Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Ejournals preferred but access barriers deter use

Patricia Serotkin, Patricia Fitzgerald, and Sandra Balough, If We Build It, Will They Come? Electronic Journals Acceptance and Usage Patterns, Portal, October 2005. (Thanks to Charles W. Bailey, Jr.) Only this abstract is free online for non-subscribers:
A focus group study conducted with health sciences students enrolled in graduate-level research classes at a small private comprehensive university revealed that these students preferred e-journals to print but that accessibility issues deterred their use. These findings provided valuable insights for local collection development decision-making and information literacy program development.
(PS: Presumably the access barriers that put off users were for toll-access ejournals.)