RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FACULTY RATINGS, ACADEMIC AREA, AND PRICE FOR CURRENT PERIODICALS IN A LARGE LAND-GRANT UNIVERSITY-LIBRARY

Librarians from the Sterling C. Evans Library at Texas A&M University conducted a serials review during which they asked each academic depar tment to report its perception of the relevant current serials titles. In this article, the authors describe relationships among (1) departm ental ratings and subscription costs, (2) the academic discipline and departmental ratings, and (3) the academic discipline and subscription costs. Of special interest was whether periodicals rated ''essential' ' by the faculty tended to be more expensive than periodicals in other rating groups Simple descriptive statistics are presented Some of the findings indicate that science journals had the highest median prices while education journals had the lowest; the highest rated periodical s had the highest mean and median prices. Also, in an absolute sense, higher priced journals had larger absolute price increases, but the re lationship between cost and relative price increases was more complex.