April 2010 Article Abstracts
Approval Plan Profile Assessment in Two Large ARL Libraries: University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and Pennsylvania State University
By Robert Alan, Tina E. Chrzastowski, Lisa German, and Lynn Wiley
Two Association of Research Libraries member libraries, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) and Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), evaluated their monograph acquisition approval plan profiles to answer basic questions concerning use, cost effectiveness, and coverage. Data were collected in tandem from vendors and local online systems to track book receipt, item circulation, and overlap between plans. The study period was fiscal year 2005 (July 1, 2004–June 30, 2005) for the approval plan purchasing data, and circulation use data were collected from July 1, 2004, through March 31, 2007, for both UIUC and Penn State. Multiple data points were collected for each title, including author, title, ISBN, publisher, Library of Congress classification number, purchase price, and circulation data. Results of the study measured the cost-effectiveness of each plan by subject and publisher, analyzed similarities and differences in use, and examined the overlap between the two approval plans. The goals were to establish a benchmark for consistently evaluating approval plan profile effectiveness and to provide a reproducible method with baseline data that will allow other libraries to collect comparable data and conduct their own studies.
Google Books as a General Research Collection
By Edgar Jones
The current study attempts to measure the extent to which “full view” volumes contained in Google Books constitute a viable generic research collection for works in the public domain, using as a reference collection the catalog of a major nineteenth-century research library and using as control collections—against which the reference catalog also would be searched—the online catalogs of two other major research libraries: one that was actively collecting during the same period and one that began actively collecting at a later date. A random sample of 398 entries was drawn from the Catalogue of the Library of the Boston Athenæum, 1807–1871, and searched against Google Books and the online catalogs of the two control collections to determine whether Google Books constituted such a viable general research collection.
Cataloging and Classification: Review of the Literature 2007–8
By Sydney Chambers and Carolynne Myall
This paper surveys library literature on cataloging and classification published in 2007–8, indicating its extent and range in terms of types of literature, major subject areas, and themes. The paper reviews pertinent literature in the following areas: the future of bibliographic control, general cataloging standards and texts, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), cataloging varied resources, metadata and cataloging in the Web world, classification and subject access, questions of diversity and diverse perspectives, additional reports of practice and research, catalogers’ education and careers, keeping current through columns and blogs, and cataloging history.
Rethinking Research Library Collections: A Policy Framework for Straitened Times, and Beyond
By Dan Hazen
Academic and research libraries today confront daunting financial pressures. Their faltering budgets also compound an intensifying existential crisis resulting from profound shifts in information, scholarship, technology, and academic organizations. The purposes of collections are particularly uncertain in this radically fluid context. Analyzing the most salient elements in today’s collections landscape can help to frame the guiding principles that will inform adaptive new approaches to collections and content.