Study suggests that Open Access journals do not influence collection habits

(Via OCLC Abstracts) Global Electronic Collection Trends in Academic Libraries: 2004, a study of 155 academic librarians worldwide by the Publishers Communications Group, reports these key findings:

• Only 9 percent of responding libraries cancelled subscriptions when comparable content was available via Open Access; the majority of respondents supplemented their collections with links to peer-reviewed Open Access journals.
• Most responding libraries catalog or index peer-reviewed Open Access publications.
• The main factor influencing the collection of electronic resources is library policy, closely followed by faculty and student preferences.
• 84 percent of respondents reported cancellation of print resources when the content was available electronically.

Posted by Tom on January 25, 2005