In terms of journal review, another thing that should come into play, or may, is what you define as your “core” journals. These by definition are those that closely support and align with your curriculum, but there are other aspects to their definition as well.
And by definition, these are ones you want to sustain in the long term whereas other subscriptions are of lesser priority. At my library, we have undergone an in-depth, multi-year process of defining core journals in each of our disciplines and are now actively
working on ensuring that we have current subscriptions to all of them, with as complete a backfile as possible. And because they are core, things like cost-per-use may not weigh as heavily as otherwise might be the case. This will also help if in future, we
need to make cuts to our current subscriptions. We’ll try to preserve the core and those journals not defined as core are then possible targets for elimination if the need arises.
Of course, what gets defined as core can be a moving target, but I think we are much better off having defined the process, which can then be adjusted over time.
Steve
Steve Oberg
Assistant
Professor of Library Science
Group
Leader for Resource Description and Digital Initiatives
Wheaton
College (IL)
+1
(630) 752-5852
NASIG
President
