An IP‐level analysis of usage statistics for electronic journals in chemistry: Making inferences about user behavior
Philip M. Davis, Leah Solla · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · 2003
Abstract 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.