-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Print vs. electronic serials in public libraries -- Abby
Schor
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 08:49:44 -0500
From: "MD_Buddy (Buddy Pennington)" <MD_Buddy@KCLIBRARY.ORG>

We are in the middle of evaluating our periodicals collection and the
issue
of electronic vs. print does come into play.  We do not have any hard,
objective rules on this but if two titles are comparatively even on
subject
matter, academic level and price and one needs to be cut, we tend to cut
the
one that is available full-text in one of our databases.

There is a caveat though.  Databases are access-oriented and if a vendor
loses the rights to a periodical, you also lose that periodical.  A
recent
example is ProQuest losing the rights to the Harvard Business Review,
Discover, Popular Science, and a host of other titles (many of which are
moving to other databases).  The database vendors are competing against
each
other for exclusive contracts to these periodicals, which means
dwindling
access to library customers since libraries cannot afford to get all the
big
databases that are out there.

I also have noticed a trend.  When we get patrons doing research and
tending
to need articles from academic journals, they tend to be the older
volumes
that are not available in our FT databases.

Buddy Pennington
Document Delivery Librarian
Kansas City Public Library
md_buddy@kclibrary.org
816-701-3552

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: print vs. electronic serials in public libraries
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 11:45:02 -0500
From: Abby Schor <aschor@AHML.LIB.IL.US>

I am at a mid-sized public library, and we are currently considering the
issue of print vs. electronic periodicals.  We have seen the use of our
paper periodicals drop, while electronic resource use goes up.  Our
paper collection seems to be used more for recreational or leisure
purposes, while students and others doing research rely on electronic
databases.  Do any of you have a formula or other way to determine how
much of your budget to devote to paper (or micoform) periodicals and how
much for electronic databases?  As an Illinois library, we are fortunate
to have free access to many FirstSearch databases, and we subscribe to
several of the Gale products (such as General Reference Center, Expanded
Academic, General Business File, and Health Reference Center). Do you
drop a subscription to a little-used paper or microform product if your
vendor provides it full text?  Do you have a policy covering such
decisions?  I'd be interested in anything you'd like to share about th!
is, particularly from other public libraries.

Abby Schor
Collection Specialist
Arlington Heights Memorial Library
500 N. Dunton Avenue
Arlington Heights, Illinois  60004
847-870-4310 (voice)
847-392-0136 (fax)