King, D. W., Tenopir, C., Clarke, M. 2006. Measuring Total Reading of Journal Articles. D-Lib Magazine. 12(10).
This article states that from the perspective of cost–benefit analysis the amount of reading of an article is an essential metric to compare with article and journal publishing costs. The myth that journal articles are read infrequently has been quashed by the advent of electronic publishing and ability to observe server counts of hits and downloads. The four main measures used to assess the amount of reading per article are; article citations, surveys of amount of reading divided by number of articles, electronic “hits and downloads” and surveys using Table-of-Contents, the later being the main study of this article. Results of this form analysis are complementary to other estimates of amount of reading, and are proposed to overcome their flaws.