Thanks for the updated language, Wendy.  The wording does not state that the *journal* needs to be current.  It states that you should report the number of "unique serial titles" that you "currently acquire."

In the past, we have reported stable full text journal collections for which we have reasonable assurance of having ongoing future access (i.e. content won't get yanked away).  So, JSTOR, Project Muse, Sage, Science Direct individually licensed titles (not the "subject collections"), Wiley.  But not any aggregated packages.  And I've made sure to be explicit in the footnotes about what I was counting.

I can't remember the specific wording of the various questions in past years, but there was one that specifically mentioned that it was o.k. to include aggregated package titles (perhaps in the supplemental section).  Based on Wendy's excerpt, it seems that ARL is trying to simplify these categories, which will hopefully make all this less confusing.

Kelly Smith
Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian
Eastern Kentucky University

Date:    Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:44:33 -0500
From:    "Robertson, Wendy C" <wendy-robertson@UIOWA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Are Journals in JSTOR Current Serials?

My understanding is that the ARL statistics have changed in 2 important
ways for 2006/2007 reporting.

1) each title is counted once, not each subscription, so you need to
dedup among all print and electronic subscriptions

2) titles in aggregator databases are counted in the regular statistics
(and have been dropped from supplemental)

I am not able to get to the ARL site right now, but my printout says:

Report the total number of unique serial titles, NOT SUBSCRIPTIONS, that
you currently acquire. Do not include duplicate counts of serials
titles. To the extent possible, report all government document serials
even if housed in a separate documents collection. Verify the inclusion
or exclusion of document serials in Question ??? [#5 is crossed out].
Exclude unnumbered monographic and publishers' series. Electronic
serials acquired as part of a bundle or an aggregated package should be
counted by title even if they are not cataloged as long as they are
accessible by the library.
...
In the case of consortial agreements, count under serials purchased only
those titles for which the library pays directly from its budgets
expenditures. Count under 'serials purchased' only those titles for
which your library pays even if partially paid from the library's
budget. Report other titles that your library receives and does not pay
for directly under serials received and not purchased. If a purchased
title includes electronic access to the title, count that title ONLY
ONCE (DEDUPED) for electronic only. If serials have been purchased
through a consortium whose budget is centrally funded and independent
from the library's budget, these serials should be reported under
'serials received and not purchased.'

The paragraph about do not include full text serials from
indexing/abstracting products has been crossed out.

I believe this year we will be counting JSTOR titles as well as old
portions of title changes in aggregator databases and for free titles
because we can't come up with a way to exclude them. If we can figure
out an automated way to exclude them from our count, we would limit our
totals to current serials, since that is what the question requests.

Wendy Robertson
Electronic Resources Systems Librarian, LIT
The University of Iowa Libraries
wendy-robertson@uiowa.edu
319-335-5821