CDL: Involving faculty in moving to ejournals (response 1)

[Response 1.  Original post follows.]

Subject: RE: Involving faculty in moving to ejournals
From: "Eckrom, Jerry" <jerry.eckrom_at_weyerhaeuser.com>

We are a business library, gradually moving our subscriptions from print
to electronic format.  Electronic has been well received for the most
part, especially by remote users outside our corporate area.  The chief
reservations our users have expressed is that text-only is not always
sufficient for the scientific and technical journals.  Our scientists
often need access to the graphic renderings of chemical formulas and
other charts and graphs that accompany the text of the article.  Many of
the journals are now available in .PDF, which is making this less of a
problem than it was.

Another challenge is that many electronic journals have quite limited
back-issue resources.  We are still resorting to interlibrary loan quite
often to fill requests for articles from the 1990s and farther back.

As far as how to involve user in the decision making, we have several
times done cover sheet surveys on displayed copies of journals, which
gets considerable input from users here in our building, but we have not
solicited input from remote users.  One thing that has really worked in
favor of electronic journals is the snail's pace of most routing lists.
It sometimes takes up to a year for a physical journal to route through
the list of readers, and this has been a factor in making electronic
access much more palatable for our users.  - JE


Jerry Eckrom
WTC 1LIB
(253)924-3608


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu [mailto:owner-COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu] On Behalf
Of John P. Abbott
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 7:08 AM
To: COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu
Subject: CDL: Involving faculty in moving to ejournals

Subject: Advice for involving faculty
From: "Patricia A. Kreitz" <pkreitz_at_slac.stanford.edu>

Dear List serv members,
    We are thinking of moving to fully electronic journals--eliminating
even current issues. I would like any advice about how to involve
faculty in this decision-making. Have other libraries which have done
this used surveys, relied just on the Library Committee's input, or used
some other mechanism to identify which journals can be e-only and which
titles faculty still need to see the current issues of in a physical
form?
    Thanks,