Is there a correlation between access to journals and their productive use?

Abstract

Ever since library consortia were established in India, academic and research libraries started gaining online access to more number of journals than what they were individually subscribing before. To find out how well Indian researchers make use of the additional resources, the use made of journals either for publishing or for citing by researchers in three Indian institutions – a unitary university, a CSIR laboratory and a DAE theoretical research institution was examined. It was found that in all three institutions, not more than 20% of journals for which they have access through consortium or through their own funds as part of their subscription have been used. Thus the large number of journals that publishers offer through their big deals seem to benefit the publishers rather than the researchers. It is suggest that academic and research librarians in India and library consortia use citation analysis as an “aid in pruning subscriptions to unused journals, eventually alleviating misapportioned moneys spending in the serials selection process”.