Could freely available articles reduce faculty reliance on library for access? An analysis of items cited by faculty from Singapore Management University

TL;DR

This study investigates whether the availability of free articles online influences faculty reliance on library subscriptions by analyzing citations from Singapore Management University economics researchers.

Contribution

It estimates the proportion of cited articles that were freely available at the time of citation, providing insights into access dynamics over time.

Findings

Approximately 50% of cited articles are freely available today.

Many cited articles were not freely accessible at the time of citation.

Free availability may impact faculty reliance on library resources.

Abstract

Various studies have attempted to assess the amount of free full text available on the web and recent work have suggested that we are close to the 50% mark for freely available articles (Archambault et al. 2013; Bjork et al. 2010; Jamali and Nabavi 2015). It is natural to wonder if this might reduce researchers' reliance on library subscriptions for access. To do so, we need to determine not just what papers researchers are citing to that are free today, but to estimate if the papers they were citing were freely available at the time they were citing it. We attempt to do so for a sample of citations made by researchers in the Singapore Management University in the field of Economics.