Accessing electronic journals and other E-publications: An empirical study

College and Research Libraries

Volumn 57, Issue 5, 1996, Pages 440-456

  Harter, S P ^a   Kim, H J ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 5844315527     PISSN: 00100870     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5860/crl_57_05_440     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. Charles B. Osburn, "The Place of the Journal in the Scholarly Communications System," Library Resources & Technical Services 28, no. 4 (Oct./Dec. 1984): 315-24.
2. For discussions of the traditional journal system, see Bernard Houghton, Scientific Periodicals: Their Historical Development, Characteristics and Control (Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1975); Fritz Machlup and Kenneth Leeson, Information through the Printed Word: The Dissemination of Scholarly, Scientific, and Intellectual Knowledge, vol. 2, Journals (New York: Praeger, 1978); and Donald W. King, Dennis D. McDonald, and Nancy K. Roderer, Scientific Journals in the United States (Stroudsburg, Penn.: Hutchinson Ross Publishing, 1981).
3. For discussions of the traditional journal system, see Bernard Houghton, Scientific Periodicals: Their Historical Development, Characteristics and Control (Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1975); Fritz Machlup and Kenneth Leeson, Information through the Printed Word: The Dissemination of Scholarly, Scientific, and Intellectual Knowledge, vol. 2, Journals (New York: Praeger, 1978); and Donald W. King, Dennis D. McDonald, and Nancy K. Roderer, Scientific Journals in the United States (Stroudsburg, Penn.: Hutchinson Ross Publishing, 1981).
4. For discussions of the traditional journal system, see Bernard Houghton, Scientific Periodicals: Their Historical Development, Characteristics and Control (Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1975); Fritz Machlup and Kenneth Leeson, Information through the Printed Word: The Dissemination of Scholarly, Scientific, and Intellectual Knowledge, vol. 2, Journals (New York: Praeger, 1978); and Donald W. King, Dennis D. McDonald, and Nancy K. Roderer, Scientific Journals in the United States (Stroudsburg, Penn.: Hutchinson Ross Publishing, 1981).
5. Woodward divides electronic journals into three types: online (available from a commercial vendor such as DIALOG or Lexis/Nexis), CD-ROM, and networked (available directly on the Internet or other academic network). See Hazel Woodward, "The Impact of Electronic Information on Serials Collection Management," IFLA Journal 20, no. 1 (1994): 35-45. However, because DIALOG and other vendors are now searchable on the Internet, these are no longer mutually exclusive categories. Operationally, networked e-journals are defined in this article by the inclusion criteria used by the two directories the authors used to draw their samples: Mecklermedia's Internet World's on Internet 94 and ARL's Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists (see note 8 for full citations). Neither directory includes e-journals available through a commercial vendor such as DIALOG.
6. Selected findings from the full study are found in Stephen P. Harter and Hak Joon Kim, "Electronic Journals and Scholarly Communication: A Citation and Reference Study" (paper presented at midyear meeting of the American Society for Information Science, San Diego, Calif., May 18-22, 1996). The text of the paper is available at URL: 〈http://www-slis.lib.indiana.edu /PrePrints/harter-asis96midyear.html〉. The portion of the study presenting the results of several citation analyses of selected e-journals is reported in Stephen P. Harter, "The Impact of Electronic Journals on Scholarly Communication: A Citation Analysis," Public-Access Computer Systems Review 7 (1996) [in press]. PACS Review is available at URL: 〈http://info.lib.uh.edu/ pacsrev.html〉
7. Selected findings from the full study are found in Stephen P. Harter and Hak Joon Kim, "Electronic Journals and Scholarly Communication: A Citation and Reference Study" (paper presented at midyear meeting of the American Society for Information Science, San Diego, Calif., May 18-22, 1996). The text of the paper is available at URL: 〈http://www-slis.lib.indiana.edu /PrePrints/harter-asis96midyear.html〉. The portion of the study presenting the results of several citation analyses of selected e-journals is reported in Stephen P. Harter, "The Impact of Electronic Journals on Scholarly Communication: A Citation Analysis," Public-Access Computer Systems Review 7 (1996) [in press]. PACS Review is available at URL: 〈http://info.lib.uh.edu/ pacsrev.html〉
8. Andrew M. Odlyzko, "Tragic Loss or Good Riddance? The Impending Demise of Traditional Scholarly Journals," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 42 (1995): 71-122; Stevan Harnad, "The Postgutenberg Galaxy: How to Get There from Here," Information Society 11 (Oct./Dec. 1995): 285-91.
9. Andrew M. Odlyzko, "Tragic Loss or Good Riddance? The Impending Demise of Traditional Scholarly Journals," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 42 (1995): 71-122; Stevan Harnad, "The Postgutenberg Galaxy: How to Get There from Here," Information Society 11 (Oct./Dec. 1995): 285-91.
