Locating 23.3 minutes per article 18.6 hours per year Reading 37.9 minutes per article 30.3 hours per year 48.9 hours per year total Acquiring = Browsing, obtaining, downloading, copying/printing, other This data is only print journals and does not include materials from Paper Preprints. Total time spent per year locating and reading articles (both print and electronic journals) = 213.96 hrs/yr CAUTION- Preliminary Analysis Only - These numbers will change.

Manner in which articles found Online searches are the more common method of locating electronic articles, while using the citations in the articles is more common for locating print articles.

Purposes of Reading Primary purposes Secondary purposes Primary research Background research Current awareness Writing Secondary purposes Teaching Advising others Preparing presentations.

Value of Readings Inspiring new thinking Improving the result of their task for which the reading was done Changing the focus of their work Helping to resolve technical problems Saving time or resources

Reasons for reading keeping up with current developments as well as for obtaining definitive information. 72 percent of astronomers rate electronic journals as either “very useful” or “essential” for keeping up with recent developments. seeking definitive information 96 percent of astronomers rate e-journals as either “essential” or “very useful” for delivering definitive results. Astronomers value the e-journals even more highly than print for definitive information. Elec. Print Total % No. % No. AAS- 228 25.6 59 5.8 13 UTS- 184 9.0 17 23.0 42 UTM- 322 12.7 41 7.6 24 ORNL- 113 21.3 24 26.7 30 UTS= UT Scientists UTM= UT Medical Source AAS, UT and ORNL surveys (N= 767) Also of interest is that the average time spent reading older articles is 40 minutes per article, compared with 25 minutes for recent articles, as might be expected given the purpose of use. Even when the articles were new to the reader, the information was not always new. Over 44% indicated the information in the article was known to them before they read this article. The readings are mostly first time readings, but nearly one-quarter (23.2%) of respondents indicated they had read this same article before. Source: King, Donald W. “Library Economic Measures: Examples of the Comparison of Electronic & Print Journal Collections and Collection Services”. Library Trends. 2002. In Publication.

Awareness of E-print Services (in percent of respondents) ArXiv.org PrePrint Other Network AAS 84.5% 4.7% u/k ORNL 49% 25% u/k UTK 8% 6% 4% Preprints are well established in some fields E-prints have begun to replace preprints and incorporate postprints into one service Many scientists and academics are not aware of general e-print resources Astronomers are familiar with e-print resources available through professional organizations (AAS) Awareness doesn’t always translate to use, however, as nearly a quarter of the respondents have never used arXiv.org/astro-ph and 98% have never used the PrePrint Network. Users of eprint services tend to be regular users. Nearly half (47.2%) of the astronomers read three or more arXiv.org/astro-ph eprints each month, and nearly 14% read seven or more eprints per month. Clearly arXiv.org/astro-ph is the eprint service of choice for astronomers. Only 2% of respondents have ever used DOE’s PrePrint network and 19% have used other preprint services, but only a few read three or more eprints per month from other services (4.9% of the total respondents).

Contributions to Electronic Collections 60% of AAS member have submitted articles to arXiv.org/astro-ph services or other eprint services Very few use the eprint services as a complete substitute for publishing in journals Bullet 1-mostly at the time they get the article accepted by a journal (65.6%) or at the time they submit it to a journal (24.6%). Bullet 2-(only 9.9% say they don’t plan to publish in journals anymore.)

Awareness of field specific electronic resources 97% of AAS members know about the NASA database ADS over 50% use it at least every other day. 27% use ADS every day. ADS usage statistics confirm this level of activity. Source: King, Donald W. “Library Economic Measures: Examples of the Comparison of Electronic & Print Journal Collections and Collection Services”. Library Trends. 2002. In Publication.

Overall Observations Scientists use journals and e-prints for research support, current awareness, fact-finding AAS members have come to rely more on electronic journals than many other user groups

Attributes that enhance perceptions of usefulness (AAS) availability of both older and recent articles in electronic medium, forward and backward linkages preprint access machine readable data tables links to the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) inclusion of images and color The survey of AAS members provided an opportunity to gain a glimpse of information seeking and reading patterns for older materials since their electronic journals go back to 1849. The age distribution of articles read from AAS electronic journals is almost exactly that observed by scientists generally in recent years and even in 1960 (Tenopir &King 2000).