College and Research Libraries 66 College & Research Libraries January 1983 Machine-Readable Files for Serials Management: An Optimizing Program and Use Data Maurita Peterson Holland The unending battle to balance the seri- als budget within the larger information resources budget has provoked much thought (and many faculty members!). All too frequently the subjective measure of serials "value" is applied by librarians or faculty. This is done either by the librarian and serials personnel subjectively ranking the relative (perceived) worth of titles (value = rank) or surveying students and faculty, allowing them to make subjective evaluations of titles. There are, however, also some objective measures of value that may be employed. These include measur- ing value by the proportion of time a title spends off the shelf (sample shelves at random times, continue sampling until a sufficient database is established), by sur- veying students and faculty, inquiring which titles they use and how frequently, or by tallying the frequency with which a title is used (i.e., uses/year). In an earlier article1 a formula was presented, based on use and patron access time, which mea- sures the effect of serials budget reduc- tions on public service. The files of data created in order to apply that formula can also be used for other kinds of objective se- rials budget analyses. Here we will de- scribe such analyses and present their ap- plication in a large engineering collection. SERIALS CLASSIFICATION AND DATA COLLECTION Most serials collections can be classified as shown in figure 1. In an ongoing data collection process for all serials, use both within the library and through circulation is tallied as the items are reshelved. For each of the components of the serials col- lection, we then create machine-readable files which provide management informa- tion. Data elements are: title, years of sub- scription if a non-current title, language if non-English, unbound and bound use, call number, cost. The classification of serials, also consid- ered data files, with description of file con- tents and action, is given below: Non-Current Titles (dead or canceled): Action-collect data, sort by usage, con- sider resubscribing to those with high us- age, storing those with low use. Current, Non-Free Titles: Action-collect data, (1) sort by" density," obtain an opti- mallist of titles for budget (2) sort by sub- ject, then by use or ''density'' within each area. Current Free Titles: Action-collect data, sort by usage, cut those with minimal us- age if space is a consideration. Recently Acquired Titles: Action-collect data for a few years before considering as "current, non-free" titles, make subjec- tive cuts as felt necessary. "Sacred Cows" (titles which the library "must" have): Action-don't touch "sa- cred cows.'' Because current, non-free titles are the prime target for serials reductions, we will consider action both on the optimal list and the use sort by subject. OPTIMAL LIST Using a heuristic device that generates feasible solution to a special type of inte- ger programming problem known as the "knapsack" problem, we perform the fol- lowing: 1. Establish a value for each item (title) Maurita Peterson Holland is head, Technology Libraries, and lecturer, College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The author gratefully acknowledges the expert programming help of John Ryder and Douglas Holbrook, seniors at the UM College of Engineering. Current free titles Dead or cancelled Research Notes 67 Current, non-free titles FIGURE 1 Serials Collection Classification in the problem (value is defined here as the average number of unbound uses per year per title). 2. Divide this value by the cost for each title, giving value/dollar/title = density: value density = __ _ cost 3. Sort the collection of current, non- free titles in descending order using the density obtained above. By generating a list of titles, sorted by density, it is possible to obtain an optimal list of titles for any de- sired budget. Such a list might appear as follows: Title GGG MMM BBB Density 27 22 .5 To obtain an optimal list, one reads down the list until reaching the appropri- ate budget. The titles above that point comprise the optimal list. Applying this procedure to our own data, we created a machine-readable file of all serials titles in our collection which have received one or more uses in the last five years (1, 700 titles) and sorted on the current, non-free files. (See figure 2.) Fifty percent of our use was met by 114 of the 1,092 titles in the current, non-free title including several titles new during the past five years. (Interface Age, two years; Petroleum Engineering International, three years . . . ) Observations The optimal list ranks the low-cost, high-use volumes near the top of the list. In engineering, this includes titles the re- search faculty may prefer not to have sup- port such as Creative Computing, Motor Trend, Byte, Aviation Week and Space Tech- nology, etc. If these titles are important for non-research use in the library, they could be defined as "sacred