RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CITATION FREQUENCY AND JOURNAL COST - A COMPARISON BETWEEN PURE AND APPLIED SCIENCE DISCIPLINES

It is now common in academic libraries to hear discussions of the seri als crisis-a crisis marked by sky-rocketing costs of primary journals and concomitant shrinking library budgets in relation to that of the U niversity. Science periodicals contribute extensively to this problem being both the most expensive titles and those which show the greatest annual increases. This paper, an outgrowth of a serials cancellation project at the University of Maryland at College Park, compares citati on data collected from publications of faculty in a pure science disci pline (botany) and applied science disciplines (horticulture and agron omy) to factors such as journal costs and publisher type (for-profit v ersus not-for-profit). The implications of the relationship between ci tation frequency and factors such as cost and publisher type will be d iscussed in the context of the value of information and current pricin g structures for life sciences periodicals. Preliminary data on facult y perception of usefulness of these journals will also be presented. T he usefulness of this type of information in local decision-making wil l be addressed.