Related Experiment Videos
A quantitative method for measuring clinical user journal needs: a pilot study using CD Plus MEDLINE usage statistics
K Dunn1, C Chisnell, D F Sittig
1The Informatics Center, Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee USA.
Objective:
To develop a quantitative method for measuring clinical user journal needs based on an analysis of bibliographic search results.
Design:
Retrospective bibliometric comparison of citation selections generated by clinical users on shared workstations throughout the Medical Center.
Measures:
Number of times each journal was identified by clinical users during multiple bibliographic search sessions.
Results:
Clinical users identified 2,078 journal articles. The top 200 journal titles accounted for 55% of the clinical users' journal needs. Of the 901 unique journal titles identified, 489 (54%) were identified only once.
Conclusion:
Our pilot study demonstrates that analysis of bibliographic search results can be used to identify clinical user journal needs. Such a method could also be used to estimate user requirements for on-line, full-text medical journals.