JISC Collections

JISC Collections, together with Professor Carol Tenopir from the Center for Information and Communication Studies at the University of Tennessee, has carried out research to measure the value and outcomes from access to scholarly publications by academics.

Presented in the UK Scholarly Reading and the Value of Library Resources report, the research examines how valuable scholarly reading has become for academics, especially in terms of access to journal articles. It surveyed academic and associate staff at 6 UK Higher Education institutions in 2011 exploring how academic library collections support research and teaching activities and how reading patterns of articles, books, and other materials differ.

The research also examined what academics would do if library resources were not available. The findings suggest that without the library, academics and their departments would not find articles of such quality, that they would find fewer related articles, and that it would be a significantly more costly and time-consuming process.

You can view the UK Scholarly Reading and the Value of Library Resources report below or download it.