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CONCERT 2004

Power to the LibrarianDelivering Transparency in the Serials Market

Doug McMillan

Managing Director

Bowker UK Ltd

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Towards Librarian control

Significant changes in Subscription models and journal access over recent years

Usage Statistics provide a degree of library control Aggregated collections sometimes offer quantity at

value Consortia key in delivering price benefits Growth of Open Access

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Delivering Transparency

Fundamental issues remain in:

Analytical assessment of holdings

Objective comparison and evaluation of offerings

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Transparency from two perspectives

InternalLibrary holdings – quality, depth, coverage and

specialisation

External Publisher and aggregator journals and packages –

quality, price, coverage,

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Internal Transparency

Need to bring together and maintain a central central knowledge baseknowledge base about the institution’s collections

Establish and maintain a Establish and maintain a corecore journal collection journal collection basebase

Retain an in-depth knowledgeknowledge of their collection’s qualityquality for accreditation and curriculum support

Very often a time-consuming, manual process

How does an Institution How does an Institution define core?define core?

What Industry standards define journal quality?

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External Transparency

Need to understand what research sources are available, relative to the institution’s own collection

Compare publisher data to evaluate offeringsevaluate offerings, prices, availability, scope, etc.

Compare Aggregated collections (600) for subject coverage, quality etc

Research and Time intensive

Manual process

No single tool that enables comprehensive comparative analysis of collections by Industry standards?

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Challenges for the Serials Librarian

Increasing serials costsIncreasing serials costs and shrinking budgets Need to meet demand from end-users for quality quality

research materialresearch material Need to make tough selection/de-selection Need to make tough selection/de-selection

decisionsdecisions How can this be achieved while maintaining a How can this be achieved while maintaining a

core collection that is both high in established core collection that is both high in established quality and relevant to Institution specialisation?quality and relevant to Institution specialisation?

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Criteria for Serials Selection and De-selection

Faculty requests Student requests Holdings of peer libraries Publisher Electronic availability Cost Peer reviewed ISI Impact Factor Usage Abstracted/Indexed

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Same Criteria apply for analysis and evaluation

Electronic availability Cost Peer reviewed? ISI Impact Factor? Usage Abstracted/Indexed Holdings of peer libraries

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How Bowker is helping

Bowker has traditionally provided objective information for librarians

Long involvement in the serials world with Ulrich’s Identify and address some of the problems faced by

serials librarians in developing and maintaining journal collections

Create objective tools that save time, money and effort

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What If You Could

Quickly identify gaps in core disciplines? Identify potential journals to drop? Compare publisher offerings? Compare your collection to a peer group? Improve your negotiating position with

publishers and aggregators? Quickly generate reports to demonstrate

strengths for accreditation and weaknesses for budget justifications?

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What Are We Providing?

A web-based analytical service which enables: A new view of holdings Enhanced analysis capability Better communications ability

combined withcombined with

A comprehensive, high-quality reference database – Ulrichsweb.com

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Solutions Provided

Merging “internal” and “external” data

Library catalog dataLibrary catalog data for journals and other material Locally-created databases of usage statisticsusage statistics Institution-specific contact information Electronic subscriptionsElectronic subscriptions to databases and services Resources held by other institutionsheld by other institutions Quantitative data on publishers and their publications Industry benchmarkingIndustry benchmarking standards Detailed information on specific serials titles Links toLinks to free and fee web-based resourcesweb-based resources

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Solutions Provided

Objective, quantitativebjective, quantitative data data that can be used to make decisions:• Collection development

• Deselection (weeding)

Identifies gaps and redundanciesIdentifies gaps and redundancies in coverage Improves negotiating power of institution for

publisher and aggregator offerings

Facilitates effective collection decision-making

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Product Overview

Components of the product: Analytical reporting tools Site-wide access to UlrichsUlrichsweb.com Publisher reporting module Collection “audit” report

Options Analyze a single library’s collection Analyze multiple collections within a library or

research center consortium Evaluate peer groups Evaluate and compare Aggregated collections of

Journals Evaluate the offerings of serials publishers

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Ulrich’s Serials Analysis System

Evaluate the library’s serials collection against Ulrich’sUlrich’s in over 900 subject areas

Ulrich’s Universe = 189,000 active titles Ulrich’s Core = 52,000 academic/scholarly

Filter the library’s collection by

Refereed status Abstracted/Indexed Electronic format availability ISI Impact Factor (for mutual subscribers)

Recommended in Magazines for Libraries Country of Publication Language of Publication

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Multiple tools

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Identify coveragecoverage by subject

Identify gapsgaps in your collection by subject

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View Details in Ulrichsweb.com

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View Aggregator Details in Ulrichsweb.com

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View titles currently heldcurrently held for potential de-selection

Use various criteria:

• Usage• Cost• ISI Impact Factor• Electronic• Peer Reviewed• Abstracted/Indexed• Reviews

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When You Need to Benchmark

Comparable PeersComparable Peers

What are libraries like me like me subscribing to?

Is my serials collection of comparablecomparable depth and scope?

Am I missing important titles my peersmy peers are subscribing to?

Aspirational PeersAspirational Peers

What are the next-tier next-tier librarieslibraries buying?

How does my serials collection stack upstack up?

Are my library’s users getting access to titles that will enhanceenhance their research experience?

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Option 1Option 1: Compare Your Library to a Peer GroupCompare Your Library to a Peer Group

Get useful information for benchmarking your serials collection.

Identify how your serials collection is like – or unlike – the collections of libraries with similar demographics.

Learn which titles match – and don’t match – titles held by your peers.

Option 2Option 2: Compare a Peer Group to Ulrich’sCompare a Peer Group to Ulrich’s

Evaluate the titles that your peers are subscribing to.

Analyze the aggregate collections of actual and aspirational peer groups.

Peer Group Reporting OptionsPeer Group Reporting Options

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Compare Your Library to a Peer GroupCompare Your Library to a Peer Group

Titles held in commonin common

Titles uniqueunique to your library

Titles in the Peer Group not foundnot found in your library’s collection

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Compare Your Library to a Peer GroupCompare Your Library to a Peer Group

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Comparison Reports

Compare any two more lists of ISSN

Improve negotiating position with Publishers and Aggregators

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Compare List A to List B

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Comparison of aggregators with ISI filter

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Library collection vs Aggregator package

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Comparison download

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Summary of Benefits

Save time, effort and resources in collection analysis – save money

Implement decisions using a unbiased frame of reference

Improve negotiating position with vendors to save money

Benchmark your holdings versus peers and other institutions

Improve communication of journal resources and availability to faculty, staff and students