Sandra L. De Groote

Measuring use patterns of online journals and databases

PURPOSE This research sought to determine use of online biomedical journals and databases and to assess current user characteristics associated with the use of online resources in an academic health sciences center. SETTING The Library of the Health Sciences-Peoria is a regional site of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Library with 350 print journals, more than 4,000 online journals, and multiple online databases. METHODOLOGY A survey was designed to assess online journal use, print journal use, database use, computer literacy levels, and other library user characteristics. A survey was sent through campus mail to all (471) UIC Peoria faculty, residents, and students. RESULTS Forty-one percent (188) of the surveys were returned. Ninety-eight percent of the students, faculty, and residents reported having convenient access to a computer connected to the Internet. While 53% of the users indicated they searched MEDLINE at least once a week, other databases showed much lower usage. Overall, 71% of respondents indicated a preference for online over print journals when possible. CONCLUSIONS Users prefer online resources to print, and many choose to access these online resources remotely. Convenience and full-text availability appear to play roles in selecting online resources. The findings of this study suggest that databases without links to full text and online journal collections without links from bibliographic databases will have lower use. These findings have implications for collection development, promotion of library resources, and end-user training.

Coverage of Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science: A case study of the h-index in nursing

PURPOSE This study compares the articles cited in CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science (WOS), and Google Scholar and the h-index ratings provided by Scopus, WOS, and Google Scholar. METHODS The publications of 30 College of Nursing faculty at a large urban university were examined. Searches by author name were executed in Scopus, WOS, and POP (Publish or Perish, which searches Google Scholar), and the h-index for each author from each database was recorded. In addition, the citing articles of their published articles were imported into a bibliographic management program. This data was used to determine an aggregated h-index for each author. RESULTS Scopus, WOS, and Google Scholar provided different h-index ratings for authors and each database found unique and duplicate citing references. CONCLUSIONS More than one tool should be used to calculate the h-index for nursing faculty because one tool alone cannot be relied on to provide a thorough assessment of a researchers impact. If researchers are interested in a comprehensive h-index, they should aggregate the citing references located by WOS and Scopus. Because h-index rankings differ among databases, comparisons between researchers should be done only within a specified database.

Citation patterns of online and print journals in the digital age.

PURPOSE: The research assesses the impact of online journals on citation patterns by examining whether researchers were more likely to limit the resources they cited to those journals available online rather than those only in print. SETTING: Publications from a large urban university with a medical college at an urban location and at a smaller regional location were examined. The number of online journals available to authors on either campus was the same. The number of print journals available on the large campus was much greater than the print journals available at the small campus. METHODOLOGY: Searches by author affiliation from 1996 to 2005 were performed in the Web of Science to find all articles written by affiliated members in the college of medicine at the selected institution. Cited references from randomly selected articles were recorded, and the cited journals were coded into five categories based on their availability at the study institution: print only, print and online, online only, not owned, and dropped. Results were analyzed using SPSS. The age of articles cited for selected years as well as for 2006 and 2007 was also examined. RESULTS: The number of journals cited each year continued to increase. On the large urban campus, researchers were not more likely to cite journals available online or less likely to cite journals only in print. At the regional location, at which the number of print-only journals was minimal, use of print-only journals significantly decreased. CONCLUSION/DISCUSSION: The citation of print-only journals by researchers with access to a library with a large print and electronic collection appeared to continue, despite the availability of potential alternatives in the online collection. Journals available in electronic format were cited more frequently in publications from the campus whose library had a small print collection, and the citation of journals available in both print and electronic formats generally increased over the years studied.PURPOSE The research assesses the impact of online journals on citation patterns by examining whether researchers were more likely to limit the resources they cited to those journals available online rather than those only in print. SETTING Publications from a large urban university with a medical college at an urban location and at a smaller regional location were examined. The number of online journals available to authors on either campus was the same. The number of print journals available on the large campus was much greater than the print journals available at the small campus. METHODOLOGY Searches by author affiliation from 1996 to 2005 were performed in the Web of Science to find all articles written by affiliated members in the college of medicine at the selected institution. Cited references from randomly selected articles were recorded, and the cited journals were coded into five categories based on their availability at the study institution: print only, print and online, online only, not owned, and dropped. Results were analyzed using SPSS. The age of articles cited for selected years as well as for 2006 and 2007 was also examined. RESULTS The number of journals cited each year continued to increase. On the large urban campus, researchers were not more likely to cite journals available online or less likely to cite journals only in print. At the regional location, at which the number of print-only journals was minimal, use of print-only journals significantly decreased. CONCLUSION/DISCUSSION The citation of print-only journals by researchers with access to a library with a large print and electronic collection appeared to continue, despite the availability of potential alternatives in the online collection. Journals available in electronic format were cited more frequently in publications from the campus whose library had a small print collection, and the citation of journals available in both print and electronic formats generally increased over the years studied.

