Library Collections

It’s that time of year again!  Beginning next week Collection Management will begin looking usage and cost data related to our journal subscriptions.  Each January and July, Delores McDowell begins the time consuming process of downloading journal usage reports, also known as JR1 COUNTER Reports. (That’s well over 100 JR1 reports.)  JR1s, available to us through vendor/publisher websites, provide Collection Management with the number of successful full-text article requests by month and journal title.  (Click here for our JR1 report from Nature Publishing Group.)  After all the JR1s are downloaded, Brian Craig formats all the spreadsheets identically, then uses an advanced command to consolidate all the reports into one large report. This large report consists of 47,438 journal titles!  We have similar data going back through 2008, thus we can analyze use of these resources from 2008-2012.  In addition to looking at usage, Tracy Gilmore compiles subscription costs for all these same titles, and then computes cost per use for each title.  We then keep an eye out for titles with consistently low usage, or titles with extraordinary high-cost per use coupled by weak usage, and consider cancelling those subscriptions.  Of course, we look at several other factors before deciding to stop a subscription, including the size of the department most likely to be using that particular journal.   Looking at cost and usage data in this way on a regular basis and making cancellations based on this analysis allows us to free up funds to purchase or subscribe to new content for which there is expressed demand. In addition to looking to the JR1 and cost per use data, Ed Lener and I will be looking at circulation data for all of our print standing orders and making similar subscription decisions.

Other COUNTER reports exist, and we do collect and analyze that data, too, along with other data related to ebook and database usage. But more about that next time.

Until then, feel free to ask us questions or provide any comments you might have on cost and usage analysis.

The MLA International Bibliography will be moving to the ProQuest platform effective August 1, 2013.  This will provide a user-friendly interface for the leading bibliography of books, articles, dissertations, and websites on modern languages and literatures.  In addition, VIVA was able to negotiate favorable pricing for access to Literature Online (LION) as well as LION Premium content. These new resources combine the texts from works of literature with criticism and reference.

Shifting of the E call numbers from second floor to third floor has now begun!  Please be aware of this as you direct patrons to the stacks or look for materials.  The plan is to have all the volumes in the D and E call number ranges moved to the third floor within the next few weeks.  This will clear the entire new wing on second floor as part of broader initiatives for transforming library spaces.

Hi All:

Below is a list of resources University Libraries’ has acquired for its users in fiscal year 2012 – 2013.

Definitely check out our latest purchase—the National Geographic digital archive that dates back to its inception in 1888. 

Databases, Archives, Data sets:

New Individual Journal Subscriptions:

Apidologie

Children, Youth, & Environments Journal

Fusion Science & Technology

Journal for Specialist in Group Work

Journal of African American History

Journal of GLBT Family Studies

Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science

Journal of Planning History

Lake and Reservoir Management

New Political Economy

Nuclear Science and Engineering

Philosophy in the Contemporary World

The Plan: Architecture and Technologies in detail

Centauro SRL

Through a special bundle purchase we now have greatly expanded our online coverage on the Web of Knowledge platform.  This acquisition brings significant new STEM-H content in the areas of the life sciences, medicine, chemistry, and patents.  It also adds interdisciplinary databases in key areas including  conference proceedings, book citation data, and a data citation index.  In addition to a one-time archive purchase, an active subscription component to the deal will ensure that all of the resources below are kept fully up to date for our users. Links for each resource are still in the process of being added to our library web pages but these databases are all currently active on the Web of Knowledge site.

BIOSIS Citation Index: 1926-present
Data Citation Index: 1900-present
Derwent Innovations Index: 1963-present
Medline: 1950–present
Zoological Records: 1864-present

Web of Science (added content):
Book Citation Index: 2005-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index: 1990-present
Current Chemical Reactions
Index Chemicus

Collections and Technical Services is reorganizing and preparing for the ILL unit to move to the 6th floor.  As a result, many staff will be moving their desks or offices.  Here’s an update on the moves so far:

Staff in Metadata Services (formerly known as Fast Cataloging) are moving to the opposite end of the floor near the Dean’s Suite.
Debbie McAlexander, Linda McCormack and Christy Stanley have moved to vacant workspaces along the windows.
Clyde Kessler, Sara Bebout, and Daryl Robinson will be moving later in the month.
Jana Doyle is sharing an office with Philip Young (Paul Hover’s old space).

