From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 08:50:00 +0000

Congratulations to Phil on completing what looks like a very
interesting piece of work.

But I'm a bit bemused by John Tagler's comments in the press release
that this work supports the view that 'a one-size-fits-all embargo
period for scholarly work will not fairly address disparities in
journal usage and, in turn, damage the sustainability of high-quality,
peer-reviewed science communication'.  As far as I know there is no
evidence to link download half-life (or citation half-life, or any
such metric) with journal cancellations.  Phil certainly does not try
to make that linkage in his paper.  So, while this work is interesting
I can't see that it actually tells us anything about the
sustainability of high-quality, peer-reviewed science communication.

David


On 19 Dec 2013, at 03:25, LIBLICENSE wrote:

> From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 13:26:22 -0500
>
> Message of wide interest, courtesy of Gary Price's infoDOCKET.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Gary Price <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 12:23 PM
>
> via infoDOCKET
> http://www.infodocket.com/2013/12/18/new-study-looks-at-usage-patterns-of-academic-journal-articles/
>
> From AAP:
>
> The following independent study analyzes the usage pattern of articles
> published in over 2800 academic and professional journals. It
> identifies the “half-life” of journals — the amount of time it takes
> for articles in a journal to receive half of their lifetime total
> downloads — and is the first major broad-based report conducted on
> this topic.
>
> Phil Davis, Ph.D., an independent researcher and former science
> librarian, analyzed lifetime usage data from 2812 journals
> representing the works of 13 scholarly publishers in 10 distinct
> scholarly disciplines including life sciences, engineering, social
> sciences and the humanities.
>
> Key findings:
>
> • Journal article usage varies widely within and across disciplines
>
> • It takes significant time for journals to experience half of the
> lifetime downloads (“half-life”) of their articles
>
> • Articles in the majority of journals receive more than half of their
> lifetime downloads three or more years after publication
>
> • Only 3% of journals in all fields have half-lives of 12 months or less
>
> • Health sciences articles have the shortest median half-life of the
> journals analyzed, but still more than 50% of health science journals
> have usage half-lives longer than 24 months
>
> • In fields with the longest usage half-lives, including mathematics
> and the humanities, more than 50% of the journals have usage
> half-lives longer than 48 months
>
> Full Text of News Release Includes Comment from John Tagler
>
> http://publishers.org/press/124/
>
> Direct to Full Text Report by Phil Davis
>
> http://www.publishers.org/_attachments/docs/journalusagehalflife.pdf
>
> __gary
>
>
> Gary D. Price, MLIS
> Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal's INFOdocket.com
> Co-Founder and Editor, FullTextReports.com
> Information Industry Analyst
> Librarian
> http://INFOdocket.com
> http://FullTextReports.com
>
> #end