Impact of online journals on citation patterns of dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy faculty

The past decade has seen a major shift in the journal collections of academic health sciences libraries. Libraries gained access to vast numbers of journals as never before possible when they moved into licensing large electronic journal packages instead of the traditional title-by-title print journal selections. These changes have been a boon to researchers, who presumably no longer have to travel across campus or even down the hall to the library for articles. Instead, they retrieve articles with just a few clicks on their home or office computers. Libraries are reducing their print collections due to decreased utilization and increased access to online journals [1–3]. The convenience of accessing the online collection remotely instead of having to walk into the library has been cited as a reason [4]. A previous study that examined the impact of online journals on the citation patterns of medical school faculty found that when medical faculty had access to a small print collection and a large online journal collection, the use of the print collection significantly decreased. However, when faculty had access to a large print collection in addition to a large online collection, the impact on the use of the existing print collection was minimal [5]. A 2006 study that surveyed health sciences librarians also found that researchers are still using print journals in this electronic age [6]. The purpose of this study is to determine how online journal collections are impacting the citation patterns of researchers in dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy. Journal citation patterns before and after the introduction of online journals will be examined to determine whether researchers are more likely to limit the journal articles they cite to those journals available online rather than those available only in print.

Information-seeking behavior and the use of online resources: a snapshot of current health sciences faculty.

OBJECTIVE The research assesses the information-seeking behaviors of health sciences faculty, including their use of online databases, journals, and social media. METHODOLOGY A survey was designed and distributed via email to 754 health sciences faculty at a large urban research university with 6 health sciences colleges. RESULTS Twenty-six percent (198) of faculty responded. MEDLINE was the primary database utilized, with 78.5% respondents indicating they use the database at least once a week. Compared to MEDLINE, Google was utilized more often on a daily basis. Other databases showed much lower usage. CONCLUSIONS Low use of online databases other than MEDLINE, link-out tools to online journals, and online social media and collaboration tools demonstrates a need for meaningful promotion of online resources and informatics literacy instruction for faculty. IMPLICATIONS Library resources are plentiful and perhaps somewhat overwhelming. Librarians need to help faculty discover and utilize the resources and tools that libraries have to offer.

Google Scholar versions: do more versions of an article mean greater impact?

Purpose The growing dominance of Google Scholar (GS) as a first-stop resource for scholars and researchers demands investigation of its influence on citation patterns, freedom of information, and scholarly communication. The purpose of this paper is to break new ground in understanding the various versions GS indexes, correlations between the number of GS versions and citation counts, and the value of institutional repositories for increasing scholarly impact. Design/methodology/approach GS listings for 982 articles in several academic subjects from three universities were analyzed for GS version types, including any institutional repository versions, citation rates, and availability of free full-text. Findings First, open access articles were cited more than articles that were not available in free full-text. While journal publisher web sites were indexed most often, only a small number of those articles were available as free full-text. Second, there is no correlation between the number of versions of an article and the number of times an article has been cited. Third, viewing the “versions” of an article may be useful when publisher access is restricted, as over 70 percent of articles had at least one free full-text version available through an indexed GS version. Originality/value This paper investigates GS versions as an alternative source for a scholarly article. While other articles have looked at GS through various lenses, the authors believe this specific aspect of the topic has not been previously explored.

