Scholarly Communication in Mongolia and the Creation of a Knowledge-Based Economy

Establishing sustainable economic growth within a developing country requires the presence of a strong research infrastructure. The research infrastructure within a country is strengthened as researchers both within as well as outside the country collaborate with each other. The collaboration of researchers has been aided within developing countries with the adoption of electronic scholarly communication initiatives. While there have been numerous investigations of the use of electronic journals and databases in developing countries, there has been a woeful lack of investigation of the value and use of these information tools in any specific developing country. Moreover, few studies deal specifically with the scholarly communication needs of the research patron and how these needs reinforce or counteract the needs of researchers. With the belief that not all developing countries are alike and that the scholarly communication needs of researchers often differ from the needs of research patrons, we assess the value of different forms of access to electronic scholarly communication. More specifically, our concern is whether donated access or open access to scholarly communication is best suited to meet the needs of researchers, librarians, and research patrons. Our assessment reveals that with respect to creating sustainable economic growth through the application of research, open access scholarly communication initiatives possess the highest potential benefit from the perspective of the researcher, and furthers economic growth goals