Factors involved, Re: RE: puzzled by self-archiving thread :

OK, involvement, what else do your present to them? I've 
collected for a similar audience.

The other factors I took into account besides price and
cost, 
are:

1.Citations. Not raw citations, but citation from the 
university's faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate
students, 
and, in my university upper division undergraduates.
Citations in 
theses too, both graduate and undergraduate. Used with care,

because a journal may very intensively for an undergraduate 
thesis, and then never again.

2. Purchase requests, especially from the faculty, but from
any 
regular users. Used with care, because purchase is not
always the 
best way.

3. Document Delivery requests. This needs care: same reason
as 
#1--people may use one journal very intensively for a thesis
or 
paper, and then never again.

4. Expected price increases, judged by the practice of the 
publisher. (looking at both dollars and percentage).

4A. "Big deals;"  even with interchangeability of
titles, a large 
library may already subscribe to everything of conceivable 
interst from some publishers.

5. Permanence of access-- A. In the short run, this applies
to 
material available only on the basis of a big deal, or
through an 
aggregator. B. Archival responsibilities. (That is, true
archival 
responsibilities--a library without a comprehensive
collection in 
a subject is not ready to assume them, and normally as a
first 
priority should expand the collection.)

6. Alternative routes: A. Availability of electronic copy
for 
immediate purchase B. Expected rapid availability from
document 
delivery C. Various consortial arrangements. D. Open Access:
Here 
is where open access comes in, or to be exact will come in, 
because the concentration of such availability in other than
OA 
journals is not yet sufficient to make the difference,
especially 
considering finadability. But this should increase rapidly
in 
biomedicine, with the growth of PMC and the linking to OA
copies 
in PubMed. (And, as we all know, there are other excellent
ways 
to get Open Access copies; details are for another day.)

And there are of course subsidiary factors, such as the
variable 
likelihood of budget changes and the expected development of

academic programs. (These, and the other factors can of
course 
also be explained in detail)

But all the above are only modifying factors; while I have
used 
them on occasion, almost always the question came down to
the 
money and the use.

>From the reputation of your library, and Rick's, I am
certain you 
take account of all this. Even though most of the librarians
on 
ths list do not need reminding either, librarians in general
have 
not done enough public explanation, so users--even
publishers and 
information scientists--may not be aware of all the 
possibilities.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodmanprinceton.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: Leah Krevit <leah.krevitexch.library.tmc.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 6:22 pm
Subject: RE: puzzled by self-archiving thread
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu

>>Eventually, we have to pick subscriptions to cancel.
 If we
>>don't make our cancellation decisions based on usage
and cost,
>>what criteria should we use?  I don't ask that
question
>>facetiously -- I'd be honestly interested to know,
from a
>>publisher's perspective, what other criteria _would_
make sense.
>
> Rick, we are never happy with simple algorithms around
here. 
> No, the STM journal world is a complicated place. We
not only 
> consider use and cost, but impact factors as well. When
looking 
> at 8,000 in-scope journals which are critical to the
research, 
> education, and clinical care activities in the
biomedical 
> environment this library serves, finding titles to cut
becomes 
> a dangerous activity. So, we gather as much ammunition
as we 
> can before making those cancellation lists public.
Having open 
> access journals of high quality now helps ease the pain
a bit, 
> but each year is more of a nightmare--cut journals?
Stop buying 
> books? Pray the journal price increase will not exceed
5%? What 
> about databases?
>
> Impact factors may not have the "impact" they
once did, but 
> they are still useful pieces of the overall data
picture I have 
> to present to faculty and biomedical researchers, who 
> understand them.
>
> Happy New Year to all on this wonderful list!!
>
> Leah Krevit, M.L.I.S.
> Associate Director
> Collections Management
> Houston Academy of Medicine -
> Texas Medical Center Library
> Houston TX 77030-2809
> leah.krevitexch.library.tmc.edu
> http://resource.libra
ry.tmc.edu