Untitled-1 A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals 515 515 A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals: Challenges to the Library Martin J. Brennan, Julie M. Hurd, Deborah D. Blecic, and Ann C. Weller Martin J. Brennan is Assistant Information Services Librarian in the Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: brennan@uic.edu. Julie M. Hurd is Science Librarian and Coor- dinator of Digital Library Planning in the Science Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: jhurd@uic.edu. Deborah D. Blecic is Bibliographer for Life and Health Sciences in the Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: dblecic@uic.edu. Ann C. Weller is Cura- tor of Special Collections in the Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e- mail: acw@uic.edu. Studies documenting the usage patterns of electronic journals have com- pared print and e-journal characteristics, surveyed faculty for their per- ceptions and expectations, and analyzed the impact on library practices. This study, a qualitative exploration of a wide array of issues related to the research and teaching habits of early adopters of e-journals in a research setting, was conducted in the spring of 2001 with faculty in the basic and health sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Open-ended ques- tionnaires provided a framework to wide-ranging discussions of percep- tions, expectations, and changing practices pertaining to e-journals and other electronic resources. The results were analyzed with a specific fo- cus on shared behaviors and values, discipline-dependent variations, and changing research and teaching habits. Several challenges for library re- sources and services are identified and discussed. lectronic publishing has trans- formed the collections and ser- vices provided by research li- braries. In the basic sciences and the health sciences, online databases have replaced print indexes and abstracts; more recently, e-journals have become an alternate format for those reading the re- search literature. The library literature now includes numerous quantitative studies that document the print-to-elec- tronic migration. However, usage num- bers tell only part of the story; a qualita- tive analysis of the impact of e-journals and other electronic resources can provide another perspective. This report describes an interview-based study of academic scientific and health science researchers that explored faculty members’ usage of, and attitudes toward, electronic re- sources, particularly as related to their research and teaching activities. Literature Review Carol Tenopir and Donald W. King pub- lished a monograph in 2000 that, at present, is likely the most detailed and comprehensive analysis of emerging de- velopments in scientific journal publish- ing.1 The authors synthesized findings 516 College & Research Libraries November 2002 from more than a hundred studies of sci- entific communication, including scien- tists (as authors and readers), publishers, and organizations (universities, research institutes, and libraries). In addition, they drew on data from published surveys of more than 13,500 scientists and thirty-two organizations and tracked usability char- acteristics of a sample of 715 scientific scholarly journals from 1960 to 1995. Tenopir and King’s research was directed toward furthering a better understanding of key issues and questions among jour- nal system participants. Studies that use the perspective of the journal reader have identified various aspects of content and functionality as features that seem likely to influence whether users will adopt e-journals. Carol Franck and Holly Chambers focused on timeliness and content in their compara- tive study of twenty-six journals, prima- rily in social sciences and humanities, that were received in both print and electronic versions by the SUNY Potsdam library. Issue-by-issue comparisons provided quantitative data on the availability of content by type as well as quantity and quality of graphics and other nontextual features of articles. The authors found substantial differences across publishers with respect to equivalency of print ver- sus electronic issues, availability of issues, and quality of graphics.2 Shelley Shaffer and colleagues at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library compared the timeliness of print versus electronic issues of journals to which the library subscribed in both formats. The authors collected and analyzed data on receipts over a six-week period to support collection development decisions, and reported that “84% of our print issues had electronic versions at the time of receipt, either the same issue num- ber or future issue numbers.”3 Speaking at the 1998 Charleston Conference, An- thony Watkinson focused on issues of e- journal functionality, emphasizing the reader role. He affirmed the importance of browsing and discovery to scientists as well as convenient desktop access to journal content. Moreover, he offered ex- amples: PDF as a preferred format that provided both text and graphics, and link- ing that supported easy and seamless navigation across related information. Watkinson urged a continuing conversa- tion among scientists, librarians, and pub- lishers to ensure that new products reflect what users want.4 Sarah Pederson and Rosemary Stockdale surveyed scientists at seven uni- versities in Great Britain, and followed up with in-depth interviews of some, to as- sess their attitudes toward and use of e- journals. Their respondents identified a critical mass of content as well as functionalities that supported ease of searching and navigating as critical deter- minants in their adoption of an electronic resource.5 Christie T. Degener reported on her experiences with faculty using e-jour- nals in a medical library setting. Health sciences researchers with whom she spoke valued the convenience