viva and the ulrich’s serials analysis system a report on the analysis of subscriptions in...
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VIVA and the Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System
A Report on the Analysis of Subscriptions in Virginia’s Academic Libraries
Paul Metz
Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System
Continuously updated, fairly comprehensive information on 189,000+ serials
Adds value for qualitative analysis via ISI and Katz information
Utility for decision-making is multiplied when subscription information is added
Steering Committee said “let’s do it!”
First state consortium to give it a whirl
Directors’ Goals:
Assemble the data
Identify “at risk” titles to support possible
“last copy” strategy
Identify “commonly held titles that may be
candidates for electronic purchase”
Data preparation
Bowker met with us and came for training
Loading coordinated by Margot Cronin and Sharon Gasser
Data loaded by May 2004
Local reports supplemented with central information on VIVA, ScienceDirect, Wiley subs
21,000+ title lines with 91,000+ “holdings” records reported
Error reports to individual institutions
How are we doing?
Assemble the data
Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “last
copy” strategy
Identify “commonly held titles that may be
candidates for electronic purchase”
What story do the data want to tell us?
Committee charged with analysis: Rachel Frick, Sharon Gasser, Louveller Luster, Paul Metz, Paul Rittlemeyer, John Walsh
Easier if one person drives – as Sharon Gasser had “driven” data loading, Paul Metz drove analysis
Fairly aggressive analysis, felt empowered to make decisions about the data
Recommendations are from the Resources for Users Committee
The first story the data tell us is that they are very messy
Institutional loading problems and errors
Bowker diagnostics on errors
Variant publisher names
Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
There are lots of duplicate titles
There are lots of duplicate titles
Did I mention the duplicate titles?
“At risk” titles
Frequency distribution of subscriptions over titles
Had to focus on important titles
• “Enhanced Core”: A&I, refereed, and ISI or Katz• “Supercore”: A&I, refereed, ISI, and Katz
After deduping, 1,065 Enhanced Core titles with one holder
Do we care?
There are significantly more Enhanced Core titles
with no holder than with one
“Sometimes there’s a reason”
Recommendation: post list, but apply nothing more than moral suasion
Thinking about “last copy” (non)cancellations:
Be careful re your terminology: holds ≠ subscriptions
Copyright still applies
Remember you can always get it somewhere How much faster do you get from in-state
than from Cal Riverside or Virginia Tech?
How are we doing?
Assemble the data
Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “last
copy” strategy
Identify “commonly held titles that may be
candidates for electronic purchase”
Identifying opportunities for partnerships re “commonly held titles”
Let’s focus on quality, too
Partners are business entities, not bibliographic publishers (Elsevier, Pergamon, N. Holland . . .)
49 possible publishers researched
8 selected for further action
Individual “Supercore” titles also identified for possible action
Possible Partners (business entity)
American Institute of Physics
American Society for Microbiology
American Sociological Association
Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
Cell Press
Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
University of Chicago Press
So What’s the Big Deal?
We have not done as VIVA but
Biggies have ScienceDirect (all titles) and Wiley (all
owned titles) this way
Like Don Sanville, “we had the wrong titles all along”
– Wiley examples
A Most Ingenious Paradox: micro data, macro
decisions
One Extreme or the Other?
All the publishers’ titles –
bully for you, while it lasts. Be gathering data!
A select few –
hoist with their own petard!
Hundreds of titles but no deal –
IMHO, the worst of all worlds
Assemble the data
Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “
last copy” strategy
Identify “commonly held titles that may be candidates for electronic purchase”
How are we doing?
What next?
Renew the subscription for next year!
Work with institutions to improve data loading and reduce number of errors
Decide and implement specific “last copy” and “commonly held title opportunity” strategies
Work with institutions to use USAS as a decision tool
Work with Bowker to improve the product
Inform the profession
Collection Analysis via Peer Comparisons
Paul MetzVirginia Tech
Monographs
Via WorldCat Collection Analysis Package
Two Main Uses
Macro – how do we compare to our peers, overall?
Micro – what good titles have we somehow missed?
Who are our peers?
Alabama Duke Emory Florida State Kentucky LSU North Carolina
NC State Tennessee Tulane Virginia Tech Wake Forest William & Mary
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom
Median Imprint Date: VT = 1983 Group = 1978
Change group
Also checked Books English Adult Level