Examining the Impact of the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy on the Citation Rates of Journal Articles

Purpose To examine whether National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded articles that were archived in PubMed Central (PMC) after the release of the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy show greater scholarly impact than comparable articles not archived in PMC. Methods A list of journals across several subject areas was developed from which to collect article citation data. Citation information and cited reference counts of the articles published in 2006 and 2009 from 122 journals were obtained from the Scopus database. The articles were separated into categories of NIH funded, non-NIH funded and whether they were deposited in PubMed Central. An analysis of citation data across a five-year timespan was performed on this set of articles. Results A total of 45,716 articles were examined, including 7,960 with NIH-funding. An analysis of the number of times these articles were cited found that NIH-funded 2006 articles in PMC were not cited significantly more than NIH-funded non-PMC articles. However, 2009 NIH funded articles in PMC were cited 26% more than 2009 NIH funded articles not in PMC, 5 years after publication. This result is highly significant even after controlling for journal (as a proxy of article quality and topic). Conclusion Our analysis suggests that factors occurring between 2006 and 2009 produced a subsequent boost in scholarly impact of PubMed Central. The 2008 Public Access Policy is likely to be one such factor, but others may have contributed as well (e.g., growing size and visibility of PMC, increasing availability of full-text linkouts from PubMed, and indexing of PMC articles by Google Scholar).

Questions asked at the virtual and physical health sciences reference desk: How do they compare and what do they tell us?

Abstract The questions asked at the traditional reference desk are decreasing while questions asked at the virtual reference desk are on the rise. Over a one-month period, the types of reference questions asked at an academic health sciences library were coded. This paper examines and compares the types of questions asked at the current day reference desk versus the virtual reference desk. This paper also reviews past literature examining the types of questions asked via virtual reference and the traditional reference.

Research engagement of health sciences librarians: a survey of research-related activities and attitudes

INTRODUCTION The extent to which health sciences librarians are engaged in research is a little-studied question. This study assesses the research activities and attitudes of Medical Library Association (MLA) members, including the influence of work affiliation. METHODS An online survey was designed using a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions and distributed to MLA members. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, content analysis, and significance testing. The authors used statistical tools and categorized open-ended question topics by the constant comparative method, also applying the broad subject categories used in a prior study. Pearsons chi-square analysis was performed on responses to determine significant differences among respondents employed in three different institutional environments. RESULTS Analysis showed that 79% of respondents read research articles at least once a month; 58% applied published research studies to practice; 44% had conducted research; 62% reported acting on research had enhanced their libraries; 38% had presented findings; and 34% had authored research articles. Hospital librarians were significantly less likely than academic librarians to have participated in research activities. Highly ranked research benefits, barriers, and competencies of health sciences librarians are described. CONCLUSIONS Findings indicate that health sciences librarians are actively engaged in research activities. Practice implications for practitioners, publishers, and stakeholders are discussed. Results suggest that practitioners can use published research results and results from their own research to affect practice decisions and improve services. Future studies are needed to confirm and extend these findings, including the need for intervention studies to increase research and writing productivity.

Measures of health sciences journal use: a comparison of vendor, link-resolver, and local citation statistics.

OBJECTIVE Libraries require efficient and reliable methods to assess journal use. Vendors provide complete counts of articles retrieved from their platforms. However, if a journal is available on multiple platforms, several sets of statistics must be merged. Link-resolver reports merge data from all platforms into one report but only record partial use because users can access library subscriptions from other paths. Citation data are limited to publication use. Vendor, link-resolver, and local citation data were examined to determine correlation. Because link-resolver statistics are easy to obtain, the study library especially wanted to know if they correlate highly with the other measures. METHODS Vendor, link-resolver, and local citation statistics for the study institution were gathered for health sciences journals. Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients were calculated. RESULTS There was a high positive correlation between all three data sets, with vendor data commonly showing the highest use. However, a small percentage of titles showed anomalous results. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Link-resolver data correlate well with vendor and citation data, but due to anomalies, low link-resolver data would best be used to suggest titles for further evaluation using vendor data. Citation data may not be needed as it correlates highly with other measures.