Scholarly journal information‐seeking and reading patterns of faculty at five US universities

• Published in: Learned publishing 2009-04, Vol.22 (2), p.126-144
• Main Authors: KING, Donald W., TENOPIR, Carol, CHOEMPRAYONG, Songphan, WU, Lei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: College faculty; Exact sciences and technology; Information and communication sciences; Information science. Documentation; Information seeking behavior; Library and information science. General aspects; Library collections; Polls & surveys; Reading; Sciences and techniques of general use; Use and user studies. Information needs
• ISSN: 0953-1513; 1741-4857
• DOI: 10.1087/2009208

ABSTRACT Surveys at five US universities show that faculty read articles for research, teaching, writing, and other purposes; the largest number of readings is for research. The time spent reading scholarly articles (an estimated average of 132 hours and 240 articles per year) demonstrates their value to faculty's work; over one‐third of readings are reported to be absolutely essential, and to affect the reader's purpose in many ways, including helping to improve results, or to broaden or change the focus. Faculty prefer print for personal subscriptions, although library electronic collections provide a majority of readings, and most readings from library collections are from electronic sources; older articles are also more commonly from electronic library collections. Faculty use a variety of means to find articles, including browsing and searching, the latter particularly for research purposes, and to locate older articles. Faculty members who publish more, or who have won awards, read more articles on average than their less productive or successful colleagues.