Describes the representation of the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) over the past fifty years in the journal Studies in Scottish Literature and analyzes reports on usage of the journal's recent free searchable digital version from the University of South Carolina institutional repository Scholar Commons to chart the changing international audience for Scottish literary studies and changes in how researchers discover journal articles. Concludes with brief comments on the editors' decision to make the journal open access, especially in light of recent policy proposals from United Kingdom research funding bodies.