(The following two articles appeared July 1998 in Library Resources and Technical Services Volume 42 No. 3)

Scientific and Technical Serials Holdings Optimization in an Inefficient Market: A LSU Serials Redesign Project Exercise

Stephen J. Bensman and Stanley J. Wilder

• Introduction
• The Crisis and the Birth of the Serials Redesign Project
  • The Crisis and the Transition from Ownership to Access
    • Scientific Growth and Price Inflation
    • Impact on Association of Research Libraries
    • Impact on the Libraries of LSU
  • Birth of the Serials Redesign Project
    • Provision of Access
    • Adjustment of Ownership
    • The Faculty Survey
    • Table 1
• The Serial Evaluator and the Structure of the Scientific and Technical (ST) Journal System
  • Origin of the Serials Evaluator
  • Set Definition and Its Statistical Consequences
    • Need for Set Definition
    • Bibliometric Laws That Affect Set Definition in Library and Information Science
    • Reflections of the Bibliometric Laws in Library Use
    • Statistical Consequences of Set Definition in Library and Information Science
  • Skewed Distributions
    • Absence of the Normal Distribution in Library and Information Science
    • Bibliometric Laws, Stochastic Processes, and the Biological Model: The Negative Binomial Distribution
    • Penetration of the NBD into the Information and Social Sciences
    • The Controversy over the NBD and Monographic Circulation
  • The Social Bases of Scientific and Technical (ST) Value
    • Social Stratification and Library Use
    • History of Research-Doctorate Program Ratings in the United States
    • The Social Stratification System of Chemistry
    • Social Stratification and the ST Journal System
• Theory into Practice: Setting up the Serials Evaluator
  • Description of the Serials Evaluator
  • Set Definition, Academic Units, and the LC Classification Schedules
  • Table 2
  • Table 3
  • Construction and Validation of ST value measures
    • Type and Nature of ST Value Measures
    • Constructing the Faculty Score Measure and Defining Serials Universes
    • Testing Faculty Score Against Citations
    • Testing Faculty Score Against External Library Use
    • Table 4
    • Analyzing the Flaws in Faculty Scores with Citation-Based Measures and Internal Library Use
    • Table 5
• The Exercise
  • Testing the Serials Evaluator's Algorithms on UIUC Chemistry Library Use
    • The Serials Evaluator's Algorithms and the UIUC Data
    • Faculty Score, Citations, and the SociometricConcept of Library Use
    • The Accounting Concept of Library Use: Cost-Per-Use
    • The Serials Evaluator, Sociometric Measures, and Results in Cost-Per-Use
  • The Generalization of the Case of Chemsitry: Structure of the Desired Universe of Serials
    • Correlation of Faculty Score with Number of Titles and Cost
    • Concentration and Separation of Value and Cost
    • Types of Publishers Involved in the Imbalance Between ST Value and Cost
    • Table 6
    • Table 7
  • The Trade Off
    • Structure of the Working Universe of Serials and Corrections to Faculty Score
    • Table 8
    • Table 9
    • Characteristics of Serials Evaluator Recommendations for Subscriptions
    • Characteristics of Serials EvaluatorRecommendations for Cancellations
    • The Trade-Off in Terms of Number of Titles, Faculty Score, and Cost
• Conclusion: Economic Consequences and Options
  • The Inefficient Market: Contradiction Between Social and Economic Logic
  • Options for Resolving the Crisis
• Works Cited

Reflections

Stanley J. Wilder