Introduction to e-journals

1. INTRODUCTION
TO
e-JOURNALS
Kusturie Moodley
June 2015
http://www.kln.ac.lk/medicine/images/stories/e%20journals.jpg
eThekwini Municipality Libraries

2. What is an e-journal
 Electronic journals are scholarly
publications that are published online.
 e-Journals are also called:
• Online journals
• Virtual journals
• Digital journals
• Zines or e-zines

3. Advantages of e-journals
 Simultaneous access
 Links to related items
 Ease of downloading (PDF/HTML)
 Wider dissemination of journal/research
 Alerting services

4. Advantages of e-journals
 Eliminates physical processing
 Saves shelve space
 Access anytime, anywhere
 First published online – available
quicker than print publications
 Access to archive issues

5. Disadvantages of e-journals
 Technical barriers – hardware and software,
network connection, etc.
 Infrastructure snags - bandwidth and load
shedding issues, etc.
 Require skills and training to use
 Costs to acquire e-resources can be high -
technology and content
 User unfriendliness depends on platform

6. Why use e-journals?
• Up-to-date information
• Convenient: information at your fingertips
• Value-added features: search facilities,
other links ,video, graphics, audio,
dictionary, etc
• Export, email, cite, print, save, make notes

7. How do you access e-
journals?
 Individual e-journals or package of
journals called a database
 Pay per view
 Open access
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0019/551224/video-open-access-expained.jpg

8. Individual e-journals
 Individual e-journals can be purchased
from a subscription service/agent or
directly via the publisher
 Format can be Print + E or E-only
 Some print journals include free e-access

9. Individual e-journals
Activate
Register

10. Databases
 Databases are packages of e-journals
 ProQuest, SAe Publications, Taylor &
Francis, Art Source
 Multidisciplinary or subject specific
 Full-text or Abstract and citation
 Publishers & Aggregators

11. Pay per view
 Pay for individual articles
 Mainly available on publisher websites

12. Open access initiatives
• Significant movement in academic
community that information should be
“free” to all
• Green, blue, yellow, white and gold route
• Author pays versus user pays
• Article processing charge (APC’s)
• Pre-prints, post-prints, self archiving,
institutional repositories
https://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/open-access-done-wrong/

13. Open access examples
• Directory of Open Access Journals
• All subjects

14. Open access examples
• PubMed Central
• Hard sciences

15. Open access examples
• Publisher sites
• Multidisciplinary or subject specific

16. Evaluating e-journals
• Statistics to evaluate
• From aggregator and publisher websites
• Use COUNTER compliant statistics

17. Questions?

18. Thanks…
kmoodley@dut.ac.za
Acquisitions & Electronic Resources Librarian
Durban University of Technology Library
@KusturieM