and time-saving features of e-journals, including ease of searching and navigating among articles and twenty-four-hour access from office, laboratory, and home. The researchers cited the ability to print articles of interest, complete with color illustrations and fig- ures, on printers located in their own de- partments. Degener also found some evi- dence of changing approaches to reading journals. For example, one scientist who once scanned tables of contents now uses targeted keyword searches to identify newly published articles of interest. Degener speculated on whether changes in reading habits would ultimately affect citation patterns.6 Other related research relied on statis- tical analyses of system-generated data from providers or vendors of electronic resources. Alan Dawson analyzed e-jour- nal access data and attempted to relate them to the activities of browsing, read- ing, and searching by users of a collection All of these studies describe faculty increasingly comfortable with e- journals and less attached to their print counterparts. A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals 517 of 249 e-journals provided by a British consortial journal service known as BUBL. Dawson offered an approach that infers details of use patterns from statistics; he proposed a measure of use, a Search- Browse Ratio, that he argued is more meaningful than a simple count of accesses to a resource.7 Linda S. Mercer addressed the complexity and challenges in measur- ing use of digital resources. She focused on journal usage statistics, whether pro- vided by vendors or generated institution- ally from transaction logs, describing how use statistics for Highwire Press and Ovid journals provide not only a sense of the volume of use, but also the breadth across disciplines and user groups. Moreover, she recommended that librarians explore mea- surement issues both locally and at higher levels to establish a set of minimal stan- dards for basic use statistics.8 Deborah D. Blecic, Joan B. Fiscella, and Stephen Wiberley analyzed available vendor-gen- erated statistics with an eye toward con- sistency with International Coalition of Library Consortia guidelines and sug- gested ways vendors could modify report- ing practices to provide more useful sta- tistics for libraries.9 David H. Morse and William A. Clintworth compared data from full-text offerings from Ovid Bio- medical Journals with their print counterpart’s reshelving patterns and found online usage typically ten times that of the print counterpart.10 Sandra L. DeGroote and Josephine Dorsch found that although increases were measured in online versions of existing print journal usage over time, print usage declined across the board, whether or not the library retained an electronic subscription.11 Further studies of faculty users of e- journals surveyed perceptions and adop- tion patterns, opening other avenues for statistical analysis. Suely Gomes and Jack Meadows reported the findings of a 1996 survey of science faculty and staff at Brit- ish universities, with a focus on percep- tions, acceptability, and usability of e-jour- nals.12 Susan E. Hahn, Cheri Speier, Jonathan Palmer, and Daniel Wren re- ported on findings of a 1998 survey of three hundred business school faculty whose libraries were members of the As- sociation of Research Libraries (ARL), noting a slightly slower adoption rate than the scientific community with a dif- ferent set of values and perceptions.13 Deborah Lenares described findings from a 1999 survey of five hundred faculty members at twenty universities with ARL member libraries. She documented the growing acceptance of e-journals by scholars in research institutions.14 Sally A. Rogers reported on a usage survey of Ohio State University faculty with data collected in 1998, 1999, and 2000, enabling a detailed reporting of the change in fac- ulty perception and usage over time.15 All of these studies describe faculty increas- ingly comfortable with e-journals and less attached to their print counterparts. An area that remains largely unstud- ied is the impact on the daily work of fac- ulty, specifically on teaching and research methods. This study examines the qual- ity, rather than the quantity, of work and was intended to open up discussions with faculty on e-journals, other closely related issues pertinent to the library, and any related topics the faculty chose to explore. Methodology Sociologist Everett M. Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovations offers a conceptual frame- work for understanding the adoption of technological innovations.16 Karla L. Hahn and Natalie A. Schoch applied Rogers’s diffusion theory to an analysis of electronic publishing by characterizing the set of ac- tivities that comprises electronic publish- ing as a cluster of related and interdepen- dent innovations. Hahn and Schoch identified changing publishing roles; dis- tribution and retrieval innovations; inno- vations in document structure; new ap- proaches to validation of research; new economic models, including licensing; and storage innovations as components of the electronic publishing innovation cluster.17 Their approach recognized the complex- ity of the adoption decision process that, they assert, would generally involve si- multaneous adoption of several elements 518 College & Research Libraries November 2002 and offers the potential to interpret the type of qualitative data the investigators expected to collect in the current project. Rogers described the roles of “early adopters” and “innovators” as leaders in the acceptance of innovation, and the present study assumes the existence of such individuals among faculty members in the basic and health sciences at the Uni- versity of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The current study focused on the disciplines listed in figure 1, which were among the first to see a critical mass of