cows" and thus re- moved from the file; more typically, how- ever, the "sacred cows" are those titles representing scholarly proceedings and transactions from professional societies. More than half of the titles which were in the lowest 10 percent of use were new dur- ing the last one to four years. It is possible that a combination of low faculty/student awareness of the title, and an indexing lag or lack thereof, accounts for their low use. Therefore, we decided to exempt most new subscriptions from cancellation for five years. USE BY SUBJECT A list of titles is generated by engineer- ing discipline. Each list is subarranged by use, based on 1976-81 use data; the earli- 68 College & Research Libraries January 1983 TITLE CALL NO. DENSITY BUDGET SERVICE% Civil Engineering TAl 19.85 $7.00 1.07% ACM QA76 12.66 $10.00 1.36% Interface Age QA75 12.50 $22.00 1.82% Engin . News Record TA 1 12.47 $45.00 4.04% Petroleum Engin . Int'l TN860 11.66 $51 .00 4.36% Warme und Stoffuber QC251 0.02 $40, 162.00 95.55% Soil Mechanics & Foundation Engin . TA710 0.02 $40,437.00 95.60% Rail International TP2 0.02 $40,508 .00 .95.60% Polymer Science USSR TP986 0.02 $40,888 .00 95.67% FIGURE2 Example of File Aver. bd. and unbound use* CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Chemical and Engineering News 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price TPl 306 208/89 150/115 $8 .00 $40 .00 Chemical Engineering Progress 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB /B 1976 Price 1981 Price TPl 230 109/97 100/129 $75 .00 $100 .00 Hydrocarbon Processing 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price TP692 228 57/129 69/158 $4 .00 $7.00 AICHe Journal 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB /B 1976 Price 1981 Price TPl 210 82/137 22/119 $75 .00 $100.00 Management Science 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price HD28 202 58/142 30/62 $32.00 $50 .00 CIVIL ENGINEERING Engineering News Record . 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB /B 1976 Price 1981 Price TA 1 500 389/123 330/177 $12.00 $23 .00 Civil Engineering (ASCE) 1975/76 UB/B 1980/81 UB/B 1976Price 1981 Price TA 1 232 142/57 112/73 $7.00 $7.00 American Concrete Institute . Journal . 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB /B 1976 Price 1981 Price TA680 150 57/78 16/68 $11 .00 $25 .00 ASCE Structural Division Journal 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB /B 1976Price 1981 Price TA 1 138 28/106 6/127 $7.00 $15 .00 Journal of Materials Science. 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB /B 1976 Price 1981 Price TA401 114 105/53 23/88 $191.00 $436.00 NAVAL ENGINEERING Yachting. 1975/76 UB/B 1980/81 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price VM320 210 0/137 79/111 $10 .00 $15 .00 *This figure is calculated over five years data in fil e, not just on the two printed out. FIGURE 3 Example of File Research Notes 69 Shipping World & Shipbuilder. Reserve . 1975/76 UB /B 1980/81 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price VM1 156 60/70 101/78 $26 .00 $58.00 Motor Ship . London. 1975/76 UB /B 1981 UB /B 1976 Price 1981 Price VM1 130 82/55 45 /67 $16.00 $48.00 Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering International. 1975/76 UB /B 1981 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price VM1 116 121/8 103/17 $14.00 $40 .00 US Naval Institute . Proceedings. 1975/76 UB /B 1981 UB/B 1976 Price 1981 Price V1 112 92/15 47/47 $0.00 $0.00 FIGURE 3, CONTINUED Example of File est and most recent prices are printed out. (See figure 3.) This file is especially useful in discussion with faculty and in facilitat- ing departmental input on cancellation decisions. FURTHER USES The serials file in machine-readable form has many other uses. For example, the subject file aids in maintaining balance by discipline throughout the collection when cutting the serials budget. Public service uses are especially impor- tant. Our reference librarians·use the data to point out most-used titles in a particular subject discipline as students come in with the assignment to become familiar with lit- erature in their field. A new user educa- tion tool is created when the file is en- hanced by the addition of the indexing or abstracting tool for each title. Also in- cluded is information on which titles can be searched online through the use of DIALOG, Orbit, BRS, etc. Another en- hancement is the special issue informa- tion, such as "January issue includes product directory.'' SERIALS MANAGEMENT No single list or algorithm will resolve all problems in the complex effort to pro- vide the greatest number of patrons the most convenient access to the seriallitera- ·ture they require within allotted budget. However, applying our public service for- mula of 1976 and creating the optimizing program and discipline use sort provides objective information that can aid judi- cious decision making. REFERENCE 1. Maurita Peterson Holland, ' ' Serials Cuts vs . Public Service : A Formula,' ' College & Research Libraries 37:543-48 (Nov. 1976). 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