Trends and Models in the Consumption of Electronic Contents: An Analysis of the Journals Most Widely Used in Spanish Universities

The study is focused on the changes in the consumption of electronic information by the academic communities of five Spanish universities through the contents distributed by four widely used suppliers, from the very first subscription to them down to 2010. Similarly, the preferences of these institutions for titles distributed by the suppliers under consideration and their links to various different academic fields were investigated. From 24% to 30% of the overall total of downloads came from the top 25 favourite titles of the respective academic communities. This fact points to a need to go beyond the Big Deal model and strive for greater flexibility in subscriptions to resources, so as to have made-to-measure supplies.