Wow, I must say this has opened my eyes. For the record, we have been
interpreting "current" as meaning literally current access, that is, no
delay period or embargo, and no "back issues only" or ceased titles. We
looked at this as we would look at a question about our print collection:
would we call a cancelled or ceased title "current?" We would not. I do
see your point about how we are now sometimes paying for ceased or
cancelled content in the electronic format. It's a debatable issue. But
this brings me around to a bigger point.
I, too, have been struggling over the years with ARL and AAHSL statistics.
The questions change from year to year, and the examples or explanations
are vague or absent.
Last time, I was in contact with AAHSL's James Shedlock, who answered some
of my questions about their intent. Perhaps this is what informed my
interpretation of ARL, which may not be valid. But all this discussion
shows that there are questions out there, not just from me! :-)
I agree that we cannot currently compare institution to institution, but
isn't that the intent of ARL and AAHSL statistics? Otherwise, why do we
bother submitting statistics to any central source? If they are only
meaningful to us, they are internal statistics by definition. Makes me
wonder why we are knocking ourselves out to produce these inscrutable
numbers.
I am going to forward part of this discussion to James Shedlock so that he
is aware of the wide variety of questions, concerns, and disillusion these
statistics seem to be creating. Does anyone have a contact at ARL to do
the same? I hope these organizations can explicitly clarify what they are
asking so that some day we can compare institution to institution.
In the meantime, we muddle along.
--Laura Davis
University of Washington
Health Sciences Library
ldavis@u.washington.edu
On Thu, 23 Aug 2007, Pennington, Buddy D. wrote:
> Fortunately ARL is much clearer in its directions than NCES, and we do
> follow them as closely as we can. We do dedupe since we can easily do
> that in Serials Solutions. For ARL we equte "currently acquire" with
> "currently access" so it does not matter to us if the latest issue is
> not in JSTOR. We count those titles because we can currently access the
> content. They are titles we currently subscribe to and pay for.
>
> I think Dan Lester hit the nail on the head: Document how you count
> your items, be consistent year from year, and do NOT compare across
> institutions.
>
>
> Buddy Pennington
> Serial Acquisitions Librarian
> University of Missouri - Kansas City
> University Libraries
> 800 East 51st Street
> Kansas City, MO 64110
> 816-235-1548
> 816-333-5584 (fax)
> penningtonb@umkc.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
> [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Robertson, Wendy C
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 12:45 PM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Are Journals in JSTOR Current Serials?
>
> My understanding is that the ARL statistics have changed in 2 important
> ways for 2006/2007 reporting.
>
> 1) each title is counted once, not each subscription, so you need to
> dedup among all print and electronic subscriptions
>
> 2) titles in aggregator databases are counted in the regular statistics
> (and have been dropped from supplemental)
>
> I am not able to get to the ARL site right now, but my printout says:
>
> Report the total number of unique serial titles, NOT SUBSCRIPTIONS, that
> you currently acquire. Do not include duplicate counts of serials
> titles. To the extent possible, report all government document serials
> even if housed in a separate documents collection. Verify the inclusion
> or exclusion of document serials in Question ??? [#5 is crossed out].
> Exclude unnumbered monographic and publishers' series. Electronic
> serials acquired as part of a bundle or an aggregated package should be
> counted by title even if they are not cataloged as long as they are
> accessible by the library.
> ...
> In the case of consortial agreements, count under serials purchased only
> those titles for which the library pays directly from its budgets
> expenditures. Count under 'serials purchased' only those titles for
> which your library pays even if partially paid from the library's
> budget. Report other titles that your library receives and does not pay
> for directly under serials received and not purchased. If a purchased
> title includes electronic access to the title, count that title ONLY
> ONCE (DEDUPED) for electronic only. If serials have been purchased
> through a consortium whose budget is centrally funded and independent
> from the library's budget, these serials should be reported under
> 'serials received and not purchased.'
>
> The paragraph about do not include full text serials from
> indexing/abstracting products has been crossed out.