10. For exceptions, see Blaise Cronin and Kara Overfelt, "E-journals and Tenure," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46, no. 9 (Oct. 1995): 700-03; Hans Roes, "Electronic Journals: A Survey of the Literature and the Net" (Dec. 1994), available at URL: 〈http:// cwis.kub.nl/∼dbi/cwis/pub/ejourn.htm〉; Steve Hitchcock, Leslie Carr, and Wendy Hall, "A Survey of STM Online Journals 1990-95: The Calm before the Storm" (Jan. 1996), available at URL: 〈http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/survey/survey.html〉; and F. W. Lancaster, "Attitudes in Academia toward Feasibility and Desirability of Networked Scholarly Publishing," Library Trends 43 (spring 1995) 741-52.
11. For exceptions, see Blaise Cronin and Kara Overfelt, "E-journals and Tenure," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46, no. 9 (Oct. 1995): 700-03; Hans Roes, "Electronic Journals: A Survey of the Literature and the Net" (Dec. 1994), available at URL: 〈http:// cwis.kub.nl/∼dbi/cwis/pub/ejourn.htm〉; Steve Hitchcock, Leslie Carr, and Wendy Hall, "A Survey of STM Online Journals 1990-95: The Calm before the Storm" (Jan. 1996), available at URL: 〈http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/survey/survey.html〉; and F. W. Lancaster, "Attitudes in Academia toward Feasibility and Desirability of Networked Scholarly Publishing," Library Trends 43 (spring 1995) 741-52.
12. For exceptions, see Blaise Cronin and Kara Overfelt, "E-journals and Tenure," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46, no. 9 (Oct. 1995): 700-03; Hans Roes, "Electronic Journals: A Survey of the Literature and the Net" (Dec. 1994), available at URL: 〈http:// cwis.kub.nl/∼dbi/cwis/pub/ejourn.htm〉; Steve Hitchcock, Leslie Carr, and Wendy Hall, "A Survey of STM Online Journals 1990-95: The Calm before the Storm" (Jan. 1996), available at URL: 〈http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/survey/survey.html〉; and F. W. Lancaster, "Attitudes in Academia toward Feasibility and Desirability of Networked Scholarly Publishing," Library Trends 43 (spring 1995) 741-52.
13. For exceptions, see Blaise Cronin and Kara Overfelt, "E-journals and Tenure," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46, no. 9 (Oct. 1995): 700-03; Hans Roes, "Electronic Journals: A Survey of the Literature and the Net" (Dec. 1994), available at URL: 〈http:// cwis.kub.nl/∼dbi/cwis/pub/ejourn.htm〉; Steve Hitchcock, Leslie Carr, and Wendy Hall, "A Survey of STM Online Journals 1990-95: The Calm before the Storm" (Jan. 1996), available at URL: 〈http://journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/survey/survey.html〉; and F. W. Lancaster, "Attitudes in Academia toward Feasibility and Desirability of Networked Scholarly Publishing," Library Trends 43 (spring 1995) 741-52.
14. Hazel Woodward and Cliff McKnight, "Electronic Journals: Issues of Access and Bibliographical Control," Serials Review 21, no. 2 (summer 1995): 71-78. A useful analysis of access options is provided by Robert D. Cameron, "To Link or to Copy? Four Principles for Materials Acquisition in Internet Electronic Libraries," available at URL: 〈http://fas.sfu.ca/0/projects/ ElectronicLibrary/project/papers/e-lib-links.html〉.
15. Hazel Woodward and Cliff McKnight, "Electronic Journals: Issues of Access and Bibliographical Control," Serials Review 21, no. 2 (summer 1995): 71-78. A useful analysis of access options is provided by Robert D. Cameron, "To Link or to Copy? Four Principles for Materials Acquisition in Internet Electronic Libraries," available at URL: 〈http://fas.sfu.ca/0/projects/ ElectronicLibrary/project/papers/e-lib-links.html〉.
16. Tony Abbott, ed., Internet World's on Internet 94: An International Guide to Electronic Journals, Newsletters, Texts, Discussion Lists, and Other Resources on the Internet (Westport, Conn.: Mecklermedia, 1994); Ann Okerson, ed., Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists, 5th ed. (Washington, D.C.: ARL, 1995) (a truncated version of this is available at URL: 〈gopher://arl.cni.org:70/00/scomm/edir/edir95/jz〉); "NewJour: Electronic Journals and Newsletters" (the Internet list for new journals and newsletters available on the Internet), available at URL: 〈http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/〉.
