engleski

In labyrinths of digital text: use of Web literature by faculty from two Croatian universities

Literature found on the Web has become important source of information for lecturers and researchers. The research goal of this study was to explore the extent to which Croatian faculty from universities of Split and Rijeka used different Web sources of scientific literature, as well as their practices and attitudes related to availability and use of Web-based scientific papers. Data were gathered through an online survey in July and August 2017 among teaching and research employees at the faculties in two Croatian cities: Split and Rijeka. Using descriptive statistical analyses, activities and opinions of study participants were compared and analysed. One important finding of the study was that the large majority of study participants very often use Croatian Web portals to access scientific literature. Croatian portal Hrčak is the most popular. International legal portals are in second place and pirate digital libraries are in the third place. The majority of participants are very dissatisfied with the range of international scientific journals and papers which are available in Croatia. Conclusion of the study is that the policy of financial support for Croatian open access Web portals needs to be continued. Consideration should be given to finding solutions for enabling more comprehensive access to scientific literature in commercial databases.

access to information ; digital libraries ; information behaviour ; open access publishing ; scholarly communication ; Sci-Hub

Rad je prezentiran na međunarodnom znanstvenom skupu 'ISIC: the information behaviour conference'. Skup je održan u Krakowu u Poljskoj od 9. do 11. listopada 2018. godine. Zbornik radova je objavljen u sklopu časopisa Information Research.