Collections and Journals review 2009

Explanatory Notes and Factors to Consider

When reviewing the titles, there are many areas we would like you to consider. You will have several data points available to you as you review your lists. Below are some tips on understanding what you are seeing and how this data should influence your decisions.

Title
Titles listed represent all paid subscriptions.  Serial titles to which the NCSU Libraries does not subscribe but that are available full-text through our electronic databases are not included in these title lists.  Through its consortial partners such as TRLN, the Libraries has license agreements with several publishers that allow us access to a broader selection of titles (a.k.a. non-subscribed titles) beyond our subscribed list. Typically, after cancelling a subscribed title the Libraries will maintain electronic access to the subscribed years/backfiles of a title. However, if we cancel or decide to not renew a database license, we may lose all access to the additional non-subscribed titles.

Call Number
The call numbers listed follow the Library of Congress classification scheme represent specific elements such as subjects and author/publisher identifiers.

Publisher
The publishers listed are the most current known providers of the serials.

Format
The format can be in one of three configurations:  online-only subscription, print-only subscription, and a combination of formats, print + online subscription.   The format is often determined by the subscription model, which differs from publisher to publisher.  In some instances, the publisher requires that the Libraries subscribe to both the print and electronic versions of a title at a combined cost; the electronic version is not available on a separate subscription.  Even when the electronic version can be purchased without the print, there may little, if any, cost savings.  With some publishers, online access comes "free" with a print subscription. Other publishers provide a small savings (usually 5%-10%) for online-only access. It should be remembered that the savings from moving to online-only subscriptions and cancelling the print counterpart can only be realized once.  While switching to online-only subscriptions eliminates some costs of processing print materials (e.g., receipt and processing, shelving, binding, circulation, stacks maintenance), new costs are created (licensing, cross-resource linking, maintaining and troubleshooting access problems). In making the decision to subscribe to online-only resources, the Libraries will evaluate whether there is a reliable archiving model such as LOCKSS and/or Portico in place for a title before cancelling the print format.

Electronic Usage Downloads
These counts represent the number of Full-Text Article Downloads, as reported by publishers according to COUNTER Codes of Practice. See http://www.projectcounter.org for a full description of COUNTER practices.  The electronic usage download data is provided for the years 2007 and 2008. Not all publishers provide electronic usage data, therefore, some titles will have a null value.

Unit Price
Cost may not always be what we pay when a journal is included in a package so the numbers indicated are list price for some titles.  High cost of a journal should be weighed against importance to the NCSU community and other factors.

Subject
Each title is assigned to a broad disciplinary group based on research and teaching programs at NCSU.

2007 Impact Factor
From the Institute for Scientific Information’s (ISI) Journal Citation Reports database, the journal Impact Factor is the number of cites in a given year (e.g., 2007) to articles published in the two preceding years (e.g., 2006 and 2005) divided by the number of published articles in that same time period (2006 and 2005).  If a journal is not indexed by ISI, there will be no journal Impact Factor.

Cited by NCSU authors (most recent 5 years)
This data shows the total number of citations to the given titles by NCSU authors over the past 5 years. If the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) does not index a title, then there will not be a value in this field; this does not mean that the title has not been cited, it simply means that this data is not available from ISI. This value could be a good indication of a journal's relevance to subject areas in which NCSU researchers are publishing. This data comes from LJUR (Local Journal Utilization Report) data that is developed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).

Number of publications by NCSU authors (most recent 5 years)
This data shows the total number of articles written by NCSU authors over the past 5 years. If the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) does not index a title, then there will not be a value in this field; this does not mean that no NCSU authors have published in a given title, it simply means that this data is not available from the ISI. This data can indicate relative importance of journals in terms of research and publishing activity. It comes from the Local Journal Utilization Report.