Marriott Library Collection Development

Marriott Library Collection Development

JOURNALS TO BE REVIEWED IN 2005

“The print and electronic journal collections I require for my work” was the University of Utah community's number one priority in a recent national survey rating library services and collections. It was followed closely by “electronic access to library collections from home or office”. Library patrons love online journals. Last year at least 1,500,000 articles were downloaded while about 75,000 bound and unbound issues were reshelved. We want to maintain paper subscriptions when those are appropriate, but we believe most readers want online access to most articles. This leads to balancing acts. Should we spend money purchasing online access to older issues we already own in paper? Is it better to have some access to a wider variety of journals or optimum access to fewer? In reality, we can’t afford every option..

The budget for the library’s collections has been static for years while journal prices increase – up an average of 8% last year. To balance the budget we must cancel. We also need to redirect money. People ask for new journals and databases. They want more online backruns, and we suspect we should more often buy single articles to give researchers quick access to text we don’t own.

Every year we examine part of our collection to see if the subscriptions are worth renewing. This year we are looking at these major categories:

- Lightly used. We know that some journals are reshelved hundreds of times or downloaded thousands of times. For others the evidence is less clear.

- Value for money. Some journals receive moderate use but are so expensive, or have increased so much in price, that they seem poor investments.

- Ordered in 2000. Our philosophy is to start, if at all possible, the journals people request or often borrow through Interlibrary Loan. We review them after 5 years to see if they have indeed attracted an audience.

- We will also be cutting the book and binding budget.

Please review the list and let us know if you see titles which you are likely to need in your future research and teaching.
Send your comments to journals@library.utah.edu by June 20, 2005.
Your selector has information about the journals we take for your discipline. Call Barbara Cox 7-9167 to discuss the budget or project.

List A-Z
List by call number
FAQ (aka why spend money on the building when you have to cut journals)

---Serials Collection Working Group 9mar05 rev. BC; ok ML

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Please send comments and questions to acq@library.utah.edu