Related Experiment Videos
A quantitative method for measuring library user journal needs: a pilot study using CD plus MEDLINE usage statistics
1Informatics Center, Eskind Biomedical Library Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
Objective:
To develop a quantitative method for measuring library user journal needs based on an analysis of bibliographic search results.
Design:
Retrospective bibliometric comparison of citation selections generated by users in the library.
Measures:
Number of times each journal was identified by library users during multiple bibliographic search sessions.
Results:
Library users identified 4907 journal titles. The top 200 journal titles accounted for 55% of the library user journal needs. Of the 1380 unique titles identified, 652 were selected once.
Conclusion:
Our pilot study demonstrated that analysis of bibliographic search results can be used to identify library user journal needs. Such a method could also be used to estimate user requirements for online, full-text scientific journals.