VIVA and the Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System A Report on the Analysis of Subscriptions in Virginia’s Academic Libraries Paul Metz

Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System Continuously updated, fairly comprehensive information on 189,000+ serials Adds value for qualitative analysis via ISI and Katz information Utility for decision-making is multiplied when subscription information is added

Steering Committee said “let’s do it!” First state consortium to give it a whirl Directors’ Goals: Assemble the data Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “last copy” strategy Identify “commonly held titles that may be candidates for electronic purchase”

Data preparation Bowker met with us and came for training Loading coordinated by Margot Cronin and Sharon Gasser Data loaded by May 2004 Local reports supplemented with central information on VIVA, ScienceDirect, Wiley subs 21,000+ title lines with 91,000+ “holdings” records reported Error reports to individual institutions

How are we doing? Assemble the data Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “last copy” strategy Identify “commonly held titles that may be candidates for electronic purchase”

What story do the data want to tell us? Committee charged with analysis: Rachel Frick, Sharon Gasser, Louveller Luster, Paul Metz, Paul Rittlemeyer, John Walsh Easier if one person drives – as Sharon Gasser had “driven” data loading, Paul Metz drove analysis Fairly aggressive analysis, felt empowered to make decisions about the data Recommendations are from the Resources for Users Committee

The first story the data tell us is that they are very messy Institutional loading problems and errors Bowker diagnostics on errors Variant publisher names

Dept. of Redundancy Dept. There are lots of duplicate titles Did I mention the duplicate titles?

“At risk” titles Frequency distribution of subscriptions over titles Had to focus on important titles “Enhanced Core”: A&I, refereed, and ISI or Katz “Supercore”: A&I, refereed, ISI, and Katz After deduping, 1,065 Enhanced Core titles with one holder

Do we care? There are significantly more Enhanced Core titles with no holder than with one “Sometimes there’s a reason” Recommendation: post list, but apply nothing more than moral suasion

Thinking about “last copy” (non)cancellations: Be careful re your terminology: holds ≠ subscriptions Copyright still applies Remember you can always get it somewhere How much faster do you get from in-state than from Cal Riverside or Virginia Tech?

How are we doing? Assemble the data Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “last copy” strategy Identify “commonly held titles that may be candidates for electronic purchase”

Identifying opportunities for partnerships re “commonly held titles” Let’s focus on quality, too Partners are business entities, not bibliographic publishers (Elsevier, Pergamon, N. Holland...) 49 possible publishers researched 8 selected for further action Individual “Supercore” titles also identified for possible action

Possible Partners (business entity) American Institute of Physics American Society for Microbiology American Sociological Association Blackwell Publishing, Inc. Cell Press Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics University of Chicago Press

So What’s the Big Deal? We have not done as VIVA but Biggies have ScienceDirect (all titles) and Wiley (all owned titles) this way Like Don Sanville, “we had the wrong titles all along” – Wiley examples A Most Ingenious Paradox: micro data, macro decisions

One Extreme or the Other? All the publishers’ titles – bully for you, while it lasts. Be gathering data! A select few – hoist with their own petard! Hundreds of titles but no deal – IMHO, the worst of all worlds

Assemble the data Identify “at risk” titles to support possible “ last copy” strategy Identify “commonly held titles that may be candidates for electronic purchase” How are we doing?

What next? Renew the subscription for next year! Work with institutions to improve data loading and reduce number of errors Decide and implement specific “last copy” and “commonly held title opportunity” strategies Work with institutions to use USAS as a decision tool Work with Bowker to improve the product Inform the profession

Collection Analysis via Peer Comparisons Paul Metz Virginia Tech

Monographs Via WorldCat Collection Analysis Package

Two Main Uses Macro – how do we compare to our peers, overall? Micro – what good titles have we somehow missed?

Who are our peers? Alabama Duke Emory Florida State Kentucky LSU North Carolina NC State Tennessee Tulane Virginia Tech Wake Forest William & Mary

Zoom, Zoom

Median Imprint Date: VT = 1983 Group = 1978

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Also checked Books English Adult Level