A first glimpse of the results of the much anticipated repeat of How Readers Discover Content in Scholarly Publications. The 2015 results follow up on the work done in 2012, 2008, and 2005. The work looks at a range of starting points for journal and online book discovery and with 40000 respondents provides in-depth sectoral, regional and subject-based breakdowns of the data.

1. Simon Inger Consulting
How Readers Discover Content
in Scholarly Publications
Simon Inger
NFAIS 2016 Annual Conference

2. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Researcher
Student
Librarian
PublisherSite
Search Engine
Library Link
Server
Aggregator
A&I
Library
Web Pages
Peer Link
EmailAlert
Aggregated
Article
Publisher’s
Article
Journals Navigation

3. www.simoningerconsulting.com
PublisherSite
Search Engine
Library Link
Server
A&I
Peer Link
EmailAlert
Aggregated
Article
Publisher’s
Article
What the
publisher
can count

4. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Researcher
Student
Librarian
PublisherSite
Search Engine
Library Link
Server
Aggregator
A&I
Library
Web Pages
Aggregated
Article
Publisher’s
Article
What the library can count

5. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Survey on Reader Navigation
§ Mission: Gain a measure of the relative
importance of all of these channels to
inform publishers and information buyers
§ Survey of Readers following on from 2005,
2008, 2012 studies
§ Over 40,000 respondents globally
§ 18 months planning, execution, analysis

6. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Supporters

7. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Research Outputs
§ Analytical tool that allows for full analysis
of each survey question, with over 40000
responses from 2015 with nearly 20000
responses in 2012
– Can test millions of hypotheses with the data
§ Report of main findings to be released in
March, available freely to everyone
§ Further analyses and updates throughout
2016
4 March, 2016 7

8. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Respondents)by)Sector.)n=40439
Academic(55%
Corporate(8%
Charity(and(NGO(3%
Government(10%
International(Organisation(2%
Medical(12%
Not(Given(or(Other(10%
Respondents)by)Region.)n=36693
North&America&22%
Europe&31%
Asia&29%
Oceania&4%
Africa&8%
South&America&6%
Antarctica&0%

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0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Physics.&.Astronomy.(!).
Materials.Science.(!).
Mathematics.(!).
Earth.Science
Computer.Science
Religion.or.Theology
Law
Chemistry
Environmental.Science
Agriculture
Psychology
Education.Research
Life.Sciences
Other.Subject.Area
Humanities
Engineering.&.Technology
Social.&.Political.Science
Business./.Economics./.Accounting./.Finance
Medical.Subjects
Breakdown*of*Respondents*by*Subject*Area*and*Region
North.America Europe Asia Oceania Africa South.America Antarctica

10. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Limitations
§ It’s a survey
§ Survey was only in English
§ Survey used invitations from our
supporters – not necessarily completely
representative sample
§ Due to data privacy/data protection rules,
all those invited to the survey via email will
be quite highly engaged with the supporter
(“opted in”)

11. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Headlines
§ A&Is show decline in search importance, but still
#1 in aggregate in STEM across all sectors
§ Academic researchers rate library discovery as
high as A&Is (in high-incomecountries)
§ Academic researchers rate Google Scholar #1
§ Over half of article downloads are free versions
– PubMed Central a major factor
§ ToC alerts in decline
§ Increased role for social media in discovery

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A&Is show decline, but still #1
1
2
3

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Academic researchers rate library
discovery as high as A&Is
1 2

14. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Academic researchers rate
academic search engines #1

15. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Wait!
§ Every publisher tells you that they get way
more referrals from Google than Google
Scholar!
– Analytics typically measure last referrer, and
have not tracked where navigation started
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Google
Google Scholar
Library Link Servers
Publisher’s
Article
52%
48%
48%
12%
40%, or 0.04% for
1000 link servers
40%

16. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Over half of downloads are free!

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PubMed Central effect
4 March, 2016 17

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ToC Alerts in decline
4 March, 2016 18

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Rise in importance of social media

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Further observations
§ Many free discovery resources, like
PubMed and Google Scholar, are used
less in poorer countries
§ Use of mobile devices is increasing, but
smartphone use remains marginal in most
territories: greatest use is in low-income
countries
§ Publisher web sites becoming a more
popular place to do a search
4 March, 2016 20

21. www.simoningerconsulting.com
More planned for our report…..
§ Importance of library discovery by subject,
sector and region
§ Discovery of online books (varies greatly
by sector)
§ The importance of the integration of data,
and who uses it most – large regional
variations (as well as sectoral)
4 March, 2016 21

22. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Next steps
§ Report preview released to supporters (by
mid-March)
§ Data and analytical tool available to
supporters (by mid-March)
§ Report on general release (CC-BY NC)
(late March)
§ Analytical tool available for sale (late
March)
§ Further analyses and reports to follow
4 March, 2016 22

23. www.simoningerconsulting.com
Conclusions
§ Understanding the origins of reader
navigation helps publishers, libraries,
indexing organisations and technology
companies to optimise their products and
services for different sectors across the
world.
§ There are some important lessons on
information literacy, we feel, and wonder
whether publishers or others could help fill
the gap in expert discovery.
4 March, 2016 23

24. Simon Inger Consulting
Questions?
simon@simoningerconsulting.com