Goals of this Study

The research described above consists of work conducted prior to the advent of the World Wide Web and widespread access to the Internet. Several recent studies suggest that Internet use can change scholarly practice (Finholt and Olson 1997; Hesse, Sproull, and Kiesler 1993; Walsh and Bayma 1997; Carley and Wendt 1991). However, most of these studies focused on physical scientists. A key goal of this study is to create a snapshot of the effect of Internet use on social scientists,

specifically baseline use of JSTOR. Therefore, the sections that follow will address core questions about the behavior of JSTOR users, including: (1) how faculty searched for information; (2) which faculty used JSTOR; (3) how journals were used; (4) how the Internet was used; and (5) how journal use and Internet use correlated with JSTOR use.