Collection Evaluation for Librarians

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LAM, Allen PICKARD, Valerie 6 Juen 2008 CITE Research Symposium 2008

description

Evaluating the nanotechnology collection of e-journals at a Hong Kong University

Transcript of Collection Evaluation for Librarians

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LAM, AllenPICKARD, Valerie

6 Juen 2008CITE Research Symposium 2008

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Library Collection

Nanotechnology

journal collection

in

HKUST Library

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HKUST Library Mission and Goals

Expand aggressively the scope and extent

of electronic resources,

Especially e-journals and web-based

reference tools

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NanotechnologyNanotechnology is a rapidly growing

academic field

Interdisciplinary in nature

Nanotechnology is a major area of

research in HKUST

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Focus on e-journals

Users of the collection are mostly researchers and PG students.

The collection is composed of mostly e-journals.

This evaluation concentrates on e-journals.

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Collection-based Use- or User-based

Quantitative Book counting, Budget analysis, etc.

Circulation statistics, Journal usage statistics, etc.

QualitativeList checking, Citation analysis, etc.

User surveys, Focus groups, etc.

(based on Johnson, 2004)

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Immediately available statistical data

Local statistics :Usage statistics – e-journal, circulation, book request logs, ILL, DDS, etc.

National/international statistics:Journal citation report, journal usage report by ISIJournal citation analysis by ScopusIn-citesGoogle Scholar…

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JCR

Data 1

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JCRJournal Citation Reportby ISI, Thomson research servicesImpact Factor (IF) – impact upon the research community

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COUNTER

Data 2

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A standard for generating and exchanging

usage reports

Most useful for e-journals usage

Generated monthly by vendors/publishers

to subscribers (libraries)

We focus on Number of full-text access

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JURO

HKUST Library is using a system called

JURO to keep and manage the COUNTER

data.

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Combining JCR & COUNTERThis COUNTER report summary lists all titles found in JCR.The titles are ordered in the same manner as the JCR, sorted in descending order by Impact Factor.There are a few unavailable or print-only titles for which no usage statistics are available, but are inserted to the usage report for direct comparison between the two tables.

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Side by side comparison

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Observations from dataMost titles found in JCR are heavily used in HKUST Library

during the years.

Titles having high JCR impact factors tends to be accessed

more often in HKUST Library; titles having impact factors

lower than 1.0 tends to be less often used

Those journals showing "lower" usage are actually not too

underused if we compare them with the overall e-journal

usage of HKUST Library

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Observationsfrom data

During 2006, 35% of all e-journals were never used at all!

• There was another 35% of e-journal lightly used, with an access count of 1 to 10.

• The majority of journals found in JCR are heavily used (in the top 7% usage among all subscripted e-journals).

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Identify items for acquisition

Look for journals with high IF

Investigate any new and forthcoming journals

Consult users

Other libraries’ holding

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Identify items for weeding

Weeding the zero usage counts?

Be suspicious with statistics data

Consult potential users

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Identify items for weeding

Weeding the low impact factors?

Be aware that JCR does not cover recent

data

Serving users’ needs should be a priority

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Identify items for weeding

Weeding the useless ones?

1/3 of all e-journals were not accessed

Bulk purchase, inelastic subscription

contracts

Libraries want more flexible subscription

arrangements

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Evaluation aided by electronically collected

statistical datalower cost, less manual work fast, timely results objective repeatable can be done more frequently closer monitoring of the collection health faster response to the needs of users, to the needs of the community/institution that the library belongs faster response in updating decisions in collection development and management, in acquisition and weeding

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LimitationUsage statistics of non-circulating printed

items, especially printed journals, are

difficult to collect.

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Automate collection evaluation

Base on existing usage dataBase on citation analysis reportsMathematical and rule-based

Data collection

Data processing Evaluation Report

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Automate collection evaluation

Save librarians from monotonous and

laborious list checking work

Allowing them to concentrate in their

professional judgment to making

collection development decisions