Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
of IS research. Since then, the topic of Philosophy of IS became a mainstream
topic with several publication outlets and conference tracks, thus expanding the
scope of IS research.
3. E-journals enable a discipline to increase its external reach. Through the 1980s,
scholars typically read three to four leading p-journals in their own discipline.
Most scholars in well-established disciplines would rarely encounter an article
in a new referent discipline. The existence of electronic journals and search
mechanisms changed the way scholars read. Today, scholars searching for arti-
cles on a given topic are more likely to find manuscripts relevant to their work
that appear in journals from other disciplines (Section
4.3
). Thus, the existence
of e-journals aids the development of new disciplines and encourages multidis-
ciplinary research.
At the same time, academic communities need to be aware of some pitfalls. Since
it is easy to start an e-journal, it is possible that a large number of new e-journals will
be initiated within a given discipline. This capability can create dispersed knowledge
instead of cumulative knowledge. Dispersion is especially a concern when the e-
journal is not indexed and the work is rarely referenced. In addition, if the e-journal's
material is not sustainable, knowledge may be lost.
6 . 4 L i b r a r i e s
Libraries are moving from carrying individual serials to offering access to elec-
tronic collections. Electronic collections usually carry a group of titles in one or more
disciplines. Libraries pay a fixed annual fee for access to the electronic collection.
Scholars and students can access any journal in the collection at no cost to them.
These collections are either a digitization of paper articles or access to electronic
journals
[10]
. Examples are ABI/Inform, Business Source Premier, ScienceDirect,
and JSTOR. This transition to digital collections is evident by the increase in access
as depicted on JSTOR's web site.
47
In 1997, JSTOR reported a peak usage of 0.5
Million hits. In 2005, the number of hits reached 30 Million (see
Fig. 6
).
6.4.1 The Advantages of Electronic Collections
The advantages of electronic collections are:
1. Fixed, known cost and increased number of serials.
2. Ability to introduce serials on new disciplines.
3. Fewer Interlibrary Loans.
47
JSTOR usage statistics can be found at:
http://stats.jstor.org
[last accessed June 20, 2005].
