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What We Know About ScienceDirect User Behavior
Alex Lankester, Account Development & Channel Marketing Manager, Elsevier, Oxford, UK
With over 10 million users downloading some 250 million full-text articles in 2005 and these numbers still growing, ScienceDirect provides a wealth of data on user behavior. When this data is combined with findings from research conducted in Canada, Japan and The Netherlands, a clear pattern emerges. While users continue to become more skilled at searching, there’s a continuing need for librarians and publishers to step in and fill the skills gap of many researchers.
Over the last five years the efficiency of user searches has improved considerably, likely due in part to upgraded library websites, better interfaces and the use of linking software. At the same time it appears users have growing expectations of libraries and information providers and are often intolerant when not getting answers quickly and efficiently.
Libraries Face Great Expectations
The largest number (24%) of hits on ScienceDirect comes by way of library websites. Libraries in the past few years have invested heavily in linking software and other electronic upgrades that have in turn increased users’ reliance on library gateways. Along with the greater reliance have come greater expectations; many end users want their library websites to be one-stop shops effectively answering all information needs.
Jane Rigg of the Davidson Lab at the California Institute of Technology said, “I want publishers to work with the library so that I can use the university library system as the primary access point for journals. ... I like the ‘Amazon-simplicity’ of a one-stop shop.”
This view was echoed in a recent study on end-user behavior conducted by the University of Toronto Library. According to Marshall Clinton, the library’s Director of Information Technology Services, “The field study has confirmed our perception of frustrations our users encounter in accessing a variety of information resources — each with its own interface.”
As a result of such feedback the University of Toronto Library has developed its Scholars Portal providing access to e-journals and other library resources through what Clinton called “a single Google-like interface.”
After library gateways, the biggest generator of ScienceDirect traffic is PubMed, which continues to be the number one port of call for those working in the biomedical and health sciences. In the month of August 2005 alone, ScienceDirect received over 4 million referrals from PubMed. During the past 12 months, PubMed generated 22% of referrals to ScienceDirect. Over 69 million searches a month now occur on PubMed, and it is unlikely there will be a rival to challenge PubMed’s dominant position in the end-user referral space to ScienceDirect.
Users Know What They Want from ScienceDirect
Search patterns show that for the majority of ScienceDirect users full text is the main destination and once full-text content is accessed, printed or downloaded users make a quick exit. When arriving at needed articles, users show a preference for PDF over HTML. During the past year, 72% of full-text downloads from ScienceDirect were in PDF format. A survey recently conducted by the Japan Association of National University Libraries revealed 90% of respondents preferred PDF.
By far the biggest demand on ScienceDirect is for articles less than a year old but statistics show that access to backfiles is also a vital component of research. While 43% of ScienceDirect full-text usage during the past 12 months came from articles less than a year old, nearly 20% was from articles between one to two years old, 11% from articles between two to three years old, and 27% from articles more than three years old.
Proficiencies or Preferences Are Revealing
Research shows experienced searchers require less time to find the right online materials. The Toronto survey found that the more senior the faculty, the more proficient they were at analyzing citations of literature and authors, as well as tracking citations and locating articles. The faculty members were spending less time online than graduate students, who at times conducted searches lasting up to three hours. A higher level of search skills (and greater knowledge of literature) gained through experience and training enabled senior researchers to answer questions and locate key articles in an average of 5-10 minutes instead of the 30-60 required by graduate students.
Data also shows that usage patterns vary depending on field. Those in the biomedical and health sciences enter ScienceDirect primarily from abstracting and indexing databases and link immediately into full text, whereas humanities scholars and social scientists tend to enter via preferred journal home pages and spend more time browsing. This illustrates that those working in humanities and social sciences use A&I databases less frequently and do not benefit extensively from links established between A&I databases and full-text articles.
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