Apologies for cross posting.  

We thought readers would be interested in this latest news from Simon Inger
and I regarding a large scale research project we have recently undertaken.
Over 19,000 survey responses were received from academics, lecturers,
students, corporate researchers, practitioners and medics from all over the
world, working in a variety of subject areas and sectors. The purpose of the
research was to understand how readers in different regions and disciplines
discover content in scholarly journals and what impact that has on publisher
and library web site design and function.  The full press release can be
found below and a free summary report can be found at
http://www.renewtraining.com/publications.htm

PRESS RELEASE: 7th November 2012

Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner publish results of largest ever study into How
Readers Discover Content in Scholarly Journals

The report, which is the culmination of a 6-month research project and has
the backing of leading publishers within STM, Humanities and Social Science,
compares the changing reader behaviour between 2005 and 2012 and as a result
looks at the impact on publisher and library web site design and function.
Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner announced today the publication of a detailed
report into discoverability of online content.  

Simon Inger, commenting on the reasoning behind the research said “There
have been many studies using web logs that calculate where users of
scholarly resources were referred from, but this approach doesn’t indicate
where those users started their research, merely the details of the last
“hop” before hitting a content website. Discovery of academic content is
complex with a plethora of discovery resources to choose from and many
different routes to take. In order to expose content to the maximum number
of potential readers, publishers and libraries need to understand these
different routes and that is where this report can help them”. 

This report is the output of a large-scale survey focussing on journal
content discovery conducted during May, June and July of 2012. Over 19,000
responses were received from all over the world from readers in many
different sectors, job roles and subject areas.

The research repeats two earlier studies performed in 2005 by Scholarly
Information Strategies (for whom the authors were consultants) and in 2008
by the authors. The shifts in reader preferences over time provide a
valuable insight into reader navigation, the features that readers find
useful in publisher web sites, and the role and effectiveness of library
technologies. The 2012 survey was also updated to include questions about
search engine preference and app use. 

Given such a large number of responses were received, this report goes much
further than the previous two and is able to provide an insight into how
readers in different sectors, regions, subject areas, and job roles behave. 

So, for example, answers to all the following questions can be found in the
report:
• In which subject areas, regions, job roles and sectors do readers make the
most use of aggregated databases when searching for online articles?
• Is Baidu, Google or Google Scholar the most popular search engine amongst
students in China?
• Which features do students, lecturers and academic researchers find most
useful on Publisher web sites?
• Which sectors make the most use of journal homepages and ToC Alerts?

Tracy Gardner said “This report informs publishers, libraries,
intermediaries and academics which resources the world’s consumers prefer to
use to discover scholarly content. It’s an invaluable piece of research and
we would like to wholeheartedly thank those organisations who supported us”.
The survey was supported by BMJ Group, CABI, Cambridge University Press, IOP
Publishing, Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Publishing
Technology, RSC Publishing and SAGE. 

A summary report is available for free and the full report is available for
£250 for organisations, £100 for academic libraries, and approximately £7
(or equivalent in other currencies) for individual use on Kindle (or Kindle
viewers for PC, Mac, iPad).  The full data set and the analytical tool are
also available for purchase.  See
http://www.renewtraining.com/publications.htm  for more details.

ENDS

Tracy Gardner
TGM / Renew Training
Tel: +44 (0) 7884 438007
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.renewtraining.com 

NEW: How Readers Discover Content in Scholarly Journals - the results of a
large scale reader survey - is now available for download at
www.renewtraining.com/publications.htm

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