N. Schoch, RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CITATION FREQUENCY AND JOURNAL COST - A COMPARISON BETWEEN PURE AND APPLIED SCIENCE DISCIPLINES, Proceedings of the ASIS annual meeting, 31, 1994, pp. 34-40
Citations number
30
Categorie Soggetti
Information Science & Library Science","Information Science & Library Science
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.