The Use, Users, and Role of Abstracts in the Digital Scholarly Environment

Utilizing transactional log data taken from digital journal libraries and attitudinal and demographic data derived from a questionnaire survey, the article pieces together evidence concerning the use, users, and role of abstracts in a digital environment. It shows that abstracts are used in large quantities, even when full-text viewing facilities are available. The ‘popularity’ of abstracts is partly a function of how users navigate towards content in cyberspace, through search engines and gateways, and partly because they provide a quick and effective means of assessing relevance of content.