Re: Core journals (Alfred Kraemer) ERCELAA@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu 16 Mar 1999 20:44 UTC
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 14:34:07 -0600 From: "Alfred B. Kraemer" <akraemer@POST.ITS.MCW.EDU> Subject: Re: Core journals (ISI J. Cit. Reports) There may be an application for core lists of journals for some types of libraries. For our library, a bio-medical research library, a core list based on criteria which are not derived from our institution, does not seem to work. One often-proposed approach involves the use of the ISI Journal Citation Reports to produce a listing of high-impact journals by suject. There are several flaws with this approach: - subject grouping in the ISI Journal Citation Reports often does not match the subject coverage of the journal very well. In many instances the subject coverage of a journal is much narrower than the subject term assigned to the subject grouping. This stacks the 'cards' in favor of journals with a broader coverage, e.g. "Journal of biological Chemistry" and against journals with a narrower focus. - the top-ranking journals -using the ISI Journal Citation Reports- are in many instances those one would expect to be there while most of the journals which cause us headaches -very specialized, high-priced journals with above average annual price increases- could probably not be evaluated accurately using a 'core list' derived from the above journal citation reports. - the predominant research areas at our institution often require access at significant levels to journals that publish research in those specialities but may not be ranked in the top 50% of an ISI subject ranking by journal citation numbers. Instead of relying on external core lists, we decided on a different approach: About five years ago, we decided to barcode every journal volume and issue so as to be able to scan for use before reshelving. In our case the costs were warranted in light of our journal budget. Some uses are certainly missed but there is no indication that those 'misses' are not evenly distributed. Cuts and adds of journals are made annually based on use data for active subscriptions and ILL data for journals often requested but not held. That way we have in essence a 'core list' of journals which are used at our institutions at levels that make a subscription worthwhile. I feel this is the only kind of core list that works for an institution like ours, and presumably for other research libraries. Core list based on general data too often miss important or include irrelevant journals. Another consideration is the scope of core lists: the Brandon-Hlll core list of medical journals may be useful for hospital libraries but is far to short for our purposes. If I have overlooked a crucial argument in favor of using external core lists, I would like to hear about it. Certainly, our method is not an easy one, however, I do not believe that core lists workable for research libraries. -- Alfred B. Kraemer Head, Technical Services Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries 8701 Watertown Plank Road Milwaukee, WI 53226 414-456-4273 E-mail: akraemer@mcw.edu