2010 Awards for Excellence

Citation

(2010), "2010 Awards for Excellence", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 62 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ap.2010.27662faa.002

2010 Awards for Excellence

Article Type: 2010 Awards for Excellence From: Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives, Volume 62, Issue 6

The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award for Aslib Proceedings

``Electronic journals and changes in scholarly article seeking and reading patterns''

Carol TenopirUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

Donald W. KingUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Sheri EdwardsLei WuUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

Purpose - By tracking the information-seeking and reading patterns of science, technology, medical and social science faculty members from 1977 to the present, this paper seeks to examine how faculty members locate, obtain, read, and use scholarly articles and how this has changed with the widespread availability of electronic journals and journal alternatives.Design/methodology/approach - Data were gathered using questionnaire surveys of university faculty and other researchers periodically since 1977. Many questions used the critical incident of the last article reading to allow analysis of the characteristics of readings in addition to characteristics of readers.Findings - The paper finds that the average number of readings per year per science faculty member continues to increase, while the average time spent per reading is decreasing. Electronic articles now account for the majority of readings, though most readings are still printed on paper for final reading. Scientists report reading a higher proportion of older articles from a wider range of journal titles and more articles from library e-collections. Articles are read for many purposes and readings are valuable to those purposes.Originality/value - The paper draws on data collected in a consistent way over 30 years. It provides a unique look at how electronic journals and other developments have influenced changes in reading behaviour over three decades. The use of critical incidence provides evidence of the value of reading in addition to reading patterns.

Keywords Electronic journals, Information retrieval, Libraries, Reading, Scientists, User studies

www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/0001253091093226

This article originally appeared in Volume 61 Number 1, 2009, pp. 5-32, Aslib Proceedings

The following articles were selected for this year's Highly Commended Award

``Blogs, news and credibility''

Barrie GunterVincent CampbellMaria TouriRachel Gibson

This article originally appeared in Volume 61 Number 2, 2009, Aslib Proceedings

``The digital native - myth and reality''

Neil Selwyn

This article originally appeared in Volume 61 Number 4, 2009, Aslib Proceedings

Outstanding reviewer

Stephen RobertsThames Valley University, UK