The Impact of Electronic Bibliographic Databases and Electronic Journal Articles on the Scholar's Information-Seeking Behavior and Personal Collection of "Reprints"

Abstract

This article examines the potential changes to the information seeking behavior of scholars and how they manage their own collection of research article “reprints”. With bibliographic databases and electronic journals provided by academic libraries now available at the science scholars’ computer desktop, they can now locate and acquire a portion of needed research articles on their own at any time. They also, in some cases, have older paper copies scanned and delivered by libraries as image files at web retrieval locations. Bibliographic citation management software is now in use by many scholars. Personal information management software is available and could also be used. This article reviews possible scenarios scholars can use to manage this new electronic collection of research articles and possible ways libraries can help them in this scholarly activity.