e-journals. Faculty members who appeared to be users of electronic resources were identi- fied, and participants were asked to sug- gest colleagues who also might consent to be interviewed. The identified faculty were contacted by phone or e-mail, and appoint- ments were confirmed with a follow-up letter and a discussion guide to give par- ticipants a better understanding of the in- formation being sought (figure 2). Partici- pating faculty were visited in their offices by two investigators. One investigator con- ducted the interview; the other took notes on a response sheet that listed the ques- tions asked. No personal identification of the study participant was recorded on the response sheet, and no personal informa- tion was retained that would allow a respondent’s anonymity to be compro- mised. Because this research used human subjects, the investigators submitted docu- mentation to the university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), which monitors all human subject research on campus. The IRB approved the protocol. More than thirty faculty members were initially identified, representing a broad cross section of basic, applied, and health sciences disciplines. In the interviews, par- ticipants were asked to identify other col- leagues who were early adopters of elec- tronic resources to expand the study popu- lation. Some initially identified did not ac- tually hold faculty positions, some had left the university, and others were too busy to participate. In the end, about half of the original contact list agreed to participate in the study and further contacts brought the final number of participants to nineteen. Scope and Hypotheses The investigators used the discussion guide to give structure and consistency to the interviews. Questions were de- signed to elicit responses from partici- pants on those features of e-journals and other electronic resources that the inves- tigators speculated would influence ac- ceptance of the resources. The questions were intentionally open ended to allow participants to provide details of their use of resources that would go beyond the structured responses of a survey in- strument. Both previous research and the investigators’ own experiences sug- gest that adoption of electronic re- sources by research scientists is a com- p l e x p r o c e s s i n f l u e n c e d b y t h e i r participation in the system of scientific communication as both producers and users of information. The following characteristics of e-jour- nals were hypothesized to be key deter- minants in the adoption process: 1. Content characteristics • Critical mass of issues and volumes in a given title • Critical mass of titles in a subject- delineated collection provided by an aggregator FIGURE 1 Specialties of Faculty Interviewed � Chemical engineering � Health information sciences � High-energy physics � Medical education � Medicine � Medicinal chemistry � Microbiology � Mineralogy � Molecular biology � Molecular genetics � Neurobiology � Organic chemistry � Paleontology � Pediatrics � Pharmaceutical biotechnology � Pharmacy practice � Surgical nursing A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals 519 FIGURE 2 Faculty Use of Digital Collections Discussion Guide As you are aware, the UIC library is building a collection of e-journals or �e- journals.� The following questions relate to your use of these. For the purposes of this discussion, we are defining an �e-journal� as a scholarly journal that is available on the Internet and may or may not have a print version. 1. How did you first learn of e-journals? 2. How often do you use e-journals? q Daily q Weekly q Monthly 3. Which ones? 4. Do you have any bookmarked in your Web browser? 5. How do you get to them? q Personal subscription q Library Web page list of e-journals q Hot links in other articles or databases q UICCAT q Through a publisher or aggregator�s collection on the library Web pages q Other 6. What do you use e-journals for? q Scan latest issue articles q Scan tables of contents q Search for subject or author q Read preprints on the journal Web site q Set up SDI / personal alert service q Search for cited article q Other 7. Do you search publishers� (aggregators�) collections by subject or author? 8. Do you read full articles on your computer screen? 9. Do you print articles of interest? 10. What features do you expect to find in an e-journal (more data than in print, graphics, video, audio links, etc.)? 11. What extra features do you particularly appreciate when they are present? 12. What would be the most innovative feature you can imagine? 13. What do you dislike/find frustrating about current e-journals? The next questions pertain to other electronic resources available on the Internet and to your use of the Internet to communicate with colleagues. 14. What other Web-based resources do you use? q Databases q Data banks (Human Genome Project, chemical libraries, etc.) q Preprint archives q Association/organization Web pages q Other 15. How can the library help you with this type of material? q Instruction in use q Notification of new resources q Easier access q Other 16. Has electronic access to information changed the way you do research, publish, or teach? 17. Are you actively involved in electronic publishing in any way (serve on board of an e-journal, contribute or edit one, etc.)? 18. Are you involved in any collaborative research project where data are shared on the Internet? Please describe. 19. Is there anything else on a related topic you would like to discuss? 