Let me suggest that a significant portion of the increase in ARL data is about library access to more content rather than a direct result of the increase in journals published. During the last 20 years – due to the Big Deal – libraries increasingly licensed collections rather than individual journal titles.
Over these same two decades, existing publishers of existing journals were overwhelmed with the volume of manuscripts submitted by authors around the world and especially from China. This reflects the huge investment China has made in research in the last 20 years and their desire to take their place on the global stage. As a result of the investments, there are entirely new fields of research emerging (nano technology, human genetics) that has undoubtedly propelled the creation of many new journals.
I would think the best source would be to see if ESBCO has data they can share. As a stable subscription agent over the years, they would likely have listed any title to which a library would subscribe. Some of the growth in EBSCO’s database would result from their expansion of services to a wider range of institutions in countries around the world. I recall when ISI (Thomson at the time) expanded the number of journals they indexed as a way to better represent global scholarship.
Judy Luther
Informed Strategies
From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 20:34:36 -0700
Steve, this is smart and fascinating. If the comparison is valid (and that depends on the consistency and accuracy of the data collection and reporting from ARL), it suggests that the age of e-journals has seen a quadrupling of journals subscribed. Brian Simboli suggests a reduction in overall quantity of journals could be helpful, but he and I offline have chatted and don't see a realistic way to make that come about. The idea that we could encourage promotion and compensation review systems in research institutions to value quality over quantity, e.g., by allowing submission for review of only top 5 or 10 or 25 articles from a given author, has been around for a long time and gotten essentially no traction.
I'll still worry, though, about the validity of those ARL data and welcome any other good measures for what has happened to the journal universe in those 24 years since the first meaningful e-journal deals from big publishers.
Jim O'Donnell
ASU
On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 7:50 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: "Bosch, Stephen J - (boschs)" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 23:35:37 +0000
One source of data for question 1 could be ARL. In 1995 the median number of current serials provided by ARL libraries was a bit over 21,000 while in 2011, the last year ARL gathered the number of serials, the median had increased to slightly more than 90,000.
Stephen Bosch
Materials Budget, Procurement, and Licensing Librarian
University of Arizona Library
1510 East University PO Box 210055
Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
520-621-6452
520-621-8276 fax