I was afraid someone would ask. I’ve been using that statistic for nearly 20 years and at one time, I’m sure, I gave credit to the researcher. I looked through my old publications and I am not finding the citation. Apologies to all.

Linda

Linda Hulbert, Associate Director
Collection Management and Services
O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library #5004
University of Saint Thomas
2115 Summit Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105
Phone: (651) 962-5016 Fax: (651) 962-5486 email: lahulbert@stthomas.edu

The journal article you find is the journal article you were looking for

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Vince Jenkins
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 10:45 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] cost per use for individual journals

Linda,

Could you cite the study that concluded there are 1.5 uncounted uses for every counted use?

Thanks.

Vince Jenkins

vjenkins@education.wisc.edu

Technical Services Librarian

MERIT (Media, Education Resources & Information Technology)

School of Education

University of Wisconsin--Madison

608-262-7301

Hulbert, Linda A. wrote:

What I think is most important in these models that people are proposing is that they are defensible to the user base – faculty or researchers, whomever – that you used a fair consistent technique to determine cancellations or withdrawals. We often work with people who are data driven and when you can provide the data, it enhances your case. As Danny says, you may have to adjust your threshold as you face cuts; you may have to rely on unreliable aggregators (not because they are unreliable but the publisher may pull their content at their whim). Also, critical, is to recognize that there can be no sacred cows.

A beauty of the online world is that they can’t say, but I reshelve the journal when I’m through with it. The downloads and searches and sessions are what they are (however the publisher might count them).

The $30 came from an ARL study (years ago) that evaluated the cost to provide an ILL from ARL libraries. It was $11 for the borrowing library and $19 for the lending library. Each of our costs may be less (I hope) or more, but it’s a standard that can be used. Other things to keep in mind that when we determine cost per use we don’t include the costs of owning the title – check-in, strips, shelving, reshelving and storage space while we do include all of the personnel and materials costs in the ILL costs. For those of you who are working with print content and use, a study was done also years ago, that determined that for every counted use there were 1.5 unaccounted uses. If you want to add that as a weighting factor for use.

Linda

The journal article you find is the journal article you were looking for

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Danny Jones
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 3:18 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] cost per use for individual journals

Linda points out the importance of taking into consideration the discipline, and I would like to suggest another consideration, which is how aggressive you want or need to be in managing subscriptions.

Since we are a independent biomedical research institution, where immediate online access is highly prized by our scientists, I try to take a conservative approach to managing a very expensive subscription list based on cost/use data. We have heavily used journal subscriptions that are core to our basic research mission that cost as much as $13,000. In our case, a $30.00 threshold would be unacceptable.

I’ve just finished a review of our 280 mostly basic medical sciences subscriptions list. I used the Counter full text downloads for 2007 & 2008 (annualized), and the 2008 prices to calculate the cost/use for each title, then I determined the average (Mean) cost/use for the list and set a threshold for possible cancellation at the Mean + 1 Standard Deviation from the mean. In our case that puts the threshold at $72 + $108 = $180/use.

So that’s my formula.

Cheers,

Danny

=======================
Daniel H. Jones, M.L.S., Director
Preston G. Northrup Memorial Library
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
Shipping address:
     7620 NW Loop 410
     San Antonio, TX 78227-5301
Mailing address:
     P.O. Box 760549
     San Antonio, TX 78245-0549

Tel: 210-258-9426
Fax: 210-670-3313
Email: djones@sfbr.org
=======================

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Hulbert, Linda A.
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 1:19 PM
To: SERIALST@list.uvm.edu
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] cost per use for individual journals

I also use the $30 as a general rule of thumb – but I also look at a discipline like all of social sciences and see what the average cost per use is for that area and when evaluating the suggestions for cancellation I use anything over the average cost per use. We use Counter statistics and do it based on downloads.

Linda

The journal article you find is the journal article you were looking for

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Sutton, Sarah
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 12:40 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] cost per use for individual journals

Does anyone have a formula for deciding their maximum acceptable cost per use of a journal? What I’m really wondering, is how much is too much? It’s easy to justify cancelling print when the cost per use of a print journal is, say, $250 per use. But what about a journal that costs $20.47, cancel it or not?

Clearly there are many other criteria that play into such a decision (e.g. shelf space, curriculum support, accreditation requirements, etc.). I’m just wondering how (if) the collective wisdom of this list use cost per use data.

Thanks,

Sarah

Sarah Sutton

Serials / Electronic Resources Librarian

Mary & Jeff Bell Library

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

6300 Ocean Drive

Corpus Christi, TX 78412-5702

phone 361-825-2355

fax 361-825-5973

email sarah.sutton@tamucc.edu