Researchers and Information Content

Michael JubbRIN

SCONUL Autumn Conference16 December 2008

Publication and DisseminationScholarly journal articles

c 1.5m peer-reviewed articles produced each year

Conference proceedingsMonographsGrey literatureWorking papers and pre-printsDatasetsBlogs, wikis…………….

Who reads it all?Sources used by faculty in five US universities for their last substantive piece of reading

Longitudinal data from US studies by Tenopir and KingNo similar studies undertaken in the UK

How much do they read?Average number of articles read has risen from c185 a year in 1990 to c240 in 2005Time spent reading articles c 132 hours a year

Purpose and Impact of Reading

Reading and Citing

UK Citing Behaviour

How much does this all cost?

115.8

6.4 2.116.4

33.9

174.7

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0

140.0

160.0

180.0

200.0

Researchproduction

Publishing &Distribution

Accessprovision

User search,browse,

download,print

Reading Total cost

£ B

illi

ons

Journal Spend and Journal Use

Spending on e-journals correlates strongly with useThis effect is not a function of the size of universities

Users and Producers

Journal Use and Research Outputs: PhD Awards

Journal Use and Research Outputs:Research Grants and Contract

Income

Journal Use and Research Outputs:Publications

Information Inputs and Research Outputs

Related IssuesHow do the behaviours of the top researchers differ from those of the rest?Motivations, incentives and constraints underlying researchers’ decisions on

where, how and when to publish and disseminatehow are decisions influenced (or not) by research assessment/evaluation

What are the dimensions of researchers’ use of Web 2.0, and what are the implications?

Thank you

Michael Jubb

www.rin.ac.uk