Re: article on aggregated databases

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

This is a very interesting article.

Is the decline in article downloads being experienced everywhere? 
Are there additional explanations for this phenomenon?

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara Fister" <fister@gac.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 5:41 PM
Subject: article on aggregated databases

> Apologies for cross-posting
>
> Some of you may be interested in an article about aggregated
> databases and undergraduates that we've just published in the
> July issue of portal: Libraries and the Academy, available to
> many of you through Project Muse. For those who don't have
> access, there's a self-archived copy here -
> http://homepages.gac.edu/~fister/aggregateddatabases.pdf
>
> The short version -
>
> --librarians are very satisfied with these database
>
> --vendors are listening to librarians and are including more
> content.
>
> --from 2005-2006 at 14 undergrad libraries, use declined 10%
> overall.
>
> --in all of those libraries combined, 40% of the full text
> journals included in the database did not have a single article
> downloaded - not one - at any of the libraries; 4% of titles
> accounted for half of the downloads. Of the top ten most
> downloaded publications, only two were scholarly.
>
> --we still have a lot of questions.
>
> Just thought you all might be interested.
>
> Barbara (and Amy Fry and Julie Gilbert, co-authors)