Discussion

This study addressed five questions related to the preliminary impact of JSTOR: (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.

Summary of Findings

In terms of how faculty searched for information, results were consistent with earlier findings reported in the literature. Specifically, a strong majority of the faculty reported relying on citations from related publications, on colleagues, on electronic catalogs, and on browsing library shelves when seeking information. Faculty did not differ dramatically in selection of search strategies, except that Michigan

economists were less likely to browse library shelves and less likely to search card catalogs.

In terms of JSTOR use, Michigan faculty were less likely to know about JSTOR than were the five-college faculty, and Michigan faculty were less likely to use JSTOR than were the five-college faculty. These results probably reflected the delayed rollout and availability of JSTOR at Michigan. Economists were more likely to use JSTOR than historians were. Of the faculty who reported JSTOR use, frequency of use did not differ dramatically from frequency of use of a related, more traditional technology: on-line searching. That is, 58% of the faculty who used JSTOR said they used JSTOR once a month or more, while 69% of the faculty who did on-line searches reported doing searches once a month or more. Note, however, that over twice as many faculty reported doing on-line searches (75%) as reported use of JSTOR (33%).

In terms of journal use, faculty did not vary greatly in their use of journal features, except that Michigan historians were less likely to use article abstracts and that Michigan economists were less likely to use book reviews. Economists and historians did not differ in the total number of journals used; however, there was greater consensus among the economists about core journals. Specifically, two of the five economics titles included in JSTOR (the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy ) were cited among the top 10 most frequently used journals by a majority of the economists, while four of the five titles (the two mentioned above plus the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics ) were cited among the top 10 most frequently used journals by a majority of the Michigan economists. By contrast, only one of the five history titles included in JSTOR (the American Historical Review ) was cited among the top 10 most frequently used journals by a majority of the historians.

In terms of Internet use, the Michigan historians lagged their colleagues in economics at Michigan and the five-college faculty. For example, the Michigan historians reported less use of e-mail, the World Wide Web, FTP, and on-line databases than did the other faculty. The economists were more likely to use FTP and more likely to use the World Wide Web than the historians were. Faculty used online catalogs at similar rates.

In terms of factors correlated with JSTOR use, the tobit regressions showed that a model including demographic factors, journal use factors, search factors, and Internet use factors offered the best fit to the data on frequency of JSTOR use. The addition of the computer attitude variable did not improve the fit of this model. In the best fit model, gender, article copying, abstract reading, and searching on-line catalogs were all positively and significantly related to frequency of JSTOR use. Also from the best fit model, affiliation with an economics department and greater numbers of journal subscriptions were negatively and significantly related to frequency of JSTOR use.

Limitations of the Study

These data represent a snapshot of faculty response to JSTOR at an extremely early stage in the evolution of the JSTOR system. In the spring of 1996, JSTOR had been available to the five-college faculty for less than six months, while at Michigan, the system had not yet been officially announced to faculty. Therefore, the results probably underestimate eventual use of the mature JSTOR system. Further, as a survey study, self-reports of use were crude compared to measures that could have been derived from actual behavior. For example, it was intended to match use reports with automated usage statistics from the JSTOR Web servers, but the usage statistics proved too unreliable. Another problem was that the survey contained no items on the frequency of traditional journal use. Therefore, it is unknown whether the low use of JSTOR reported by the faculty reflected dissatisfaction with the technology or simply a low base rate for journal use. Finally, the faculty at Michigan and at the five colleges were atypical in the extent of their access to the Internet and in the modernity of their computing equipment. Faculty with older computers and slower network links would probably be even less likely to use JSTOR.

Implications for the JSTOR Experiment

Although extremely preliminary, these early data suggest trends that merit further exploration as JSTOR expands. First, it is encouraging to discover that among faculty who have used JSTOR, rates of use are already comparable to rates for use of on-line searching-a technology that predates JSTOR by two decades. It will be interesting to see if JSTOR use grows beyond this modest level to equal the use of key Internet applications, like e-mail and Web browsing. Second, there appear to be clear differences in journal use across disciplinary lines. For example, economists focus attention on a smaller set of journals than is the case in history. Therefore, it may be easier to satisfy demand for on-line access to back archives in fields that have one or two flagship journals than in more diverse fields where scholarly attention is divided among dozens of journals. This conclusion may lead commercial providers of back archive content to ignore more diverse disciplines at the expense of easier-to-service, focused disciplines. Finally, the negative correlation between the number of journal subscriptions and JSTOR use suggests the possibility of a substitution effect (i.e., JSTOR for paper). However, the significance of this correlation is difficult to determine, since there is no way to know the direction of causality in a cross-sectional study.

Preparation of this article was supported by a grant to the University of Michigan from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. JSTOR is the proprietary product of JSTOR, a nonprofit

corporation dedicated to provision of digital access to the back archives of scholarly journals. For more information, please consult www.jstor.org.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kristin Garlock, Marcia Heringa, Christina Maresca, William Mott, Sherry Piontek, Tony Ratanaproeksa, Blake Sloan, and Melissa Stucki in gathering the data for this study. Also, we thank Ann Bishop, Joan Durrance, Kristin Garlock, Kevin Guthrie, Wendy Lougee, Sherry Piontek, Sarah Sully, and the participants of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholarly Communication and Technology Conference for comments on earlier drafts. Finally, we thank the history and economics faculty of Bryn Mawr College, Denison University, Haverford College, Swarthmore College, the University of Michigan, and Williams College for their patience and cooperation as participants in this research.

Requests for copies should be sent to: (1) Thomas Finholt, Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work, C-2420 701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234; or (2) finholt@umich.edu.