Provided that you do not have concerns about accreditation, the
most satisfactory solution would be to rank-order your academic titles
by cost-per-use and cut the titles on the bottom segment.  That way, you
provide the largest quantum of service for your expenditure.  You could
also cut non-academic titles as ancillary to the library's mission, but
these titles are typically cheap and often well-used.
        The use statistics reveal the behavior of your full
constituency, where as faculty opinion provides only the stated (and not
revealed) preferences of one segment of it.  Also, it is doubtful that
professors have within their specialized expertise the tools to
adjudicate the competing claims of the various academic departments with
regard to expenditures on serials.
Professors are busy with other things and their judgment can be clouded
with considerations ancillary or irrelevant to serving colleagues,
students or community borrowers.
        I suggest that your funds should go to the service of your
domestic users, and that aid to other institutions is gravy.  Thus, if
your use statistics are so ordered that you can identify and exclude
that portion of enumerated use devoted to fulfilling ILL request, you do
best by your people to compute cost-per-use by excluding ILL
fulfillments from "use".
          I will offer that truckling to 'political' considerations does
not serve the interests of the institution, and suspect that it may be
avoided more often than many librarians contend.  IW

I. Woodward
Serials Office
Colgate University Libraries
13 Oak Dri ve
Hamilton, N.Y. 13346
Ph.: 315-228-7306
Fax: 315-228-7934

-----Original Message-----
From: Schleper, Susan P. [mailto:spschleper@STCLOUDSTATE.EDU]
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 12:37 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Accreditation lists

Hi all,

We are in the process of reviewing our serials titles for
discontinuation of some subscriptions - times are tough.  We sent out a
survey to all departments asking for their input on what would be there
top/middle/bottom choices.  I'm working with the bottom choices to
compile a list of things to remove.  Not all departments responded and a
few of them - like Physics - have some of the higher priced journals
that have shocking cost-per-use stats.  However, I don't want to cancel
something that might jeopardize a departments accreditation.  Is there
some place/resource that I can access that would give me an idea of what
is needed for accreditation purposes?  Or is it a case of "maintaining a
collection adequate to support the curriculum" kind of thing?

Thanks,
Susan

Susan Schleper
Serials Librarian, Assistant Professor
St. Cloud State University
phone: 320 308-5525
email: spschleper@stcloudstate.edu