Open AccessAn IP‐level analysis of usage statistics for electronic journals in chemistry: Making inferences about user behavior
Author(s) -
Davis Philip M.,
Solla Leah R.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1532-2890
pISSN - 1532-2882
DOI - 10.1002/asi.10302
Subject(s) - computer science , world wide web , proxy (statistics) , population , electronic book , internet privacy , sociology , demography , machine learning
This study reports an analysis of American Chemical Society electronic journal downloads at Cornell University by individual IP addresses. While the majority of users (IPs) limited themselves to a small number of both journals and article downloads, a small minority of heavy users had a large effect on total journal downloads. There was a very strong relationship between the number of article downloads and the number of users, implying that a user‐population can be estimated by just knowing the total use of a journal. Aggregate users (i.e. Library Proxy Server and public library computers) can be regarded as a sub‐sample of the entire user population. Analysis of article downloads by format (PDF versus HTML) suggests that individuals are using the system like a networked photocopier, for the purposes of creating print‐on‐demand copies of articles.