Electronic Academic Libraries Services Valuation: A Case Study of the Portuguese Electronic Scientific Information Consortium b-on

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors that influence the value for the users of the Portuguese electronic scientific information consortium b-on (Biblioteca do Conhecimento Online). In order to be able to estimate this value in monetary terms we used the contingent valuation method based on a willingness to pay scenario. Data was collected through an e-survey sent to the whole Portuguese academic users. The main aims of this study are: (i) to investigate how the Portuguese academic community values b-on; (ii) to investigate the set of factors that determine whether the user is willing to pay the b-on services which allows us to estimate the demand function of b-on services. In order to achieve these objectives we use several regression analysis techniques linear probability model (LPM), Logit and Probit models. The results show that the demand for b-on services is quite sensitive to the "price", frequency of use, whether the user knew previously b-on or not, the type of the user and the scientific area of the user.