As AJOL is a pilot project, its impact is being monitored and evaluated. However it is not intended that the first formal evaluation will take place until June 1999, when the service will have been operating for one full year. In June 1999, it is intended to ask for the reactions of those who use the sites and to find out from journals whether any new subscriptions have been taken out or cancellations have occurred. Such subscribers will then be asked whether having electronic access to TOCs has had any effect on their decision. Requests for each journal's TOCs are in the region of 15 per week.
Most requests come from the USA, the UK, Europe and South Africa.
Sites accessing the free abstracts of each of the medical journals number about 16 per month, although each site may have accessed them more than once. Sites where countries are indicated are mostly in USA, Europe and Japan. EPT considers this rate of usage to be normal and that it will increase once the number of issues of each journal available on the site increases. One disappointing interim result is the low uptake on requests for photocopies of articles publicized in the TOCs or purchases of articles or electronic subscriptions from the Bioline site. To date we have only received two requests for photocopies and there have been two requests for electronic subscriptions, for the 1999 issues of Central African Journal of Medicine and East African Medical Journal .