simon inger 2016 nfais annual conference presentation - how readers discover content in scholarly...

Simon Inger Consulting

How Readers Discover Content in Scholarly Publications

Simon IngerNFAIS 2016 Annual Conference

www.simoningerconsulting.com

Researcher

Student

LibrarianPublisher Site

Search Engine

Library Link Server

Aggregator

A&I

Library Web Pages

Peer Link

Email Alert

Aggregated Article

Publisher’s Article

Journals Navigation


Publisher Site

Search Engine

Library Link Server

A&I

Peer Link

Email Alert

Aggregated Article


What the publisher can count


Researcher

Student

LibrarianPublisher Site

Search Engine

Library Link Server

Aggregator

A&I

Library Web Pages

Aggregated Article


What the library can count


Survey on Reader Navigation

§ Mission: Gain a measure of the relative importance of all of these channels to inform publishers and information buyers

§ Survey of Readers following on from 2005, 2008, 2012 studies

§ Over 40,000 respondents globally § 18 months planning, execution, analysis


Supporters


Research Outputs§ Analytical tool that allows for full analysis

of each survey question, with over 40000 responses from 2015 with nearly 20000 responses in 2012– Can test millions of hypotheses with the data

§ Report of main findings to be released in March, available freely to everyone

§ Further analyses and updates throughout 2016

4 March, 2016 7


Respondents)by)Sector.)n=40439

Academic(55%Corporate(8%Charity(and(NGO(3%Government(10%International(Organisation(2%Medical(12%Not(Given(or(Other(10%

Respondents)by)Region.)n=36693

North&America&22%Europe&31%Asia&29%Oceania&4%Africa&8%South& America&6%Antarctica&0%


0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Physics.&.Astronomy.(!).Materials.Science.(!).

Mathematics.(!).Earth.Science

Computer.ScienceReligion.or.Theology

LawChemistry

Environmental.ScienceAgriculturePsychology

Education.ResearchLife.Sciences

Other.Subject.AreaHumanities

Engineering.&.TechnologySocial.&.Political.Science

Business. /.Economics./.Accounting./.FinanceMedical.Subjects

Breakdown*of*Respondents*by*Subject*Area*and*Region

North.America Europe Asia Oceania Africa South.America Antarctica


Limitations§ It’s a survey§ Survey was only in English§ Survey used invitations from our

supporters – not necessarily completely representative sample

§ Due to data privacy/data protection rules, all those invited to the survey via email will be quite highly engaged with the supporter (“opted in”)


Headlines§ A&Is show decline in search importance, but still

#1 in aggregate in STEM across all sectors§ Academic researchers rate library discovery as

high as A&Is (in high-income countries)

§ Academic researchers rate Google Scholar #1§ Over half of article downloads are free versions

– PubMed Central a major factor§ ToC alerts in decline§ Increased role for social media in discovery


A&Is show decline, but still #1

1

23


Academic researchers rate library discovery as high as A&Is

1 2


Academic researchers rate academic search engines #1


Wait!§ Every publisher tells you that they get way

more referrals from Google than Google Scholar!– Analytics typically measure last referrer, and

have not tracked where navigation started

4 March, 2016 15

Google

Google Scholar

Library Link Servers


52%

48%48%

12%40%, or 0.04% for 1000 link servers

40%


Over half of downloads are free!


PubMed Central effect

4 March, 2016 17


ToC Alerts in decline

4 March, 2016 18


Rise in importance of social media


Further observations§ Many free discovery resources, like

PubMed and Google Scholar, are used less in poorer countries

§ Use of mobile devices is increasing, but smartphone use remains marginal in most territories: greatest use is in low-income countries

§ Publisher web sites becoming a more popular place to do a search

4 March, 2016 20


More planned for our report…..

§ Importance of library discovery by subject, sector and region

§ Discovery of online books (varies greatly by sector)

§ The importance of the integration of data, and who uses it most – large regional variations (as well as sectoral)

4 March, 2016 21


Next steps§ Report preview released to supporters (by

mid-March)§ Data and analytical tool available to

supporters (by mid-March)§ Report on general release (CC-BY NC)

(late March)§ Analytical tool available for sale (late

March)§ Further analyses and reports to follow

4 March, 2016 22


Conclusions§ Understanding the origins of reader

navigation helps publishers, libraries, indexing organisations and technology companies to optimise their products and services for different sectors across the world.

§ There are some important lessons on information literacy, we feel, and wonder whether publishers or others could help fill the gap in expert discovery.

4 March, 2016 23

Simon Inger Consulting

Questions?

[email protected]

simon inger 2016 nfais annual conference presentation - how readers discover content in scholarly...

Data & Analytics