How Readers Discover.... Some additional observations discussed at the London Book Fair

1. Simon Inger Consulting
How Readers Discover Content
in Scholarly Publications
Simon Inger
London Book Fair

2. http://sic.pub/discover
Researcher
Student
Librarian
PublisherSite
Search Engine
Library Link
Server
Aggregator
A&I
Library
Web Pages
Peer Link
Email Alert
Aggregated
Article
Publisher’s
Article
Journals Navigation

3. http://sic.pub/discover
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

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Supporters

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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”)

6. http://sic.pub/discover
Headlines – lots more in the report
§ 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

7. http://sic.pub/discover
SELECTED HEADLINES

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Academic researchers rate
academic search engines #1

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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 navigationstarted
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Google
Google Scholar
Library Link Servers
Publisher’s
Article
52%
48%
48%
12%
40%, or 0.04% for
1000 link servers
40%

10. http://sic.pub/discover
But not everywhere in the world

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Librarians are different
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Largest sector difference is medical
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Country differences are significant
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Over half of downloads are free!

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With some variation by country

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PubMed Central effect
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Mobile devices
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Concluding observations
§ Many free discovery resources, like
PubMed and Google Scholar, are used
less in poorer countries – awareness?
§ Librarians aren’t convincing their patrons
about search methodology
§ Use of mobile devices is increasing, but
smartphone use remains marginal in most
territories: greatest use is in low-income
countries
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19. Simon Inger Consulting
Thank you
simon@simoningerconsulting.com
http://sic.pub/discover