From: Andrew Odlyzko <[email protected]> To: Ian Hickman <[email protected]>
I was intrigued by your estimates for arXiv usage (posted to the SEPTEMBER98-FORUM by Stevan Harnad, along with the response from Donal King and Carol Tenopir. In my paper, "The rapid evolution of scholarly communication," available at <http://www.research.att.com/~amo/doc/eworld.html>, I have estimates (pp. 11-12) that for the main Los Alamos arXiv server, a paper gets downloaded an average of 150 times during the first year, and 20-30 times per year in subsequent years. If the Southampton statistics are different, that would be very interesting in itself. Andrew Odlyzko [email protected] AT&T Labs - Research voice: 973-360-8410 http://www.research.att.com/~amo fax: 973-360-8178 --- From: Ian Hickman <[email protected]> The calculations that I performed are detailed here: http://opcit.eprints.org/ijh198/13.html Ian Hickman, Department of Electonics and Computer Science, University of Southampton. --- From: Andrew Odlyzko <[email protected]> Thank you very much for the pointer to your calculations. I have usually been assuming that the main Los Alamos arXiv server gets about half of the traffic, which would translate my estimates into a typical paper being downloaded 300 times in the first year after posting, and 40-60 times per year in subsequent years. Since you did not take the effect of decreasing usage with time into account, your computations are pretty consistent with mine. Andrew Odlyzko