520 College & Research Libraries November 2002 Despite the enhanced navigation, however, few participants were willing to read full articles on their computer screens. • Full equivalence to print issues, in- cluding all articles and other content, whether research or other information • Timeliness of appearance, before or simultaneous with appearance in print 2. Functionality characteristics • Searching capabilities that support browsing, locating known articles, and subject/author retrieval • Ease of navigation with minimal need to view screens not directly re- lated to a user ’s goal in using the re- source • Links to other articles, abstracts, e- mail for authors, and so on • High-quality printing capability • Seamless movement among related resources Shared Behaviors and Values Although individual respondents were treated as discrete case studies, each respondent’s specialty was recorded to correlate discipline-specific patterns and trends. After interviewing all the partici- pants, their responses were analyzed to identify both patterns of information- seeking behavior and emerging trends in the use of digital collections. The participants had been chosen based on their known use of e-journals. Some participants would be described by Rogers as “innovators,” those who are among the very first to adopt and use a new technol- ogy long before its use is widespread or proven, ahead of early adopters. Some lag slightly behind “early adopters” and would be classified by Rogers as “early ma- jority,” those who adopt a technology ear- lier than most but wait for others to dem- onstrate its effectiveness. Several partici- pants could fit more than one definition, innovative in one area, such as their use of multimedia, and yet completely oblivious to other aspects of digital collections, such as the emergence of exclusively electronic refereed journals. Using Hahn and Schoch’s characterization of electronic publishing as an innovation cluster accom- modates the variety of uses of digital col- lections that the study participants re- ported. All of the subjects have adopted some of the innovations that comprise the electronic publishing cluster. Given the selection criteria, as expected, the chosen participants were ahead of their peers in terms of e-journal adoption and most fall under Rogers’s umbrella of “Opinion Leaders,” those whose experience tends to influence the community in the adoption of the innovation.18 Across disciplines, all participants have fully assimilated use of bibliographic da- tabases into their information-seeking be- havior. They all use e-mail to communi- cate with colleagues and search the Web to locate information. Further, they all read e-journals at least weekly, and many use them on a daily basis. The only participant who did not testify to the profound change brought by electronic access on daily work was one young enough never to have re- lied on print access alone. Study participants in all specialties shared certain expectations of e-journal content and functionality. Everyone wanted digital content fully equivalent to print issues, including news articles, posi- tion notices, and so on, as hypothesized, but other anticipated characteristics, such as critical mass of a title, critical mass of titles in a subject-delineated collection, or timeliness of appearance, were not articu- lated as primary concerns but, rather, im- plicitly expected. This is consistent with other research recently published by Hurd, Blecic, and Robinson.19 Virtually all the respondents were either unaware or dis- missive of journals that existed as elec- tronic-only publications; those who pro- fessed knowledge of such “e-only” titles expressed reservations about their quality. The value of peer-reviewed journal con- tent as an indicator of quality is shared by all participants. This is consistent with findings reported by Hahn, who inter- viewed faculty in ecology and found them supportive of the quality filtering provided A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals 521 by peer review.20 When participants were asked to name specific titles they read fre- quently, everyone identified high-impact, rigorously peer-reviewed journals in their fields that also have seen heavy use in print. To date, faculty in a research uni- versity environment have not accepted newer forms of publication with different ways of vetting or validating content. Study participants were in agreement on several key functionalities of e-jour- nals, and all study hypotheses were vali- dated to some degree. Many participants use e-journals to obtain articles for which they have a citation. They also search for articles by author or subject within a spe- cific title or collection of titles, just as with familiar print journals. In addition, many participants follow hyperlinks embedded in articles and databases, and expressed appreciation for the ability to navigate across full-text articles in various journals. They saw this feature as one of the e- journal’s most desirable attributes. De- spite the enhanced navigation, however, few participants were willing to read full articles on their computer screens. Most scanned the full text for relevance but printed articles of interest, uniformly pre- ferring the PDF versions for that purpose. E-journal providers that did not offer PDF versions of articles were criticized. A small number of participants reported bookmarking articles for later reference; most continue to build reprint collections and now rely on e-journals and in-office printers rather than library photocopiers for their copies. Several mentioned their use of citation manager software to orga- nize their collections and spoke about the desirability of database formats compat- ible with software such as EndNote. The Web environment offers numerous pathways to e-journal content, and par- ticipants used any or all of them. Most frequently mentioned was the library’s list of e-journals as the preferred route to content, but some users followed links in the catalog and others in database services such as PubMed or SciFinder Scholar. Still others reported bookmarking publishers’ Web sites or using association pages to link to favorite journals. One physicist had developed his own personal Web site with all