This past Spring, Cleveland State had to prepare for a possible major
journal cut -- I had to review full-text art electronic journals that were
available through Ingenta, JSTOR, Periodical Abstracts, InfoTrac, Humanities
Abstracts, Lexis-Nexis, and Education Abstracts for Art education -- in most
cases the electronic digital image was NOT great or it was in black and
white -- there were a few journal titles I recommended for possible cut not
because of the availability of the digital image but based on LOW USE
The CSU library had previously kept USE STATISTICS to validate possible
journal cuts -- I also pointed out the our Head of Collection Development
that I was also concerned about the electronic image quality and was only
going to propose the LOW USE titles that were available online or available
through Interlibrary loan to be the first titles that would be cut -- your
USE statistics would be your first step to consider a journal cut if faced
with the situation -- luckily, the Provost came up with some money this year
to avoid a journal cut -- but we still have to plan for next year --
hopefully the technology will improve
Pam Eyerdam, Art Librarian and Head of Reference at Cleveland State
University Library
-----Original Message-----
From: ART LIBRARIES SOCIETY DISCUSSION LIST [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Ann Whiteside
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 4:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARLIS-L] cancelling print for electronic js
Hello Liv,
Your questions are certainly pertinent here at UVA. We've been discussing
this issue for some time and I would also like to hear what other art and
architecture libraries are thinking about this issue.
See below for a (very) little information on what we have been doing.
At 03:31 PM 9/16/2002 -0500, valmestad liv wrote:
Hello everyone,
Our Head Librarian, Mary Lochhead wondered if I could post the following
questions on her behalf, and if there are any suggestions please post to the
list or email Mary at:
[log in to unmask]
Has there been any discussion on the ARLIS listserv about
cancelling print journals and keeping electronic? Have librarians
talked about strategies they used to keep print (e.g. convincing the people
with the money).
We have a vocal community of users here and many of them prefer the print
versions of journals to electronic primarily because of image quality. I've
done some investigation comparing print vs. electronic versions. Basically,
I've found that some publishers do not include images with their full text;
the quality of the images varies considerably and one cannot assume that
reliably usable images will accompany full text.
Do they feel keeping print is more important than electronic. Have
they had feedback from users on having to use electronic?
Yes, we do get feedback regarding the few cases in which we've changed
from print to electronic. The complaint has consistently been the images -
lack of quality.
Has anyone done a comparison of print and electronic "equivalents" to
find out if they truly are equivalent.
I have not done a true comparison, but have investigated some full text
vendors too if electronic really is equivalent. Sometimes they are,
sometimes not. Project Muse is the closest to equivalent that we have seen
here, but then we receive only one electronic journal in the arts via
Project Muse.
If there hasn't been much discussion do you think it would be worth
sending out a question to the list? There seems to be a push to cancel
print for electronic (as per the Collections Committee minutes) and I would
like to show how other art/arch libraries have handled this issue.
As I said above, I would like to hear from others on this topic. Thank
you for bringing this up!
Ann Whiteside
thanks,
Liv
Liv Valmestad, Reference Librarian (Information Detective)
Architecture/Fine Arts Library University of Manitoba TEL: 204 474 8447
FAX: 204 474 7539 [log in to unmask]
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Ann Whiteside Director, Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library Past President,
Visual Resources Association Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library University of
Virginia 434-924-6601 FAX: 434-982-2678 [log in to unmask]
www.lib.virginia.edu/fine-arts www.vraweb.org