17. Tony Abbott, ed., Internet World's on Internet 94: An International Guide to Electronic Journals, Newsletters, Texts, Discussion Lists, and Other Resources on the Internet (Westport, Conn.: Mecklermedia, 1994); Ann Okerson, ed., Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists, 5th ed. (Washington, D.C.: ARL, 1995) (a truncated version of this is available at URL: 〈gopher://arl.cni.org:70/00/scomm/edir/edir95/jz〉); "NewJour: Electronic Journals and Newsletters" (the Internet list for new journals and newsletters available on the Internet), available at URL: 〈http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/〉.
18. Tony Abbott, ed., Internet World's on Internet 94: An International Guide to Electronic Journals, Newsletters, Texts, Discussion Lists, and Other Resources on the Internet (Westport, Conn.: Mecklermedia, 1994); Ann Okerson, ed., Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists, 5th ed. (Washington, D.C.: ARL, 1995) (a truncated version of this is available at URL: 〈gopher://arl.cni.org:70/00/scomm/edir/edir95/jz〉); "NewJour: Electronic Journals and Newsletters" (the Internet list for new journals and newsletters available on the Internet), available at URL: 〈http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/〉.
19. For example, the Institute for Scientific Information currently indexes four e-journals in its databases: Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Gene-Combis, and Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing. Two additional titles are targeted for inclusion in the near future. Source: E-mail message from Eileen Curtin, Editorial Development, Institute for Scientific Information, to Stephen P. Harter, Feb. 12, 1996.
20. As of June 1995, when the study began, the 1995 edition of the Mecklermedia directory had not been published.
21. By inspecting the e-journals themselves, the authors later reduced this list to exclude many e-journals, zines, and newsletters that in their judgment did not report the results of research or scholarship, even though they identified themselves in one or both directories as peer-reviewed or refereed. The reference study was conducted on this smaller sample.
22. The CIC Electronic Journals Collection is available at URL: 〈http://ejournals.cic.net/〉. Other collections are "NewJour: Electronic Journals & Newsletters," available at URL: http:// gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/〉; and "Scholarly Journals Distributed via the World Wide Web," available at URL: 〈http://info.lib.uh.edu/wj/webjour.html〉.
23. The CIC Electronic Journals Collection is available at URL: 〈http://ejournals.cic.net/〉. Other collections are "NewJour: Electronic Journals & Newsletters," available at URL: http:// gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/〉; and "Scholarly Journals Distributed via the World Wide Web," available at URL: 〈http://info.lib.uh.edu/wj/webjour.html〉.
24. The CIC Electronic Journals Collection is available at URL: 〈http://ejournals.cic.net/〉. Other collections are "NewJour: Electronic Journals & Newsletters," available at URL: http:// gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/〉; and "Scholarly Journals Distributed via the World Wide Web," available at URL: 〈http://info.lib.uh.edu/wj/webjour.html〉.
25. There are several listserv software packages, including Majordomo, Listproc, Mailbase, and Listserv. Both the available features and commands differ significantly among these packages. Some listserv software does not allow the archiving, searching, or retrieving of files. The commonly used and venerable Listserv software by Eric Thomas is fully featured and powerful, albeit somewhat difficult to use. First, a nonsubscriber must send a subscription command to the Listserv system and then wait (for varying lengths of time) until getting an acceptance message from the system. Some listserv systems require a confirmation response of the subscription request. After the acceptance message has been received, the newly subscribed user must send an "Index" command to identify the name of the available files. After likely file names are identified, he or she must send a "Get" command to obtain the file. In the present article, lowercase "listserv" refers to all the listserv software packages and uppercase "Listserv" refers to Eric Thomas's product.
26. Jill Lambert, Scientific and Technical Journals (London: Clive Bingley, 1985).
27. The authors are grateful to OCLC, Inc., and to the named e-journal publishers for providing temporary access to the following fee-based e-journals for purposes of conducting this study: Applied Physics Letters Online, Current Opinions in Medicine, Current Opinions in Biology, Immunology Today Online, Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials, and Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing.
28. Harter and Kim, "Electronic Journals and Scholarly Communication."
29. See note 8.
30. Citation in a networked information environment and establishing trusted channels of distribution are two of the "integrity issues" discussed by Clifford A. Lynch in "Integrity Issues in Electronic Publishing," in Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier, Robin P. Peek and Gregory B. Newby, eds. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr., 1996), 133-45.
31. See Gary Taubes, "Science Journals Go Wired," Science 271 (Feb. 9, 1996), 764-67. Also available at URL: 〈http://science-mag.aaas.org/science/scripts/display/full/271/5250/ 764.html〉.
32. For a thorough discussion of many economic issues related to e-journals, see Ellen Finnie Duranceau, ed. (with contributions by Stevan Harnad, Frank Quinn, Gail McMillan, Fytton Rowland, Robert H. Marks, and Janet H. Fisher), "The Economics of Electronic Publishing," Serials Review 21 (spring 1995): 77-90.