his most-used URLs. The study found that enthusiastic ac- ceptance of e-journals has changed the participants’ habits. Fewer visits to the li- brary were necessary, although some sci- entists still enjoyed browsing through print journals. Most claimed they were reading more than in the print era and across a broader array of titles. Moreover, many participants seized the opportunity to suggest titles they felt should be added to the library’s digital collection. Many were well informed about archiving and expressed concern about the long-term availability of content that existed only digitally. Most participants expressed a strong interest in timely notification of new li- brary resources. They mentioned learn- ing of new electronic resources through numerous channels, including the scien- tific literature itself, the popular media, and an existing library listserv designed for such announcements. Although some participants have—and continue to use— automatic alerting services, many have discontinued their use, claiming informa- tion overload. Nearly all are emphatically uninterested in formalized classroom in- struction on the use of electronic resources because of time constraints and the pref- erence to learn about such things through trial and error. They will call or e-mail li- brary reference personnel with any access or searching problems as they arise. Discipline-dependent Variations Many aspects of faculty attitudes toward, and use of, electronic resources were com- mon across all disciplines, but there were some differences as well. Appreciation for the multimedia capabilities of e-journals appears to vary among specialties and may be related to the importance of a spe- cific format in conveying information in a field. For example, a microbiologist demonstrated an animated image of “an enzyme as it is catalyzing a chemical re- action.” This animation “demonstrates to [his] colleagues visually what cannot be 522 College & Research Libraries November 2002 communicated in print or in a series of images nearly as effectively.” In chemis- try, the three-dimensional representation of molecules can be enhanced by both static and dynamic image files associated with articles, although one chemist re- garded them as “glitz” and preferred the option to activate such features, depend- ing on his level of interest. Several par- ticipants noted that the now-common static representations of complex biologi- cal molecules use color to carry informa- tion about substructure, which makes color printers essential for those wishing to print an image of a molecule. Participants were asked about their use of “preprints,” which have long been part of the culture of specialties in physics. One participant in a medical specialty professed no knowledge of preprints. A chemist knew of their existence but was dismissive and commented that he ig- nored such things on a curriculum vitae or grant application. They “don’t count,” he commented. Still other participants reported that they sometimes looked at prepublication articles on journal Web sites, but because these articles have been reviewed and, in fact, are “in press, they are not truly unvetted “preprints.” On the issue of preprints, the variations across disciplines were striking, which suggests that the high-energy physics communi- cation system that relies on preprint da- tabases will not necessarily serve as a model for other fields. Use of databases to identify articles in the journal literature varies across disci- plines. In the health sciences specialties, PubMed is used by most participants to the exclusion of other resources that might be complementary. Some participants from the medical faculty were unaware of the availability of the Web of Science (the cita- tion indexes), despite its potential rel- evance to research in their field. Newer tools such as MDConsult and the Cochrane database (a growing collection of meta- analyses) also are being adopted by many faculty members in medicine. In special- ties that used chemical information, SciFinder Scholar and the Beilstein/ Gmelin databases were the preferred tools for literature searching. Some participants reported using these resources on a daily basis. In other basic sciences fields, partici- pants use the Web of Science rather than the discipline-specific resources such as Geo-Ref. Still others apparently do not rely on any secondary services but, instead, search individual journals they perceive as most likely to contain research of interest. Several health sciences participants now operate in environments being trans- formed by the principles of evidence- based medicine (EBM), a cross-disciplin- ary effort to train medical professionals to make clinical decisions based on the most recent reliable evidence, with a sys- tematic elimination of bias as its central tenet. Although EBM predates e-journals, its practical implementation has certainly coincided with the general accessibility of e-journals. EBM has pervaded the cur- riculum at medical schools for a number of years, and its practices have provided structure for most of the medical school’s library instruction sessions, facilitated by the relative ease of electronic access to research articles. Changing Research Habits Research practices have changed consid- erably with the onset of electronic re- sources. One microbiologist claimed he would “be dead without” electronic access. Literature searching is now timelier, with a wide variety of databases and e-journals available through the desktop, requiring fewer trips to the library. Electronic access does more than make life more convenient for faculty, it allows for a greater amount of follow-up on relevant cited articles and thus more comprehensive literature re- views. A professor of medicine claimed he does not “need to retain knowledge as long as access is maintained,” a change in the basic approach to the body of knowledge