Sherry,

You may have read David Goodman's reply a few days ago. Many of the
cautions about faculty surveys apply to Zero based budgeting as this
method relies even more on faculty/departmental input. I have yet to see
an example of successful zero-based budgeting in serials management. I
know of some that have failed, though. Again, too much reliance on
faculty/departmental input was the key problem. But don't get me wrong! I
am not at all opposed to faculty/departmental input, however, the library
should provide use data for such input. Problems arise when faculty input
is intended as the sole basis for making changes to the journal selection.
Here is my top-5 list of problems with solely relying on
faculty/departmental input when making journal cuts/adds:

1. It's nearly impossible to achieve the level of participation one would
need for survey results precise enough to make journal title specific
decisions.

2. Even if you provide fairly detailed instructions there are going to be
significant differences in how people respond.
    E.g. an infrequent library user submits 20 titles, a frequent library
journal user submits 5. Placing limits and requesting ranking do little to
improve the prospects.

3. Faculty tend to rank 'their' specialty journals that tends to
'underrepresent' journals with heavy use across several disciplines, e.g.
Science, Nature, PNAS, etc.

4. One tends to become entangled in difficult weighting schemes for e.g.
department chair votes, etc.

5. When making cuts, relying on faculty input alone often results in a
free-for-all in which the most persistent and vocal respondents often get
'their way'.

When I started in my current job I noticed that couple of journals on my
first cuts lists had only been added a few years earlier. As it turned out
the adds had been made based on a faculty survey 'done by the book'. Even
after a five year 'probation period' more than 80% of the adds had failed
to achieve usage levels to prevent them from being cut.

Since 1994/95 we have been keeping track of journal use data - internal
use and check out. Since then we have had to cut about 30% of our journal
subscriptions. Our recorded use totals show that so far the total use of
our journal collection has remained stable even with those cuts. Of
course, we have now hardly any easy cut candidates left, and the use data
has become the basis for saving the remaining journals and -last but
certainly not least- for making changes in the journal collection. There
are always journals that have already lost their user basis or show a
declining usage trend. Even if there is no budgetary pressure to make
journal cuts, those low use journals should perhaps be cut so that
journals for which there is a clear, proven need on campus (check you
over-copyright lists for patterns) could be added.

David Goodman points to the literature on usage studies. Beware of some of
the older methods! If you have an online system that can track use, some
older articles may not provide the best methods. Despite some good recent
articles by Black, and others, we are still too far from a point where one
could find 'best practices' information. There should be more comparative
studies of journal use data gathering and analysis.

Alfred Kraemer
Head, Technical Services
Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries
8701 Watertown Plank Road
Milwaukee, WI 53226

Phone: 414-456-4273
E-Mail: akraemer@mcw.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: Sherry Palmiter <PALMITER@SEATTLEU.EDU>
To: <SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2000 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: Serials Cuts Strategies

> Have you considered Zero based budgeting?  Reallocate your funds.  Ask
> each department to start the selection process from scratch.  They must
> choose the titles they want given their new budget.
>
> Sherry Palmiter
> Bibliographic Control Librarian
> Lemieux Library
> Seattle University
> <PALMITER@SEATTLEU.EDU>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Washkevich [mailto:washkevich@MARSHALL.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 11:54 AM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Serials Cuts Strategies
>
>
> Our library is currently facing drastic serials subscription reductions,
> due to costs we can no longer hope to keep up with.
>
> I'd like to know how other libraries have come up with strategies for
> deleting subscriptions.
>
> We've talked about a departmental survey, in hopes of identifying core
> journals.  In fact, we pulled out the last one, done around 5 years ago.
> Problem is, one department we looked at identified nearly all their
> journals as core titles!
>
> We've discussed using electronic resources that include full-text titles
> we subscribe to in hard copy, as replacement for the hard copy.  But what
> if the electronic title disappears from the online database?
>
> We've talked about going from department to department on campus, and just
> laying out the numbers, asking for suggestions for cuts.
>
> I'm sure other libraries are faced with this same old story...serials
> costs rising at a rate too fast for budgets to keep up with.  When cuts
> become a necessary reality, what strategies have others come up with to
> reduce costs, without compromising the collection's ability to support
> curriculum?
>
> Peter Washkevich / Marshall University
>  <washkevich@MARSHALL.EDU>