From: "Mittermaier, Bernhard" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 14:19:54 +0000 Dear Bill, I fully agree with the other respondents and want to add only two more points: A. When it comes to cancellations, there are several criteria to think about. I try to name them in the order of importance for us: 1. Cost/download-ratio 2. Absolute download number 3. Usage in the last three years and it's trend 4. Number of articles from our institution in this journal 5. Number of citations to these articles Additional points: Editorship from our institution Relation to publisher including price history Availability in the full text database we subscribe to Availability in the A&I databases we subscribe to Other occasional reasons So yes, the availability in a fulltext database might be taken into consideration when it comes to cancellations. But no, this is never one of the points that really have an effect on the decision. And no, we do not check the database for candidates in this regard. B. What is the very nature of an aggregator database for us? Is it a substitute for journal subscriptions? In no way! What is it then? It is a substitute for interlibrary loan / document delivery. We reduce the workload for our ILL department and reduce the spendings for document delivery fees by subscribing to a fulltext aggregator database. And since ILL is only further to subscriptions and not instead of them, the same holds true for such databases as well. Best regards, Bernhard ########################################### Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier Forschungszentrum Jülich Leiter der Zentralbibliothek / Head of the Central Library -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- From: <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 11:48:22 +0100 If your library takes full text databases (for example, Ebscohost), is it normal practice to check what's in the database and cancel existing subscriptions to journals which are duplicated by being in the database, or to not take out new subscriptions to titles which are already in the database? Aggregators' argument, when signing publishers up, is that availability in the database will not affect existing or potential subscriptions. Anecdotally that position has been supported by a handful of librarians, generally from major research institutions. At the same time we have a similar level of directly contradictory evidence, librarians specifically saying they are cancelling a title because its now in a database, or that because it is in a database they are not going to take out a subscription. So, what is the general view on this among the academic library community: does full text inclusion in a database invite cancelling or not subscribing to a particular title, or is that simply not the case? Are there complicating factors? Or is there not a general view at all: some librarians see inclusion in a database as sufficient reason to cancel/not subscribe, others don't? Thank you, Bill Hughes Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd