Online navigation to journal articles: How are journal articles retrieved by researchers and students at an academic institution; a quantitative examination of HTTP referer [sic] data

Abstract

This quantitative case study employs weblog data supplied by six major academic journal publishers, known as HTTP referer [sic] data from Washington State University IP address ranges to reveal the sites that researchers and students use to retrieve academic journal literature. HTTP referrers to academic journal articles were categorized as follows; Search Engines (37%), Library Discovery Services (10.04%), the individual publisher itself (15.85%), free A & I services (7.90%) and absent data (termed no referrers) (25.77%). Within the category of search engines, Google and Google Scholar combined to account for almost all of the referrers. There was no evidence from the referrer data that Social Networking Sites or Courseware sites were substantial referrers. There were large variations in results between the individual publishers.