The use and users of scholarly e‐journals: a review of log analysis studies

Purpose – To provide a review of the log analysis studies of use and users of scholarly electronic journals. Design/methodology/approach – The advantages and limitations of log analysis are described and then past studies of e‐journals' use and users that applied this methodology are critiqued. The results of these studies will be very briefly compared with some survey studies. Those aspects of online journals' use and users studies that log analysis can investigate well and those aspects that log analysis can not disclose enough information about are highlighted. Findings – The review indicates that although there is a debate about reliability of the results of log analysis, this methodology has great potential for studying online journals' use and their users' information seeking behaviour. Originality/value – This paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of log analysis for studying digital journals and raises a couple of questions to be investigated by further studies.