From: Ian Gibson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:11:59 +0000 Bill, IF has a number of well-known problems that make it less than ideal as a collections assessment tool (for a summary see: http://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2012/08/13/sick-of-impact-factors/). In my experience it is pretty much impossible to distill the utility of a journal down to a single number. When comparing journals I might look at the Impact Factor if a) I know that the broad subject is well covered by Web of Science and b) I was familiar with citation and publication patterns in the discipline. Even when those conditions are met the IF is only one small part of the analysis which for cancellations can include (in no particular order): - do my researchers publish in it? - do my researchers edit it? Review for it? - do my researchers cite it? - is it currently being used? - how does its use compare to similar journals in our collection? - how does its cost compare to similar journals in our collection? - what is the publishers history w.r.t. price increases? - what do my researchers think about it generally? Does that make things a bit more clear? Ian Gibson Collections Librarian Brock University | James A. Gibson Library 500 Glenridge Ave. | St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1 E [log in to unmask] | T 905 688 5550 x6223 | Twitter: @IanGibson11 -----Original Message----- From: Bill Cohen <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:43:05 -0400 I'm taken aback by the phrase--possibly not intended to be taken literally--that the journal impact factor was of little importance to the librarian. Perhaps not personally, but I thought the journal impact factor was of enormous importance to the librarian professionally in assessing both one-by-one journal subscriptions as well as big deal packages. Might this be clarified further for a non-librarian, as elementary as this question is? Many thanks! Bill -------- Original Message -------- From: "Friend, Fred" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:00:33 +0000 Rick is absolutely right. And another aspect of the different perspectives of librarians and publishers lies in way value for money is measured. In promoting "big deals", multi-volume purchases, or number of hits on databases publishers assume that librarians equate quantity with value for money. For the librarian value is measured by the contribution the content purchased makes to the teaching and research within their institution. Likewise a measure such as a journal impact factor is of importance to a publisher but of little importance to a librarian - and arguably only of importance to an author for research assessment procedures. There is indeed a "tragedy of the commons" resulting from different ways of looking at the world of scholarly communication, some of the different ways being of long-standing while others have grown up as universities and publishing businesses have changed over the years. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk ________________________________________ From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 22:02:18 +0000 >I would also be interested to learn from libraries. Most of us know >that libraries do not have sufficient funding to keep up with the costs >of the increased level of publication. At the moment this is mainly the >cost of subscriptions. They really do want to save on costs. I'd like to push back, gently, on the idea that librarians want to "save on costs." It's important to remember that a librarian isn't the same kind of consumer at work that he or she is at home, and doesn't think about economies in quite the same way. If I go to a bookstore to spend my own money, my goal is to get as much book as possible at the lowest possible cost. When choosing between two books that I desire equally, I'm going to buy the cheaper one, and if I have money left over after buying my books I will experience that savings as a reward for my frugality. As a librarian, my goal and my incentives are different. Notably, I have a budget that needs to be spent completely -- instead of being rewarded for having some left over at the end of the year, I will be punished for failing to spend all of it. For this reason, my goal each year is not to spend less money; on the contrary, I'd like to spend _more_ money every year. My goal is to use my budget as efficiently and effectively as possible, which is a very different goal than cost savings. Getting good prices figures importantly in my pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness, but "saving money" is not the goal. Why am I splitting this hair? Because I think it's important for publishers to understand that when we talk about their annual price increases being unsustainable, it's not because we're trying to save money. It's because we're trying to keep spending our money -- all of it -- on the products our patrons need. The faster the rate of price increase (note that I'm not using the euphemistic term "inflation") the less capable we are of continuing to spend our money -- all of it -- on those products. Of course, I realize that no individual publisher is going to care about our continued ability to buy stuff from other publishers. This is what economists call the "tragedy of the commons." Note also that I'm not making a "should" argument here about how publishers ought to set their prices. I'm making an "is" statement about what will happen if they continue to raise their prices according to past patterns, and if library budgets continue to grow at current rates. Rick Anderson Interim Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah [log in to unmask]