1. Use Patterns of Print and Electronic Journals
Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences

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

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

4. Two Surveys of AAS Members
Explored reading patterns and journal use
The questionnaire for Survey 1 can be found at
Survey 2
Explored use of electronic journals and asked users to rate electronic journal features
the questionnaire for Survey 2 is located at

5. Scholarly Article Readings by Work Field

6. Time Spent Reading by Work Field

7. 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

8. Time Spent and Number of Articles Read

9. Age of Readings
This is print and electronic together.

10. Electronic Articles Reading
E-journals E-prints Other Total
AAS % % 2% %
ORNL 17.3% % % %
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

11. 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%)

12. 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

13. Manner of Reading
Total responses= 510

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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) = hrs/yr
CAUTION- Preliminary Analysis Only - These numbers will change.

17. 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.

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

19. 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

20. 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
UTS
UTM
ORNL
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 In Publication.

21. Awareness of E-print Services (in percent of respondents)
ArXiv.org PrePrint Other Network
AAS % % u/k
ORNL % 25% u/k
UTK % % %
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).

22. 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.)

23. 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 In Publication.

24. 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

25. 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 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).