and the fundamental role of the professor because “the aggregation of knowledge is now paramount.” Another professor of medicine mentioned aggregation when discussing the explosion of the meta-analy- sis, a process that was so cumbersome and A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals 523 time-consuming in the past that it was rarely practical to undertake. Virtually every participant in the study shares data electronically with colleagues at other institutions. Still other participants in specialties where research generates large data sets noted the value added when articles included links to raw data, whether in genome databases, on author or pub- lisher servers, or elsewhere. A molecular biologist described using a university Web site where genetic data were freely avail- able to any interested scientists and where software was provided that could be used to manipulate the data. In chemistry and physics, supplementary data once were distributed in microform by journal pub- lishers; now major publishers provide Web sites that can be linked in article text, mak- ing access to such detailed data only a click away. Because electronic access also has sped up and streamlined the process of article submission, some of the questions probed participants’ views as authors. Faculty appeared to be actively involved in pub- lishing roles, for example, serving on edi- torial boards of journals. This was fre- quently the case when the individual’s specialty was published in small associa- tion journals. One participant was a Web master for an association Web site, and the participant pool included several editorial board members and association officers. These individuals were articulate about many of the same issues that concern li- brarians, such as archiving. Three partici- pants were involved in ARL’s Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coa- lition (SPARC) initiatives. A chemist, who served on the editorial board of the SPARC publication Organic Letters, observed that he considered that title to have achieved the level of quality of its high-impact print competitor Tetrahedron Letters. At the same time, however, he said he would be most unhappy if the university canceled the li- brary subscription to Tetrahedron Letters. Changing Teaching Habits Conversations with faculty suggested that electronic access has had somewhat less impact on teaching than on research. Many participants are assigning readings from e-journals to their graduate-level students. They also are increasingly incorporating issues and techniques related to electronic access into their lectures, assignments, and interactions with advisees and residents. The impact is greatest for those depart- ments that have online degree programs, and e-journal access is particularly vital for this constituency. For example, a full 50 percent of the courses offered by the School of Biomedical and Health Information Sci- ences are available exclusively online, where one professor claims electronic ac- cess has “completely transformed the edu- cation process.” Indeed, several degrees can be earned without ever coming to cam- pus. The library now can provide such stu- dents a broad representation of the litera- ture through licensed e-journals, albeit a fraction of the library’s full journal collec- tion. “Coursepacks,” bound copies of vari- ous articles arranged by the instructor and sold at the campus bookstore, were a main- stay of many campus courses, and deliv- ery of such materials to off-campus stu- dents was a problem that can now be avoided. The library has implemented electronic reserves to facilitate such efforts and fields many more inquiries about copyright concerns in the new mode of delivery. All of these resources are avail- able to students twenty-four hours a day. Many participants felt that students’ searching and critical evaluation skills are more vital than ever and devote extra class time to covering these topics. Even participants uninterested in library in- struction for themselves arrange such ses- sions for their students and find that stu- dents are more appreciative of the extra classes. However, some participants are Although some of the participants interviewed stated that they prefer to scan the latest issue in print even when an electronic version is available, anecdotal evidence does not indicate heavy use of print titles also held in electronic format. 524 College & Research Libraries November 2002 leery of what this evolution may mean to their students. One professor from the biological sciences worried that students do not get a solid introduction to the breadth of the journal literature of the field through electronic access and felt that sometimes browsing the stacks gives a proper perspective. A medical profes- sor was gratified to be able to send elec- tronic copies of important studies to resi- dents but feared that residents “will be- come dependent on [him] for new articles, and less self-sufficient.” Challenges for the Library Participants appear to be satisfying their current information needs by browsing the digital equivalent of favorite titles. In the Science Library, this was particularly dra- matic when Elsevier ScienceDirect titles in chemistry were made available. Although some of the participants interviewed stated that they prefer to scan the latest issue in print even when an electronic version is available, anecdotal evidence does not in- dicate heavy use of print titles also held in electronic format. In addition, entrance/ exit statistics at all library sites have dem- onstrated a downward trend for several years: fewer patrons are choosing to visit the library. However, measures of use of electronic resources of all types continue to increase. When data for use of print and digital formats of specific journals or da- tabases are available, they frequently docu- ment levels of use of electronic informa- tion