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I am not sure what statistics you are trying to report, but I suggest you
consider distinguishing between ACQUISITIONS statistics and COLLECTION
statistics.  Subscriptions are an ACQUISITIONS function, and I assume you
want to report these.  In my experience I had to report ACTIVE titles and
INACTIVE titles as COLLECTION STATISTICS, and CURRENT SUBSCRIPTIONS as
ACQUISITIONS STATISTICS.  As you know, serials change every day, so you
probably want to select a date to prepare your statistics and do this at
the same time each year.  When I did this for a medical library in Texas,
we compiled our report on the last day of the fiscal year and reported it
as of that date each year.  The totals do not always agree.  I have also
included some comments in your text at *** below:

TITLES [not subscriptions, because you could have multiple subscriptions to
the same title] This provides a sense of the strength of the collection.
Active titles - basically these are open bibliographic records, eg. 1975-,
vol. 1- .
Inactive Titles - These are closed bibliographic records, eg., 1975-1998,
vol. 1-25.  This would include title changes and ceased publications.
In the medical library where I worked we typically reported 1800 ACTIVE
titles and 3500 INACTIVE titles.

SUBSCRIPTIONS
Current - the total number of subscriptions, counting each copy subscribed to.
In the medical library where I worked, we typically reported 2100 current
subscriptions, because we had some duplicate subscriptions.

I never actually reported cancellations as a category, and when I tried to
figure this out it sometimes was complicated.  The year-to-year change in
the number of SUBSCRIPTIONS will reflect the cancellations and other
changes in number of subscriptions that are caused by ceased publications,
splits and mergers.  You could do a separate report on CANCELLATIONS giving
both TITLES and SUBSCRIPTIONS,  but it would probably be more balanced to
prepare an ACQUISITIONS report on ORDER/CANCELLATION activity showing
SERIALS ACQUISITIONS activity:
ORDERS
Titles - include new orders, not title changes
Subscriptions
CANCELLATIONS
Titles - do not include cessations or title changes
Subscriptions

Danny Jones
Director of Research and Development for North America
HARRASSOWITZ
820 University Blvd. South, Suite 4B
Mobile, AL 36609

800/348-6886    (voice)
334/342-5732    (fax)
<djones@ottosvc.com>
------------------ Original message ------------------
I am trying to finalise the criteria to use in order to generate accurate
statistical reports on subscriptions added or cancelled, but had some
problems with regards to bibliographic changes. If it is a new title and
new subscription, then no problem, I would count it as one new
subscription.
If a titled ceased publication, then no problem, I can count it as one
subscription cancelled.
***"Cancellation" is an acquistion decision the library makes, "ceased
publication" is a decision the publisher makes and is not an acquisition
decision.  I would not consider a ceased publication as a cancellation.

However,
a) if Title A for which you had been subscribing to now becomes Title B,
how do you count this? Do you count iit as one cancellation and one new
subscription?

b) what about titles which merged, split etc?
I would love to hear from those who have been involved in the preparation of
reports in this area.
Many thanks in advance.
Ean
Mrs Lee Cheng Ean
Head, Serials
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Technical Services Division, Central Library, National University of
Singapore,
89 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119275
Email: clbleece@nus.sg Tel: (65) 8742035 Fax: (65) 7747180
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