False comparison, re: Article based subscriptions

["Paul M. Gherman" <Gherman@library.vanderbilt.edu>]

Vanderbilt subscribes to about 300 Elsevier titles. We 
found through our participation in PEAK that our users 
accessed a great many articles in journals other than those 
to which we subscribed. It is this reason that convinced us 
to subscribe to Science Direct. I would rather somewhat 
more for access to all their titles, than guess, and guess 
poorly, about what subset of their journals we should 
subscribe to in paper.

We have done several studies of our paper journal use, and 
we have found a great many titles with very little use. I 
believe libraries do a very poor job of anticipating what 
our users need or want. I say give them the broadest access 
you can and let them decide that they want.  

Paul Gherman
University Librarian
Vanderbilt University
...........................................................
David Goodman wrote...

 If my library had infinite resources, I would like to have available the
complete set of journals published by Elsevier and also all other academic
publishers. But my library has finite resources, and I think it most
useful to my patrons to devote those resources to the best and most used
journals in the relevant academic fields.

I suggest that those subscribing to plans such as Science direct are
buying what is most convenient to buy in bulk, not what is most needed.
(But then, maybe some of them do have infinite resources. There have been
those, including some publishers, who have been under the delusion that my
library does.)

David Goodman,
Princeton University
Biology Library		dgoodman@princeton.edu            609-258-3235
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