What percentage of research papers have been digitalized?

Question

Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify the percentage of research papers that have been digitalized?

I understand that the notion of "research papers" may need to be defined in such a study, as well as other boundaries (e.g., date range).

Could you please clarify what you mean by digitalized? Are you looking for the percentage of papers that are now published online and not print-only? Are you looking for old papers that have been published print-only in the past and are now step-by-step digitalized? — FuzzyLeapfrog, Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 21:08
@FuzzyLeapfrog I meant stored in some electronic device, e.g. hard drives. I have in mind old papers that have been published print-only in the past and are now step-by-step digitalized. — Franck Dernoncourt, Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 21:11
Even so I'm a little bit familiar with this topic, I couldn't find an overall percentage or at least the amount of digitized papers. But at least I can give you the denominator, i.e. the estimated number of all existing scientific articles: > 50 million in 2010 (source). If you find the numerator, please let me know. — FuzzyLeapfrog, Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 22:09

Bluebird · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-26 05:50:41Z

Not an expert, but I would argue that this would be neigh impossible to determine given the criteria:

Definition of 'research paper'. As you stated, this needs to be defined, would this only include peer-reviewed? Published in a reputable publication medium?
Definition of Digitization. Would microprint count? How about magnetic tape? Without a means of know what is and is not digitized, an accurate count would be impossible.
Knowing the upper limit of all knowledge, known-knowns (such as Google's Index of papers) Known-Unknowns (such as closed-circulation repositories), Unknown-Knowns (some repository that exists but the researcher doesn't know about), and unknown-unknowns (perhaps a hidden server in a soviet bunker from the 80's).

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