Based on seeing the data every month, I'd estimate an average title
change rate of 0.5-1.0% per month over all the journal aggregation
databases. And yes, more adds than drops. A fair amount of that is
gratuitous title changes, so real adds and drops are probably less
that 0.5% per month on average.

We'd be happy to provide the data for analysis if anyone wants to do
a real study.

Eric

At 9:51 AM -0500 3/3/05, Mark L. Ferguson wrote:
>Dear serials listers:
>
>
>
>I have a question which I am sure someone out there has the answer to.
>Has anyone done a study of how stable the lists of  journals that allow
>full text access through our leasing arrangements with databases are?
>Do these full text titles continue to come and go, or is there a stable
>core that remains available making up the bulk of the offerings provided
>by these databases?
>
>
>
>It is common knowledge that we only lease access to these titles, we
>don't actually own them and there have been cases where publishers have
>discontinued full text access to journal titles (Sage publishers is
>probably the most notable in recent memory).  But I have never seen a
>study documenting how often full journals are pulled from databases,
>discontinuing full text access to these publications.
>
>
>
>  My sense is that once a journal is included in a database's collection
>of full text titles it generally stays there and that the lists of full
>text journals available through various databases are much more stable
>than are given credit for.  If anything, I would think these lists tend
>to expand rather than shrink in terms of title coverage.   I have yet to
>see or hear of any real documentation regarding this.  Does anyone know
>of any recent studies on this?
>
>
>
>Mark

--

Eric Hellman, President                            Openly Informatics, Inc.
eric@openly.com                                    2 Broad St., 2nd Floor
tel 1-973-509-7800 fax 1-734-468-6216              Bloomfield, NJ 07003
http://www.openly.com/1cate/      1 Click Access To Everything