Quality markers and use of electronic journals in an academic health sciences library

Objectives: Patterns of use of electronic versions of journals supplied by an academic health sciences library were examined to determine whether they differed from patterns of use among corresponding print titles and to relate the applicability of print collection development practices to an electronic environment. Methods: Use data supplied by three major vendors of electronic journals were compared to reshelving data for corresponding print titles, impact factors, and presence on Brandon/Hill Lists. Results: In collections where one-click access from a database record to the full text of articles was possible, electronic use correlated with print use across journal pairs. In both versions, Brandon/Hill titles were used more frequently than non-Brandon/Hill titles, use had modest correlations with journals' impact factors, and clinical use appeared to be higher than research use. Titles that had not been selected for the library's print collections, but which were bundled into publishers' packages, received little use compared to electronic titles also selected in print. Conclusions: Collection development practices based on quality and user needs can be applied with confidence to the electronic environment. Facilitating direct connections between citation databases and the corresponding journal articles regardless of platform or publisher will support scholarship and quality health care.