Barbara Spina and four co-authors, The impact of e-journal access on DocDel Service activities, Proceedings of the 9th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Santander (Spain), 2004. From the abstract: 'In the summer 2003, an agreement with CILEA has provided the Biblioteca Centrale dell'Area Biomedica of Cagliari with access to a wide range of journals in electronic format through Elsevier ScienceDirect....The "potential users" of Elsevier ScienceDirect consisted of people relatively familiar with using online version of scientific journals and retrieving articles. They were researchers belonging to the fields of biological sciences, medicine and other research fields related to life sciences. Library management decided to conduct a six months survey (July/December 2003) to assess the extent of e-journals use and in particular to determine their effects on DocDel Service activities. Aim of the study was also to consider the cost–benefit aspects of the direct access to biomedical literature by library patrons. Our expectation was that we would have a decrease in user requests for journals articles via our DocDel Service....Comparing data concerning DocDel Service (July/December 2003) with statistical findings of a corresponding period in the year 2002, we experienced a decrease by 27,98% in the number of requested and supplied documents. The requests were mainly restricted to older materials.' (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/14/2004 10:52:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
