Abstract
Online versions of scholarly publications in a database (online databases) have proliferated at a massive rate with the novel technological advancement over the past years. Their impact on academic libraries and scholars is noteworthy as well as unprecedented. However, it is questionable whether both these parties have embraced online databases. Librarians are struggling to renew the subscriptions of these scholarly databases in order to maintain the continuous access to their users while the prices are increasing annually. Hence the librarians are under pressure due to the fact that rate of diffusion is low with electronic databases. At the users end, they have brought into attention online databases potential pleasure and tendency towards content and context together with acquiring essential skills and abilities needed to use them. Under this circumstance, current study is an attempt made to primarily investigate the affect of the predictors, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, triability and observability proposed by Rogers’s (2003) on university faculty members adoption and diffusion on online databases in order to motivate them to make full use of online resources in their academic careers. A structured questionnaire was electronically distributed among a random sample under the survey strategy to collect data during September October 2014. Results revealed that the faculty members in the USJP were mostly knowledgeable about the online database innovation and approximately 72% of the diffusion variance of online databases explained by relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, triability and observability. Findings also revealed that relative advantage and observability are the key factors for diffusion of this innovation with higher positive correlations. While compatibility and the complexity have negative correlations with individuals adoption rates, triability has a positive correlation. Recommendations were made to improve the infrastructure facilities within faculties and make possible programs to facilitate faculty members adoption and the understanding of online databases.