Estimates of the price or value of the individual journals within a full-text database may be useful to librarians engaged in serials reviews or other collection development projects, to scholars investigating the determinants of journal prices, and to publishers seeking to rationalize their pricing strategies. This paper evaluates six methods of…

Construction management is a growing field with strong job prospects and expanding educational opportunities. It is closely related to business and engineering. This article provides an introduction and overview of collection development for academic librarians supporting construction management, from the perspective of the author's experiences at…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current situation and the social and economic benefits from the consortia acquisitions of electronic resources by the China Academic Library and Information System (CALIS) South China Regional Centre and to recommend improvements for consortia acquisitions. Design/methodology/approach: Analyses…

Like many libraries, Seton Hall University Libraries has suffered budget cuts that forced a reduction in serial subscriptions. As science librarian, I report on my efforts to streamline subscriptions and to address the question "Why are science journals so expensive?" Our science journals are significantly more expensive than journals in…

Evidence for open access as an emergent, global state of mind is everywhere. The "New York Times" went "open" last September, and the "Wall Street Journal" is slated to follow. Increasingly, scholarly communities are breaking with tradition and calling for the open sharing of research, software, and data. Amongst these global initiatives is the…

Highlights the unique characteristics of NEXIS, a full-text database of newspaper, wire-service, magazine and newsletter stories, and discusses its structure, educational versus commercial rates, the old versus new price structure, and search tips. An addendum describes changes through October 1985 and detailed appendices are included. (Author/EM)

Issues 266 through 282 of "Fast Facts" from the Library Research Service present data collected from libraries in Colorado and throughout the nation. Topics addressed in these "Fast Facts" from 2009 include interlibrary loan in academic libraries, public librarian salaries, book, newspaper, and periodical prices from 2004 to…

Rutgers University Libraries are using a Microsoft Access database to track the purchase of books requested by teaching faculty for use in the Reserve Collection. Reports are generated which show what is purchased, how money was spent. Combined with circulation figures and LC Subject areas, the database provides documentation of library support of…

Views increasing costs in the form of royalties as an obstacle to the development of online services in academic libraries. Increased volume, creative pricing, and alternate charging algorithms are suggested for containing costs. Comments of vendors and database producers are included. (RAA)

Illustrates that proper use of location information in the NUC and OCLC databases can reduce costs and improve interlibrary loan efficiency. (Author/RAA)

Examines the role of the serials vendor in the collection assessment and evaluation process in academic libraries. Topics discussed include the subscription agency's resources, including databases; issues of quality, accessibility, and manageability; costs, both present and future forecasts; availability, including document delivery; and issues of…

Purpose: This study examined the utilisation of the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library database (TEEAL) at the University of Agriculture Library, Abeokuta, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: Data collection was by questionnaire following a purposive sampling technique. A total of 104 out 150 (69.3 per cent) responses were received and…

This two-part study was designed (1) to determine differences in the costs of searching BRS After Dark (BRS AD) and Knowledge Index (KI) generally and across ten selected databases, and (2) to determine whether there is a difference in the citations retrieved when the same search is conducted on the same database in both systems. Study methodology…

The four papers in this collection discuss the planning, development, and use of online library catalogs. The first article on the requirements for online catalogs by Velma Veneziano describes such specific features as comprehensiveness, flexibility, affordability, availability, structured access, user friendliness, level of cataloging, and status…

Discussion of digital imaging technology focuses on its potential use for preservation of library materials. Topics addressed include converting microfilm to digital; the high cost of conversion from paper or microfilm; quality; indexing; database management issues; incompatibility among imaging systems; longevity; cooperative pilot projects; and…