How many readers do we have?

An often recurring question is: How many readers doesInscriptions have? This post is an attempt to approximate an answer.

Certainly, in a digital era this question cannot be simply answered by referring to the number of copies sold or otherwise in circulation. Page hits (such as provided by Google Analytics or Matomo) can give an indication, but it isn’t a very precise measure, as one visitor may generate several hits, some hits are made by digital robots or spiders, and some hits simply “bounce,” with the visitor only curious about the front page, not ending up actually reading anything.

However, below is a metric that might be more precise: We are increasingly consistent in assigning Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to all our publications, including articles and issues ofInscriptions. Hits on these DOIs are counted by Crossref, a neutral, not-for-profit organisation that serves the scholarly community as a DOI registration agency. Each DOI is connected to a landing page, and this is important, as hits here mean that viewers has gone a step further in their efforts to identify a specific article, and not just bounced off the journal’s cover. By looking at DOIs we can reduce the chance of including illegitimate hits.

The numbers are quite consistent: We have about 400 reads in average per month over the last year, fluctuating from 195 in June last year to 539 in March this year. This translates to somewhere between 4000 and 5000 reads annually. Since a read in this context means a hit to a landing page we still cannot know for certain how many physical persons hide behind this readership; one person may read one or several articles. Nevertheless, for a independent journal, wholly run outside for-profit corporations and state institutions, this seems like a number we can be happy with.

Can important, rigorous scholarship only be produced in within the established order? We are reminded of Pierre Bourdieu’s words inOutline of a Theory of Practice: “Every established order tends to produce the naturalization of its own arbitrariness.” Our sustainability and success contribute to revealing the arbitrary nature of the current order.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Resolution Report for prefix 10.59391 from Jun 3, 2025
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2025 14:08:20 +0200
From: reports@crossref.org
To: forleggeren@tankebanen.no

Resolutions for last 12 months

New to this report? Start here: learn what a resolution is and how it works: https://www.crossref.org/documentation/reports/resolution-report/.

Resolutions by month

This section of the report provides the total number of resolutions per month for the past 12 months, by prefix (count) and overall (all members).

This month’s popular DOIs

Below are the top 10 successfully resolved DOIs for this month. This list represents the most popular DOIs, as measured by the number of times each DOI was successfully resolved.

Posted 6 Jun, 2025. Modified 12 Jul, 2025.

Share