higher than estimated print use. This is consistent with a trend of searching the easily accessible and only concerning themselves with a comprehensive search of the full literature available in print when more is at stake, such as a complex clinical decision or a grant application. For some participants, the library is being com- pletely bypassed: participants are going directly to association pages for portal functions and to vendor Web sites for per- sonal subscription access. Users of databases and e-journals choose to do so because they see advan- tages related to time saving, ease of use, powerful searching capabilities, and more. As producers of electronic resources im- prove their products, users adopt new fea- tures and quickly adjust their expectations. Participants are interested in more e-jour- nal titles and more extensive digitization, especially retrospectively. From interviews with participants, the investigators identified a number of chal- lenges, including: • meeting enhanced expectations for electronic resources, given licensing and budgetary issues; • anticipating new directions in pub- lication, synthesis, and integration of pri- mary research; • affirming the library’s role in the provision of resources (i.e., branding); • communicating with the library’s constituency; • measuring collection use. The growing reliance on digital infor- mation brings many new responsibilities for library staff, such as client software support, proxy servers, firewalls, and li- censing issues. Faculty come to the library less often, so innovative outreach methods are necessary to inform them of library electronic resources and the techniques to search them. Innovation and sophistica- tion of faculty in one area does not mean comprehensive understanding in all areas, and the library must assess strengths and weaknesses effectively and respond appro- priately. Time is the faculty researcher’s most valuable resource, so the outreach effort should be made as convenient, ac- cessible, and flexible as possible. Participants understand that the major- ity of electronic resources were available to them through library subscriptions. Those participants whose favorite titles were unavailable electronically, frequently because of licensing barriers for the library, took the opportunity to urge the library to provide access and were not always sym- pathetic to its concerns about restrictive licenses. On the other hand, some partici- pants appeared not to be fully aware of the library’s role in providing access. This may have been especially common among those who went directly to publishers’ sites to connect to journals, not realizing that A Snapshot of Early Adopters of E-journals 525 the library’s subscription (recognized through IP address rather than password access) made it possible for them to use full text. Libraries are challenged to pro- vide users with what some call “branding” to make it clear that access is provided by the library and typically involves expen- sive contracts and complicated licenses. The very first e-journals were text only and often distributed as e-mail. With the growth of the World Wide Web, truly in- novative formats developed with marked- up text supporting links to other text and an array of multimedia enhancements. Especially appreciated by researchers are the links possible in the Web environment, whether from a database record to a full- text article or from one article to another. Linking services such as PubMed’s Linkout, Chemical Abstract Services’s ChemPort, SFX, and CrossRef are ap- proaches that facilitate the full integration and seamless linking that users desire. During the present time of transition when some, but not all, possible links are present, library staff are challenged to explain the complexities of access. For example, the recent introduction of SciFinder Scholar with direct links to full-text articles through its ChemPort connection stimu- lated inquiries about whether the library held electronic subscriptions to titles that are not linked in SciFinder Scholar. Librarians also must seek new ways to communicate with patrons who visit the library infrequently, preferring, instead, to use the electronic resources it provides from home or office or elsewhere across the globe. Although some faculty mem- bers may attend an instruction session, others feel too busy or just not inclined. Web-based help, electronic reference, chat rooms, and other ways of interacting with remote users are increasingly the pre- ferred avenues of assistance. Conclusion Users are adopting different behaviors as they use resources that are increasingly electronic, and the patterns of use of sec- ondary services that prevailed in the print world of indexes and abstracts may not transfer to a digital environment. The par- ticipants in this study frequently men- tioned using PubMed, the Web of Science, SciFinder Scholar, and the Beilstein/ Gmelin databases, but few seemed to rely on any of the smaller discipline-specific databases that they might once have searched in print or through mediated searches executed by librarians. Whether the smaller databases will survive is sub- ject to speculation. Will only the compre- hensive services that offer powerful re- trieval across a broad set of disciplines or provide specialized searching such as us- ing chemical structures be perceived as useful? At the same time, new tools with no print counterparts, such as MDConsult, are organizing and synthesizing literature for specific audiences. The wide-ranging discussions with par- ticipants produced unanticipated oppor- tunities in faculty relations with librarians. As Sandra J. Weingart and Janet A. Ander- son reported in their 2000 study, quite of- ten the questions that were asked had the effect of informing participants of new re- sources and trends.21 In nearly every in- terview, the investigators were able to clear