Browsing of E-Journals by Engineering Faculty

In response to a hypothesis that researchers who no longer use print journals may miss out on the serendipitous benefits of "poor indexing" provided by print tables of contents, librarians at the University of Florida surveyed their engineering faculty to determine faculty use of tables of contents in either print or online format. Results indicate that the engineering faculty still use tables of contents and journal browsing to support current awareness and other information-seeking needs. Respondents rely heavily on library-subscribed databases and they still pay attention to the journal name when reading articles. Differences in behavior across academic ranks and engineering subdisciplines are apparent. Associate Professors browse less and are less confident that they are keeping up than Assistant Professors or Professors. The survey results also support a trend of relying more on the interpersonal network that is carefully built by researchers as their careers progress.