Tracy Gilmore is in Room 6086 (near the Dean’s Suite)

Delores McDowell has moved to the cubicle directly across from Leslie O’Brien’s office.

Not all phone lines have been moved yet, so please be patient if you don’t get an immediate response to your call.  We’re doing the moves in phases during June and July in order to minimize impact on the workflow.

If you have books or media to be withdrawn from the collection, you can continue to leave them on the shelving unit near the freight elevator in Christy’s former work space.  We’ll send out more updates as things change.  If you have any questions, please ask Leslie. x4945

The VIVA Resources for Users Committee has approved renewals for several ProQuest databases including  Agricola, Factiva, and Sociological Abstracts among others.  A renewal was also approved for CINAHL on Ebsco.  The committee also discussed the results of the RFP that was done this spring for the MLA database.  One vendor emerged as a clear winner and we hope to be able to publicly share the recommended choice in the very near future so stay tuned.

The VIVA DDA project is moving into the implementation phase and libraries now have records they can load.  These titles are in STEM disciplines and supplement the ebook collections VIVA recently purchased from Springer and Elsevier.

The committee also reviewed some potential new opportunities including ebooks from the American Society of Microbiology, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, and LibGuides.  At this time the only one recommended to move forward as a VIVA product was to pursue a single statewide license for JSTOR.  This will result in some cost savings on annual fees.

Two VIVA databases will be going away when the current contract runs out at the end of June.  These are Bowker’s Books in Print and Gale’s Contemporary Women’s Issues.  Usage of these did not warrant their continuation by VIVA and we currently have no plans to try to pick them up locally.

Effective today, May 31, 2013, ejournal holdings will no longer display in Addison.  To locate specific journal titles and holdings, search Summon or use the Search feature on the Library Home Page.  All content (print, ejournals, ebooks, media, etc.) is represented in Summon.  Print and media collections will still be updated in Addison and Summon.

A large portion of our ejournal holdings change frequently due to publisher/aggregator agreements and moving walls, making it impossible to keep the catalog completely up to date.  This change to ejournal management will enable us to focus our resources on resolving access problems and improving our assessment initiatives.

VIVA is moving ahead with its plans to implement a Demand Driven Acquisitions (DDA) e-book program for books in STEM disciplines. EBL was selected as the primary partner earlier this year. Several publishers have now agreed to participate in the VIVA program, and we have just heard that the following will be included:

· John Wiley & Sons
· Oxford University Press
· Jossey-Bass
· McGraw-Hill UK
· Wiley-VCH

The negotiations continue and VIVA hopes to have more publishers in the plan soon. As details are finalized we will be modifying the parameters of our own DDA and approval plans to take full advantage of the new offerings through VIVA.

Collection Management has licensed the JSTOR Arts & Sciences X Collection and the Sage Humanities and Social Sciences journal backfile. JSTOR A&S X contains over 125 titles in Business, Sociology, Economics, Education, Finance, History of Science Technology, and Medicine, and Public Policy & Administration.  Some notable titles include  e-Service Journal, HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science,  Journal of Assessment & Institutional Effectiveness,  Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School,  Mathematics Teacher, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Spectrum: The Journal of Black Men, and  Transportation Journal.  This JSTOR collection marks our 11^th JSTOR package acquisition, meaning that University Libraries has become a Sustaining Member of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization concerned with digital archives and preservation. Sustaining members earn a 25% discount on the archive capital and annual access fees on any future acquisitions.

Sage HSS offers 285 titles with over 424,000 individual articles.  Coverage goes back to Vol. 1, issue 1 for each included title.   Some highly ranked titles included the backfile are Group & Organization Management, Organization Studies, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, School Psychology International, Politics & Society, Communication Research, Journal of Peace Research, Progress in Human Geography, Progress in Physical Geography, and The Holocene.

As part of an effort to purchase more ebooks in STEM disciplines, VIVA has added 22 Elsevier ebook subject collections within science and technology and also in the health sciences.   These titles are part of their 2013 frontlist. Currently, 158 such ebooks are available to us, but that number should grow rapidly over the next two years.