Librarians lack in-house tools for analyzing serials collections and have,
for many years, relied on their subscription agents to provide collection-l
evel data for this function. The Faxon Company has recently developed new r
eports that enhance libraries' capabilities to determine serials collection
strengths and weaknesses by subject country of origin, language of publica
tion, and other data elements. Agents have offered collection management re
ports for some time; however; advances in computer data storage and process
ing have allowed Faxon to derive information about the universe of serials
titles for comparison against individual library collections. This new capa
bility gives librarians new and better tools for coping with the challenges
of managing serials. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd.