***Thank you, Rick and David, for the good responses to
my questions. Of course, I have more :)
-----------------------------------------
Here's one interesting statistic, though, just as an
example: from July 1,
2000 until June 30, 2001, patrons downloaded 29,212
full-text articles from
our Elsevier journal database alone.
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***How many journal issues are in the database?
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> "Of course, "use" may be defined differently
> in the print and electronic realms -- if you
> do an online search that turns up a list of
> 300 articles, have you "used" each article?"
> ***my thought would be that if you do so, you also need
> to count every issue on the shelf that was touched/moved/
> glanced at to find the one you were looking for.
I agree. Of course, that's just what we did count in
our usage report on
print journals. We counted reshelvings, not actual
uses; if someone picked
up four issues, looked at only two of them and
then put all four on the
reshelving shelves, that counted as four uses.
***And we do the same.
***However, neither of us are counting the issues the
patron looked at/touched on the way to taking some off
the shelves, much less all that are shelved together,
which is, in effect what is being done electronically.
One inputs a search phrase into a database and brings
up 300 articles, or one puts a subject into a library
catalog and brings up _Nature_, goes up to access it,
and finds 300 issues on the shelves. Is there a difference?
***All of that said/asked, I was interrupted by the Ta-DA!
of Outlook hailing incoming mail, and stopped to read Dan
Lester's letters and your response to Renee, and think all
of you (us) have but little pieces of this, and really,
overall, doing a great job of managing our resources as
best we can while exploring ways and means to do so better.
Jeanette L. Skwor
Serials Dept.
Cofrin Library
University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Green Bay, WI 54311-7001
(920) 465-2670