Infectious diseases journals on the World Wide Web: attractions and limitations.

Online infectious diseases (ID) journals are an increasingly common Web phenomenon. We performed a study of practices in this evolving area that make these sites more usable and useful from the perspective of ID physicians. The Web sites of 18 journals pertaining to general ID and infection control and hospital epidemiology were evaluated for a set of 24 Web interface characteristics and online features. Journals hosted by the High Wire Press (Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Infection and Immunity, and the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy) and the University of Chicago Press (The Journal of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Infectious Diseases) best fulfilled our criteria. Electronic reference linking, archives, e-mail alerts, and links to external resources are some of the features of electronic journals that users in the ID specialty may find especially useful.