up a misconception or inform participants about library resources and services. Some participants appeared gratified to voice personal concerns to someone from the li- brary. This benefit is ironic in light of the assertion of many participants that they would not bother with library instruction. The interviews allowed the investigators to deliver some instruction to the partici- pants somewhat surreptitiously. The present is a time of rapid change for readers, authors, libraries, and publish- ers with evolving roles and new players. It is clear that the observations in this study are snapshots of an early stage in a pro- cess of transition and evolution. Additional research, such as Susan E. Searing and Leigh S. Estabrook’s focus group study on chemists’ adoption of emerging Web- based scholarly publishing initiatives, is necessary to supplement the snapshot pro- vided here and to track emerging devel- opments that postdate the innovations known at the time of this study.22 Faculty’s 526 College & Research Libraries November 2002 opinions and concerns in these matters shift and grow every day. Indeed, once, a mild epiphany transpired right before the authors’ eyes: When discussing the qual- ity of exclusively online journals, one pro- fessor first responded dismissively, as if such publications had no chance of cred- ibility in his field. Then, as he pondered the possibility of a journal with the same policies of peer review and a clear policy of archiving and long-term accessibility, he started to doubt his initial reaction. Notes 1. Carol Tenopir and Donald W. King, Towards E-journals: Realities for Scientists, Librarians, and Publishers (Washington, D.C.: Special Libraries Association, 2000). 2. Carol Franck and Holly Chambers, “How Full Is the Full in Full-Text?” Poster session presented at the ALA annual conference in Washington, D.C., June 1998. Available online from http://www2.potsdam.edu/LIBR/franckcr/ALA.html. 3. Shelley Shaffer, Susan S. Berteaux, Brandon Oswald, and Peter Breuggeman, “Going Elec- tronic? Receipt of Print Journal Issues and their Electronic Availability,” in Proceedings of the 25th International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers Annual Con- ference (Woods Hole, Mass.: Oct. 1999). 4. Narda Tafuri, “What a Scientist Really Wants from E-journals (Report from the 1998 Charleston Conference),” Library Collections, Acquisitions & Technical Services 23, no. 2 (summer 1999): 216–17. 5. Sarah Pedersen and Rosemary Stockdale, “What Do the Readers Think? A Look at How Scien- tific Journal Users See the Electronic Environment,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 31 (Oct. 1999): 42–52. 6. Christie T Degener, “The Impact of E-journals in the Medical Library Setting,” Serials Review 25, no. 3 (1999): 48–49. 7. Alan Dawson, “Inferring User Behaviour from Journal Access Figures,” Serials Librarian 35, no. 3 (1999): 31–41. 8. Linda S. Mercer, “Measuring the Use and Value of E-journals and Books,” ISTL (Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship) 29 (winter 2000). Available online from http:// www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/00-winter/article1.html. 9. Deborah D. Blecic, Joan B. Fiscella, and Stephen Wiberley, “The measurement of Use of Web-based Information Resources: An Early Look at Vendor-supplied Data,” College & Research Libraries 62, no. 5 (Sept. 2001): 434–53. 10. David H. Morse and William A. Clintworth, “Comparing Patterns of Print and Electronic Journal Use in an Academic Health Science Library,” ISTL (Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship) 28 (fall 2000). Available online from http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/00-fall/refereed.html. 11. Sandra L. DeGroote and Josephine Dorsch, “Online Journals: Impact on Print Journal Us- age,” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 89, no. 4 (Oct. 2001): 372–78. 12. Suely Gomes and Jack Meadows, “Perceptions of Electronic Journals in British Universi- ties,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 29 (Apr. 1998): 174–81. 13. Susan E. Hahn, Cheri Speier, Jonathan Palmer, and Daniel Wren, “Advantages and Disad- vantages of Electronic Journals: Business School Faculty Views,” Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship 5, no. 1 (1999): 19–31. 14. Deborah Lenares, “Faculty Use of E-journals at Research Institutions,” in Conference Proceedings, Association of College and Research Libraries 9th National Conference, Detroit, Mich. (Apr. 1999), 329–34. 15. Sally A. Rogers, “Electronic Journal Usage at Ohio State University,” College & Research Libraries 62 (Jan. 2001): 25–34. 16. Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York City: Free Press, 1995). 17. Karla L. Hahn and Natalie A. Schoch, “Applying Diffusion Theory to Electronic Publish- ing: A Conceptual Framework for Examining Issues and Outcomes,” in Proceedings of the 60th ASIS Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. 34 (Nov. 1997), 5–13. 18. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations. 19. Julie M. Hurd, Deborah D. Blecic, and Ann Robinson, “Performance Measures for Elec- tronic Journals: A User-centered Approach,” Science & Technology Libraries 20, no. 2–3 (2001): 57–71. 20. Karla Hahn, Electronic Ecology: A Case Study of Electronic Journals in Context (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2001), 79. 21. Sandra J. Weingart and Janet A. Anderson, “When Questions Are Answers: Using a Sur- vey to Achieve Faculty Awareness of the Library’s Electronic Resources,” College and Research Libraries 61, no. 2 (Mar. 2000): 127–34. 22. Susan E. Searing and Leigh S. Estabrook, “The Future of Scientific Publishing on the Web: Insights from Focus Groups of Chemists,” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 1, no. 1 (2001). Available online from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v001/1.1searing.html.