>
> I believe this year we will be counting JSTOR titles as well as old
> portions of title changes in aggregator databases and for free titles
> because we can't come up with a way to exclude them. If we can figure
> out an automated way to exclude them from our count, we would limit our
> totals to current serials, since that is what the question requests.
>
> Wendy Robertson
> Electronic Resources Systems Librarian, LIT
> The University of Iowa Libraries
> wendy-robertson@uiowa.edu
> 319-335-5821
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
> [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Pennington, Buddy D.
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 10:09 AM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Are Journals in JSTOR Current Serials?
>
> Well that answers one of my questions. I wonder why they took it out of
> the directions. Different folks do them over the years (I wasn't
> involved until 2005).
>
> And it still makes you wonder why that portion of our collections is not
> something counted in the statistics when it arguably is the one making
> the most impact (Academic Search Premier is by far our number one
> resource in terms of usage and FT).
>
> Buddy Pennington
> Serial Acquisitions Librarian
> University of Missouri - Kansas City
> University Libraries
> 800 East 51st Street
> Kansas City, MO 64110
> 816-235-1548
> 816-333-5584 (fax)
> penningtonb@umkc.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
> [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Gibbons, Dennis
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 9:21 AM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Are Journals in JSTOR Current Serials?
>
> The instructions for line 26 of the 2003 Academic Libraries Survey
> stated: "Do not count the titles included in full-text article databases
> such as Lexis-Nexis, ABI/INFORM." One assumes this still pertains though
> not explicitly stated.
>
> --Dennis
>
> Dennis Gibbons
> Collection Development Librarian
> Texas Christian University Phone: 817-257-7312
> TCU Box 298400 Fax: 817-257-7282
> Fort Worth, TX 76129 E-mail: d.gibbons@tcu.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
> [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Eduardo Gil
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 8:21 AM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Are Journals in JSTOR Current Serials?
>
> Do any of you count active (current) subscriptions if available through
> aggregate databases such as Infotrac, Academic Search Premier. Up to
> now I've only been counting ("official count") those serials/journals
> that are the real thing, ex., Project muse titles, Science Direct,
> Springer etc.
>
> Eduardo
>
> Hutchens, Chad wrote:
>> I don't see why you wouldn't count a JSTOR title if you're receiving
>> the title individually (even though it's in JSTOR as well).
>>
>> Some titles in JSTOR are still active (in that they're still being
>> published), some have ceased publication (but the full run isn't
>> available in JSTOR because the moving wall hasn't caught up with the
>> last issue), and some are have ceased and JSTOR offers access to the
>> full run of the journal. So I guess the answer is, it depends on the
>> title.
>>
>> Clear as mud right?
>>
>> Chad E. Hutchens
>> Electronic Resources Librarian
>> Montana State University Libraries
>> P.O. Box 173320
>> Bozeman, MT 59717-3320
>> (406) 994-4313 phone
>> (406) 994-2851 fax
>> chutchens@montana.edu
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
>> [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Gibbons, Dennis
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 3:18 PM
>> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
>> Subject: [SERIALST] Are Journals in JSTOR Current Serials?
>>
>> Line 26 of the Academic Libraries Survey asks for the number of
>> current serial titles held at the end of the Fiscal Year. The
>> instructions for line 26 read:
>>
>> Part D - Library Collections
>> Current serial titles (line 26) - Report the total number of titles in
>
>> all formats. If the title comes in both paper and electronic form,
>> count it twice. Count each individual title if it is received as part
>> of a publisher's package. Include paper and microfilm government
>> documents issued serially if they are accessible through the library's
>
>> catalog. Report indexing and abstracting services that may contain
>> full-text in line 27.
>>
>> Do any libraries count JSTOR journals as current serial titles?
>>
>> Dennis Gibbons
>> Collection Development Librarian
>> Texas Christian University Phone: 817-257-7312
>> TCU Box 298400 Fax: 817-257-7282
>> Fort Worth, TX 76129 E-mail: d.gibbons@tcu.edu
>>
>
