I am in the middle of a review for Advances in Serials Management that
deals with the uses of bibliometric data in serials management.  I have
a pretty good grasp of the published work in the area for the past 10
years, but I suspect that (as Danny Wallace points out) there is a lot
going on that is interesting but never sees the light of print.  I would
be interested in hearing from any SERIALST readers who have use (or decided
not to use) bibliometric data of one sort or another in serials selection,
collection evaluation, budgeting decisions, weeding etc.  This is likely
to include (but not be limited to):

1.  Taking data from the Journal Citation Reports(Impact Factor values or
rankings, citing/cited half-life values, etc) and either using them directly
or incorporating them in decision models or spreadsheets.

2.  Citation or publication analyses that identify core and peripheral
 journals in areas of interest--for the purpose of selection, evaluation, or
weeding, or for departmental budget allocation

  *  Searching bibliographic databases to discover where patrons publish most
     frequently--particularly if the RANK command on Dialog is used

  *  Searching the citation indexes online to discover which journals your
     patrons cite most often (manual citation analyses are also of interest, of
     course)

  *  Using the citing/cited packages in the JCR to identify titles for
     selection

I'm not interested in physical use studies or circulation studies per se, but
would like to hear about comparative data gathering.

I'd also really like to know your thoughts on the mid-term and long-term
value of these data as the world of electronic + print and electronic journals
grows.

It might be better to respond to me directly than to broadcast to the list.
Thanks in advance,

Kate McCain
Professor
College of Information Science & Technology
Drexel University

mccainkw@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu