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Full-Text Databases: A Case Study Revisited a Decade Later
Full-Text Databases: A Case Study Revisited a Decade Later Mariyam Thohira, Mary Beth Chambers and Nancy Sprague Available online 12 August 2010 In 1999 librarians at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs evaluated the feasibility of canceling print subscriptions for journals available in full-text aggregators. Finding deficiencies in currency, coverage, graphics, and stability of online journals, they recommended caution in using titles available in aggregators as replacements for journal subscriptions. Today print subscriptions are giving way to online subscriptions through a variety of subscription models. Nevertheless, fulltext aggregators remain vital content providers. Using the journals featured in the 1999 study as a lens, this study investigates how the world of full-text content has changed over the past decade. Serials Review 2010; 36:152–160. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction and Background
nine journal titles taken from KFL's list of potential cancellations. The researchers selected these sample titles for two reasons. First, they were peer reviewed—an indication that they were scholarly and potentially more valuable to an academic library than nonscholarly journals. Secondly, they were available in the aggregator databases licensed by KFL at that time. The study focused on currency, coverage, quality of graphics, and stability. The investigators found that 45 percent of the titles online were not as current as the print issues; 17 percent of the major articles were unavailable online; graphics were frequently either missing or inadequately displayed online; and that a number of titles were dropped and others added over a six-month period. The results suggested that libraries considering the cancellation of print journals based on their availability in the full-text aggregators should proceed with caution. Ten years later, with additional budget-driven journal cancellation projects in between, KFL's electronic journal circumstances have changed dramatically. Over the decade, the Library continued to benefit from group purchases of online content with libraries in the University of Colorado System and other library cooperatives. Today, UCCS faculty and students have access to approximately 31,000 online journals representing every major subject area, compared to just over 2,220 titles in 2000 that primarily covered the social sciences with some coverage of business and education fields and minimal coverage of STM fields. Nevertheless, KFL is not immune to the current economic downturn. Once again the Library is facing budget dilemmas. Adding additional strain to an already stressed financial situation, the State of Colorado is discontinuing its allocation of funds to support electronic library resources for State-supported institutions. Consequently, the electronic resources landscape will undergo alterations at many Colorado libraries, including the Kraemer Family Library. The current study is an effort to learn what has changed and what has remained the same in the world of full-text aggregator databases during the past decade by revisiting the seventy-nine journal titles featured in the 1999 study (Serials Review, v.26, no.3 (2000)). Did the Library cancel print subscriptions for any of these
Academic libraries rely on full-text aggregator databases for their dual roles as journal indexes and journal content providers. As library budgets tighten, some libraries may consider cutting direct journal subscriptions to low-use, high-cost titles if they are available in the aggregator databases they license. Libraries that do this take the gamble that content for the titles will remain available and current; risk aside, they can generally count on continuous indexing for them. In this study the authors revisit the pros and cons of replacing journal subscriptions with full-text aggregator access as a potential cost-saving measure. In 1999 librarians at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Kraemer Family Library (KFL) faced a journal cancellation project to accommodate an impending budget shortfall. At that time, KFL targeted for cancellation print journal subscriptions for titles with low-usage counts (a title was counted as used each time a print volume or issue was reshelved) and titles that were available in the following full-text aggregator databases: Expanded Academic Index ASAP, General Business File ASAP, Periodical Abstracts, ABI/Inform, and WilsonSelect. In 1999 these databases were valued primarily for their abstracting and indexing capabilities even as they were recognized for their “added value” as fulltext content suppliers for selected journals. To understand the implications of cancelling journals based on their availability in full-text aggregators, KFL librarians undertook a study to compare print journals to their online counterparts within full-text databases.1 The study sample consisted of seventy-
Thohira, formerly Electronic Serials Librarian, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is Electronic Resources Acquisitions Librarian, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD 21218, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Chambers is Catalog/Archives Librarian, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Sprague, formerly Reference Librarian, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is Reference/Instruction Librarian, University of Idaho Library, Moscow, ID 83844, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. 0098-7913/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2010.07.001
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journals in 1999 or later? Does KFL still have online full-text access to them and, if yes, what kind of access? If KFL has both print and electronic access to the titles in full-text, aggregator databases, how does print and online content compare today in terms of currency, coverage, and rendering of graphics? As we strive to minimize the negative impact of current budget deficits on our users, answers to these questions may help us to make informed journal cancellation decisions and full-text, aggregator database choices.
criteria, including perpetual access, stability, full scholarly content, and high quality graphics. There have also been a number of studies directed at examining journal content as presented in full-text aggregator databases. In 2005, Xiaotian Chen compared aggregator treatment of graphics and found an array of differences among them, including missing graphics in HTML formatted articles, sometimes without any indication that graphics are present in the original version of the articles.8 Chen divided full-text databases into two categories: “stable e-journal collections” (such as JSTOR or Project MUSE) and “unstable full-text databases” (such as Expanded Academic ASAP or Academic Search Elite). He focused on the “unstable full-text databases,” since missing graphics were not considered an issue of concern in the “stable e-journal collections.” Chen viewed graphics as integral parts of an article that need to be included in full-text databases. In their effort to develop criteria for withdrawing print journals, Marianne Bracke and Jim Martin (2005) compared print journals to their online counterparts in Elsevier's ScienceDirect, including an assessment of online scanned images and discovered that they were able to withdraw fewer print journals than expected because of less than adequate representations of some titles found in the database.9 They found that even in more stable e-journal collections, such as ScienceDirect, problems with missing issues and poorly scanned images could occur. Studies examining journal content in full-text databases often discuss the issue of embargoes, the delays in availability of current issues that may be imposed by publishers. Embargo periods can range from one week to one year or longer. Sam Brooks (2003) discussed some underlying reasons for embargoes, including pricing models, and argued that without the journal embargoes, full-text database vendors would not be able to provide the wide range of titles currently offered.10 He described the distinctions between titles available in full-text databases and e-journals provided directly by publishers. Brooks cautioned librarians not to cancel a journal subscription solely due to the title's availability in a full-text database but rather to focus on usage data and the prestige of the journal as the basis for cancellation decisions. The current literature review suggests that librarians understand the nature and limitations of full-text aggregator content for longterm journal access. However, for some libraries it may become necessary to rely on aggregator content for lower-use titles, given the current economic situation. These recent articles provide useful criteria, such as completeness, usage data, duplication, timeliness, and reliability that can help librarians make informed decisions about full-text databases and journal cancellations.
Literature Review Since 1999, several studies have appeared in the literature addressing the journal cancellation process in academic libraries in view of the increased availability of electronic resources. In 2002, Halcyon Enssle and Michelle Wilde reported on ways to use journal usage data gathered from a variety of sources, including usage data provided by full-text aggregator services, in conjunction with journal impact factors to identify journals for cancellation and to help justify journal cancellation decisions.2 From a survey of Association of Research Libraries member institutions, Karen Rupp-Serrano, Sarah Robbins and Danielle Cain (2002) presented criteria for making print retention versus electronic format retention decisions.3 In their discussion of aggregator databases, they encouraged libraries to assess whether titles duplicated in multiple sources are worth their cost and also whether an aggregated title is an adequate substitute for the print or publisher-supplied electronic version. The authors also discussed completeness in general as a criterion for making retention decisions. In some cases, cancelling the print version would be a disservice to the journal's readers if important content, such as editorial matter, is missing from the online version. Sulekha Kalyan (2002) described methods for identifying print titles that overlap with journals found in selected full-text aggregator databases and the criteria used in one academic library to cancel the overlapping print titles.4 Titles that were duplicated in more than one full-text database were targeted for cancellation, although titles with an embargo period of one to three years were excluded from the list of potential cancellations. Kalyan noted the importance of monitoring the changing mix of titles available in the full-text databases, as well as the need to provide on-demand, no cost document delivery service to users as a back-up service in cases where content was no longer available through the aggregator. Janice Jaguszewski and Laura Probst (2000) also raised concerns about the potential of losing access completely to certain titles when a resource is leased rather than owned, and an archive is not made available.5 William Walters (2003) stressed the importance of long-term sustainability in determining if online resources could be considered viable substitutes for print subscriptions. In addition to the widely-accepted criteria of completeness, timeliness, and reliability of online journal resources, he described several guidelines that may help ensure sustainable access, such as requesting that the provider demonstrate a commitment to the long-term provision of each journal title in a collection of journals and that site licenses include provisions for permanent library retention of any content purchased. Online journal packages that do not meet these criteria, such as aggregator databases, are considered supplements rather than replacements for permanent journal subscriptions.6 A recent article by Aparna Zambare and others (2009) described the criteria developed by Central Michigan University Libraries to guide their transition from print journal subscriptions to electronic only formats.7 According to their policy guidelines, print journals should be discontinued only if the online equivalent meets ten
Methodology The current study, undertaken from May 5, 2008 to October 7, 2008, was designed to answer ultimately, one major question: What happened to the seventy-nine journal titles examined in KFL's 1999 study? Specifically the authors wanted to know: Does the Library still have access to full-text content for them either in print or online? If online content is available for a title within an aggregator, what can be said about the quality of that online content regarding:
1. Currency (Do users have access to the latest issue of a journal?) 2. Coverage (Do users have access to all major articles within a given journal issue?)
3. Graphics (Are tables, figures, formulas, or other graphical elements found in printed articles available and/or properly rendered in their online versions?
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Table 1. Status of the Journals in the 1999 Study a Decade Later
154
X X X
X
X
X
X
X X
X
X
E E X
X
Canceled subscriptions Canceled subscriptions lost available in publisher packages at KFL from aggregators
X
X
X
X
X X
X X
X
X
X
X
X X
X X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Access completely lost to KFL
X
X X X
X X X
X X X X X X X X X
X X
X X
X
X
X X
X X
Wilson Access lost Gale EBSCO from KFL current current current access aggregators access access X X E X X X X X X X X X X X X X X E X X X
X X
X X X X
X X E E X X X X X X
X X X
X
X
X X X X
X X X X
X X
X X
X
X X
X X E X X
X X X
X
X
X X X X X
X
Serials Review
Journal Name American Biology Teacher American Indian Culture and Research Journal American Midland Naturalist Behavioral Medicine Canadian Geographic Change Child Study Journal Clearing House Comparative Education Review Contemporary Economic Policy Critical Studies in Mass Communication (Title changed to: Critical Studies in Media Communication) Economic Development & Cultural Change Economic History Review Education and Treatment of Children Educational Administration Quarterly Educational Forum Elementary School Journal Explicator Financial Executive Financial Management Ground Water Hispanic American Historical Review Historian: A Journal of History History and Theory IBM Journal of Research and Development IBM Systems Journal Industrial & Labor Relations Review International Organization International Small Business Journal International Social Science Journal Intervention in School and Clinic Journal for the Education of the Gifted Journal of Asian and African Studies Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching Journal of Consumer Affairs Journal of Consumer Research Journal of Environmental Education Journal of Experimental Education Journal of Geography Journal of Higher Education
Current KFL subscriptions X X X
Current KFL subscriptions still available in Titles available aggregators in KFL aggregators X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X
X
X
E X X X X
X X X X
X X
X X
X X X X X
X
X X
X
X
X X
X X
E X
X X
X
X X E X E X E E
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X X X
X X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X 20
X 13
X
X
X X E
X X
X
X X X
X X
X X
X
X
X E X X E
X X
X
X E X
X
X
X
X X
X X
X
X X X X
X X
X
X
X X
X
26
19
X X X X X X X
52
X X X
35
X X
32
37
X X 27
7
Full-Text Databases: A Case Study Revisited a Decade Later
E = Embargoed title (current issues not available).
X
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Journal of Interamerican Studies & World Affairs (Title changed to: Latin American Politics and Society) Journal of Interdisciplinary History Journal of International Business Studies Journal of Management Information Systems Journal of Management Studies Journal of Military History Journal of Money, Credit & Banking Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Journal of Personality Journal of Popular Culture Journal of Soil & Water Conservation Journal of Special Education Journal of Teacher Education Labor History MELUS Modern Philology Monist Philosophical Quarterly Political Quarterly Politics & Society Presidential Studies Quarterly Psychiatry Public Manager: New Bureaucrat Public Opinion Quarterly Quarterly Review of Biology Reading Research and Instruction (Title changed to: Literacy Research and Instruction) Reference & User Services Quarterly Regional Studies Remedial and Special Education Review of Educational Research Roeper Review School Science & Mathematics Science & Society Social Studies Soil Science Southern Economic Journal Studies in American Fiction Teaching Children Mathematics Urban Affairs Review Totals
Mariyam Thohira et al.
Serials Review
To answer these questions the librarians created a spreadsheet to collect data for each of the seventy-nine titles regarding its subscription status at KFL and its availability in an aggregator database or in an online journal package (see Table 1). KFL's open URL link resolver Serials Solutions was used to determine which databases or resources supplied full-text of the titles in the study. For titles available within an aggregator, the authors noted whether a given title was active (updated with newer content on a regular basis), active but embargoed, and, in the absence of a stated embargo period, whether the most current issues were available online. When encountering an embargoed title, the authors checked to see if its stated embargo period had been exceeded. Apart from currency, other elements noted were missing issues or gaps in coverage for any title within a full-text database. For titles available at KFL in print and in one or more aggregator, the authors compared selected print issues of a title to their online counterparts to determine if major articles or major content were available online. Finally, the study compared selected print articles to their full-text, aggregator database counterparts noting the relative quality of the online representations including the quality and/or availability of graphical elements.
Wilson database: ▪ Wilson OmniFile Full Text Mega This study is based on a small sampling of titles significant to the Kraemer Family Library which serves UCCS, a comprehensive baccalaureate university with selected masters and doctoral programs. Even so, it highlights some of the complexities that most academic libraries must deal with today in their efforts to supply full-text journal content to their users.
Status of the Titles Methodology The first objective was to ascertain the status at KFL of the same seventy-nine titles featured in the original study by determining which titles KFL still subscribed to either in print or online, which titles were canceled, and which titles were available in KFL's aggregator databases. Essentially, the intent was to answer these questions: Did KFL cancel subscriptions to any of the seventynine titles? Are the seventy-nine titles still available in aggregator databases? Did KFL lose access to any of these seventy-nine titles?
Limitations of the Study
Results and Analysis
In 1999 KFL librarians examined full-text content of seventy-nine titles in five distinct aggregator databases. KFL no longer has access to two of those resources, ABI/Inform and Periodical Abstracts; however, today the Library has access to more than one hundred databases through EBSCOhost, Gale, Wilson, and other vendors. Consequently, for the current study of those same seventy-nine titles, it was not feasible to examine full-text content in every single vendor-supplied source. Instead, the study considered each vendor's products as a whole since title coverage was the same across all the databases supplied by a given vendor. Although some of the sample titles had a full-text presence in databases such as Contemporary Women's Issues, Business and Management Practices, Business and Company Resource Center, Health and Wellness Resource Center, LexisNexis Academic, and Factiva, this study excluded them because they provided only selective content for the titles they did cover. The analysis also excluded databases that serve as content providers for selected journals such as ProjectMuse and BioOne. The following full-text databases are represented in the current study:
Did KFL cancel subscriptions to any of the seventy-nine titles? Yes - since 1999 KFL canceled fifty-three (67%) of the seventynine titles under review, leaving twenty-six (33%) current subscriptions remaining (Table 1). Twelve of the twenty-six current subscriptions are for print only as of the time of the study. The remaining fourteen are either print-plus-online or online-only subscriptions. Are the seventy-nine titles still available in our aggregator databases? The current study revealed that only fifty-two (66%) of the seventy-nine titles are still available in KFL's current lineup of aggregator databases. This means that twenty-seven of them are not available in the Library's aggregators today. This is an aggregator database loss of 34 percent of the titles despite the fact that KFL has access to far more aggregator databases than it did a decade ago. Of the twenty-six remaining subscriptions, nineteen are still available in the Library's full-text aggregators today, while seven are no longer available via aggregators. Did the library lose access to any of the seventy-nine titles? Of the fifty-three titles that KFL canceled over the ten-year period, twenty of them are not available in the current lineup of aggregator databases. Out of those twenty titles, thirteen were now available in other online sources, such as publisher packages provided by University of Chicago Press, Taylor & Francis, Sage, and Duke University Press at KFL. The Library lost access completely to seven of the canceled titles. This represents a loss of current access to 9 percent of the original sample of seventy-nine titles. Overall, the status of our seventy-nine sample titles had changed dramatically since 1999. With more than a third of the titles no longer accessible via aggregator databases, this study confirmed that libraries should not rely on full-text databases as a long-term solution for journal title access. The loss of aggregator access was mitigated somewhat by the increased availability of publisher packages in our case; however, 9 percent of the sample titles were still completely lost to our users over the past ten years. The dynamic nature of aggregator databases, with titles being continually added, dropped or embargoed was clearly demonstrated in our small sample.
EBSCOhost databases: ▪ Academic Search Premier ▪ Business Source Premier ▪ CINAHL Plus with Full Text ▪ Communication and Mass Media Complete ▪ MAS Ultra - School Edition ▪ Middle Search Plus ▪ Professional Development Collection Gale databases: ▪ Academic OneFile ▪ Computer Database ▪ Expanded Academic ASAP ▪ General OneFile ▪ General Reference Center Gold ▪ Health Reference Center Academic
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Currency of the Titles
Table 3. Status of Embargoed Titles in Aggregator Databases
Methodology To establish a measure of currency for the seventy-nine journals in our sample set, the authors had to determine the most current issue published for each one by consulting several sources: the publisher's Web site, our journal distributor's Web site (EBSCONET), or the journal's contents pages within a database. Once the most current issue available for a title was established, the authors examined each content provider's holdings to see which titles in the sample set were active titles within each database. Next, the active titles were examined to determine how up-to-date they were. If a title fell behind, the number of current issues that were unavailable was noted. However, if a title's current content was embargoed in a given source, that was counted separately as an embargoed title and checked for inconsistencies between the stated embargo period and the most current issues available within the database.
Vendor
Active Full-Text Titles
Embargoed Titles
Titles with Embargo Period Exceeded
EBSCO Gale Wilson Total
52 32 37 121
17 (33%) 0 0 17 (14%)
2 (4%) 0 0 2 (2%)
While EBSCO databases ranked high in currency, they also contained the highest number of embargoed titles in our sample group (Table 3). Of the fifty-two active, full-text titles available through EBSCO, seventeen (33 percent) were embargoed, and two of the seventeen (4 percent) had exceeded their stated embargo periods based on the most current issues found for them in EBSCOhost resources. Although Gale and Wilson databases are not free of journal embargoes, our sample included no embargoed titles for these vendors. Despite the high number of embargoed titles, EBSCOhost databases remain strong providers of current full-text journal content. Although the 1999 study reported on occurrences of delayed titles in the aggregator databases under review, it did not account for delays that may have resulted from publishers' embargo restrictions. This study revealed overlaps in title coverage among the fulltext resources, as did the earlier study; however, the current study identified overlaps among vendors' products as a whole rather than overlaps within individual databases which was the focus of the 1999 study. Of the fifty-two titles available in the aggregators, twenty were unique titles (found only in one full-text database) while thirty-two titles were available from multiple vendors, including twenty titles that were available in all three aggregators (Table 4).
Results and Analysis Fifty-two of the seventy-nine sample titles were available, with no stated embargo periods, in KFL's present-day full-text aggregators. Overall there were 104 occurrences of those fifty-two titles within all databases combined (Table 2). For fifty-eight of those occurrences (56 percent) the most current issue was available within the databases. Conversely, forty-six occurrences of the titles (44 percent) represent titles that were not up-to-date. Of the fortysix that lagged behind within the databases overall, fourteen cases (13 percent overall), represent titles that were behind by two or more issues. Considering currency based on the vendors represented in this study, EBSCOhost provided full-text access to thirty-five nonembargoed titles in our seventy-nine- title sample set and twentysix (74 percent) of them were up-to-date. Within EBSCOhost products, only nine titles (26 percent) were behind by one or more issues. Gale databases provided full-text access to thirty-two of the seventy-nine sample titles, a lower number than either EBSCO or Wilson offered. Furthermore, current issues were available for only fourteen (44 percent) of the Gale titles and over half of them, eighteen titles (56 percent), were behind by one or more issues. At the same time, our one Wilson resource offered thirty-seven fulltext titles in the title sample, the highest number of titles offered by any of the vendors, yet only eighteen of those titles (49 percent) were completely up-to-date. With nineteen of the titles (51 percent) behind by one or more issues, Wilson fared little better than Gale in terms of current issue access. While these figures are noteworthy for the study, the authors cannot draw evenhanded vendor comparisons from this study since KFL does not have the same databases in 2009 as it did in 1999. However, in 1999 KFL had no access to EBSCOhost resources. As Table 2 demonstrates, if this were true today, the Library would have realized a significantly higher reduction in online, full-text current issue availability for the titles in our sample.
Coverage/Content Methodology The authors evaluated coverage of journals within the full-text aggregators by comparing content found in print journal issues to content available within our aggregator databases. At the time of this study, KFL still subscribed to twenty-six of the seventy-nine sample titles. These twenty-six titles comprised our coverage comparison group (see Table 1). However, as of 2008, the Library switched from print to electronic only subscriptions for six of them. For the twenty print subscribed titles, the authors compared content within the vendors' databases to the content in all 2008 print issues held by KFL. For the six e-only subscribed titles, the print was compared to online counterparts for 2007 issues. The study used the tables of contents in the print issues as the sources for identifying the issue content to look for online. The authors searched for online availability of major articles, as well as online availability of supplementary content such as editorial columns, book reviews, and publication information.
Table 2. Currency of Full-Text Titles (Embargoed Titles Excluded)
Vendor
Active Titles
EBSCO 35 Gale 32 Wilson 37 Total for all databases 104
Up-to-Date Active Titles Active Titles Two or More One Issue Active Issues Behind Behind Titles 26 14 18 58
(74.3%) (43.8%) (48.7%) (56%)
6 (17.1%) 12 (37.5%) 14 (37.8%) 32 (30.8%)
3 6 5 14
Table 4. Overlap in Availability of the Titles in Aggregator Databases Status
(8.6%) (18.7%) (13.5%) (13.4%)
Titles Available from Only One Vendor Titles Available from Two Vendors Titles Available from Three Vendors Total Titles Available in Full-Text Databases
157
Number of Titles % of Titles 20 12 20 52
38.5 23.0 38.5 100.0
Mariyam Thohira et al.
Serials Review
Results and Analysis
Table 5. Missing Full-Text Issues (Embargoed Titles Excluded)
Vendor
Active Titles with No Embargos
EBSCO Gale Wilson Total for all databases
Active Titles with No Missing Issues
35 32 37 104
31 29 32 92
Active Titles Missing One Issue
(88.6%) (90.6%) (86.5%) (88.4%)
Active Titles Missing Two or More Issues
1 (2.9%) 1 (3.1%) 4 (10.8%) 6 (5.7%)
3 2 1 6
EBSCO databases provided full-text content for twelve of the twenty-six titles examined in this part of the study. One title was only available in HTML format while the other eleven were available solely in PDF formats. Gale databases had ten of the twenty-six titles. Nine were available in both PDF and HTML formats, and the remaining one was available in HTML only. Wilson had sixteen of the twenty-six titles, the highest number in this sample subset, and all were available in both PDF and HTML formats. The increased prevalence of PDF content in full-text databases over the past ten years has resulted in an overall improvement in the quality and availability of graphics. Taken as a whole, only two of the twenty-six titles were unavailable in PDF format. Nearly all of the HTML content reviewed was in some way defective (Table 6). For example, there were instances where tables or figures were missing. Sometimes missing content was indicated, for example the phrase “table omitted” might take the place of an actual table. Other times, graphics were missing without a trace. Also in some cases symbols, such as Greek letters used in scientific or mathematical formulas, were missing, unclear or improperly rendered. Despite the smaller sample set used to evaluate graphics, our evaluation of HTML content produced results very similar to those of the1999 KFL study. The current findings also concur with those of Chen, who in 2005 reported similar HTML graphics deficiencies in the aggregator databases he reviewed.13 For the most part, the quality of PDF full-text content was good. Occasionally, however, as Table 6 indicates, the authors found instances, predominately in the Wilson database, where PDF fulltext articles lacked a crisp, clear focus. This quality issue sometimes affected the clarity of illustrations contained within an article by making them appear fuzzy or difficult to discern when compared to the print versions.
(8.5%) (6.3%) (2.7%) (5.7%)
Results and Analysis In terms of major article availability online, with the exception of one title,11 all the vendors—EBSCO, Gale, and Wilson—provided complete coverage of the major articles for issues of the titles they carried. This is an improvement over the 1999 study results in which only 83 percent of the major articles were available online. Although findings for issue content availability were positive, some content problems existed within the databases (see Table 5). Overall, 11 percent of the titles provided were missing entire issues at the time of the study. Gale offered complete coverage for 91 percent of the titles it carried, followed by EBSCO with no missing issues for 89 percent of its titles. Wilson, which had the most complete content in the 1999 study, had the highest number of missing issues in this study.
Graphics Methodology Graphics were the illustrative items and/or non-textual information found in journal articles including images, figures, tables, and symbols. The goal in this phase of the study was to compare the quality of the graphics found in print to their online, full-text counterparts in the aggregator databases. Comparisons were limited to the twenty-six titles in our seventy-nine-title sample for which KFL still held current print issues. For each of these, the authors randomly selected three articles from the latest issues available both in print and online to make comparisons. When a journal issue appeared in more than one database, the same articles were compared across all of them. In addition, the study noted the format used by the vendors to convey article content—HTML, PDF, or both—and reviewed selected articles in each available format. Of the databases examined in the 1999 study, only those provided by Gale offered “full-image” (or PDF) versions of journal articles. In today's world, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web Consortium and Section 508 Guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act are powerful incentives for vendors to supply full-text content that is accessible to persons with visual impairments.12 To that end, most database vendors are supplying either enriched PDF content or HTML content that is readable with screen reading software. However, an examination of full-text accessibility in this context was beyond the scope of the current study.
Summary The current study reconfirms what was learned from the 1999 study—that it is risky business for libraries to rely upon full-text aggregator databases for long-term access to specific journal titles. During the past decade, KFL lost access via full-text databases to twenty-seven (34 per cent) of the sample set of seventy-nine titles examined in 1999. This is a significant loss of full-text title content. KFL was fortunate to obtain access to many of these titles through publisher packages and consortial agreements. However, other libraries of this size may not be as fortunate. Furthermore, this recent comparison of print journals to their online counterparts in aggregator services revealed many of the same problems found a decade earlier. For instance, the current study showed that KFL had full-text access through its aggregators to latest-issue content for only 56 percent of the sample titles that are still available in full-text databases. The 1999 study showed that latest-issue content was available for 55 percent of them through the aggregators on hand at that time. However, this apparent slight improvement in currency is negated by the fact that the 1999 investigators did not account for delays that may have been caused by publishers' embargoes. If the embargoed
Table 6. Quality of Graphics in Aggregator Databases Vendor
Titles
Titles with PDF
Titles with HTML
PDF Quality Problem
HTML Quality Problem
Missing Graphics
EBSCO Gale Wilson
12 10 16
11 9 16
1 10 16
2 0 7
1 7 16
1 7 14
158
Missing Sci. Expressions 0 2 2
Missing Symbols
Color Graphics not in Color
0 1 4
0 1 0
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Full-Text Databases: A Case Study Revisited a Decade Later
titles in the current study are added to the mix, then only 48 percent of full-text titles were up to date in the aggregators reviewed in 2009. This represents a significant drop in overall currency from a decade ago. Although we detected no missing articles within the journal issues examined online, this good news is somewhat overshadowed by the fact that gaps in coverage of one or two issues occurred for 11 percent of the active titles under review. Finally, with regard to graphics contained in print versions of journal articles, graphics in online article counterparts suffered many of the same deficiencies, detected primarily in HTML formats, seen in 1999—often graphical elements were completely missing or they were improperly rendered. However, since more articles in full-text databases are now available in PDF format, there have been overall improvements in the availability and quality of graphics.
Like many libraries, KFL gains access to numerous full-text products through consortium and group purchase or group license agreements with various vendors and publishers. When a license agreement expires, access rights to the products they represent are renegotiated and renewed or else they are dropped. This in part explains why KFL's offerings look so different today as compared to ten years ago—changes were driven by negotiating the best deals. This case study raises questions of concern for all libraries and points to further and more intriguing research possibilities. What would a study that analyzes aggregator packages in general reveal? Journal publishers will continue to deliver content to aggregator vendors, but will publishers charge more for their content in the future? If so, will vendors pass those costs on to the libraries who license their products? Will embargo periods continue and/or be lengthened? Publisher changes have resulted in loss of content in aggregator databases in the past; will this continue to be the case? If database vendors compete successfully for exclusive rights to publishers' contents, what impact will this have on libraries' product choices? How will changes to aggregator databases impact our users and their ability to access the information they need in a timely manner? These are important questions for all libraries looking for ways to leverage their dollars in the full-text arena. Certainly technology and economics will continue to shape the future of the full-text journal environment and libraries must remain committed to purchasing those products that best serve the majority of their users. How this will play out in the future remains to be seen.
Conclusions Full-text aggregator databases are vital abstracting and indexing resources, and they are also useful journal content providers. However, as our 1999 study demonstrated and our 2009 study reconfirmed, their journal contents are not viable substitutes for actual journal subscriptions. Evidently the broader library community has accepted this fact. A 2009 ITHAKA S + R report that analyzed “… which types of journals can be withdrawn responsibly today… ” observed that, “… libraries tend not to withdraw backfile volumes that are available online only via an aggregator resource, because they do not believe that they have sufficient assurance of the reliability of their contents.”14 To be fair, database vendors do not market their full-text journals as replacements for journal subscriptions. A 2004 KFL study of relationships between database vendors and journal publishers described many of the complex processes vendors and publishers engage in to promote their respective products and protect their profits, yet every vendor who participated in that study strongly discouraged libraries from favoring full-text database journals over journal subscriptions.15 Perhaps more significantly, the current study demonstrates the dynamic nature of the full-text journal environment. Vendorpublisher relationships are becoming even more complex as vendors seek journal content rights from publishers, sometimes exclusive rights, and journal publishers continue to develop and market content databases of their own, including the “big deal” packages sold by Elsevier, Sage, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and others. Furthermore, publisher changes and publisher mergers create a complex environment for librarians to navigate. For example, what happens to the backfile content when a publisher changes? Does the old content stay with the publisher or move to the new publisher? If the content moves to the new publisher, are they going to honor the perpetual and archival access rights under the old publisher's license agreement? These are previously unknown territories for libraries and the practices we establish today will have far reaching consequences for libraries in the future. Rick Anderson describes five general categories of publishing models that librarians now need to work with.16 He uses the term “the Churning Constant” to describe the publishing model that includes aggregator databases in which titles may change at unpredictable rates. While the general size and coverage of the aggregator databases remain fairly constant, new titles are continually being added, while others are dropped. The aggregators provide valuable content for students doing research, but libraries cannot rely on them for permanent ongoing journal access. As budgets tighten, librarians may need to decide if aggregator access will be considered adequate for some low-use titles, even though there may be a risk of loss of access in the future.
Notes
159
1.
Nancy Sprague and Mary Beth Chambers, “Full-Text Databases and the Journal Cancellation Process: A Case Study,” Serials Review 26 (3) (2000): 19–31.
2.
Halcyon R. Enssle and Michelle L. Wilde, “So You Have to Cancel Journals? Statistics That Help,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 26 (2002): 259–281.
3.
Karen Rupp-Serrano, Sarah Robbins and Danielle Cain, “Canceling Print Serials in Favor of Electronic: Criteria for Decision Making,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 26 (2002): 369–378.
4.
Sulekha Kalyan, “Non-Renewal of Print Journal Subscriptions that Duplicate Titles in Selected Electronic Databases: A Case Study,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 26 (2002): 409–421.
5.
Janice M. Jaguszewski and Laura K. Probst, “The Impact of Electronic Resources on Serial Cancellations and Remote Storage Decisions in Academic Research Libraries,” Library Trends 48 (4) (2000): 799–820.
6.
William H. Walters, “Criteria for Replacing Print Journals with Online Journal Resources,” Library Resources & Technical Services 48 (4) (2004): 300–304.
7.
Aparna Zambare, Anne Marie Casey, John Fierst, David Ginsburg, Judith O'Dell and Timothy Peters, “Assuring Access: One Library's Journey from Print to Electronic Only Subscriptions,” Serials Review 35 (2) (2009): 70–74.
8.
Xiaotian Chen, “Figures and Tables Omitted from Online Periodical Articles: A Comparison of Vendors and Information Missing from Full-Text Databases,” Internet Reference Services Quarterly 10 (2) (2005): 75–88.
9.
Marianne Stowell Bracke and Jim Martin, “Developing Criteria for the Withdrawal of Print Content Available Online,” Collection Building 24 (2) (2005): 61–64.
10.
Sam Brooks, “Academic Journal Embargoes and Full Text Databases,” The Library Quarterly 73 (3) (2003): 243–260.
11.
The authors discovered a missing article for Canadian Geographic from an EBSCO resource. However, EBSCO provided a “rights notice” and a disclaimer: “This database normally includes full text of articles available from this publication. However, this particular article is not included at the request of the rights holder.” The authors presume that this article was blocked from
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EBSCOhost in compliance with the Tasini Act. For more information, see: http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/copyresources/libraries-and-thetasini-case.shtml.
14.
Roger C. Schonfel and Ross Housewright, What to Withdraw? Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization. [United States]: Ithaka S + R, 2009. http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/what-to-withdraw.
12.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0” http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ (accessed May 24, 2009); Section 508 ADA http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction= Content&ID=12.
15.
Mary Beth Chambers and SoYoung So, “Full-Text Aggregator Database Vendors and Journal Publishers: A Study of a Complex Relationship,” Serials Review 30 (3) (2004): 183–193.
16.
13.
Chen, “Figures and Tables Omitted from Online Periodical Articles.”
Rick Anderson, “Managing Multiple Models of Publishing in Library Acquisitions,” Against the Grain 22 (1) (2010): 18–20.
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Introduction and Background
nine journal titles taken from KFL's list of potential cancellations. The researchers selected these sample titles for two reasons. First, they were peer reviewed—an indication that they were scholarly and potentially more valuable to an academic library than nonscholarly journals. Secondly, they were available in the aggregator databases licensed by KFL at that time. The study focused on currency, coverage, quality of graphics, and stability. The investigators found that 45 percent of the titles online were not as current as the print issues; 17 percent of the major articles were unavailable online; graphics were frequently either missing or inadequately displayed online; and that a number of titles were dropped and others added over a six-month period. The results suggested that libraries considering the cancellation of print journals based on their availability in the full-text aggregators should proceed with caution. Ten years later, with additional budget-driven journal cancellation projects in between, KFL's electronic journal circumstances have changed dramatically. Over the decade, the Library continued to benefit from group purchases of online content with libraries in the University of Colorado System and other library cooperatives. Today, UCCS faculty and students have access to approximately 31,000 online journals representing every major subject area, compared to just over 2,220 titles in 2000 that primarily covered the social sciences with some coverage of business and education fields and minimal coverage of STM fields. Nevertheless, KFL is not immune to the current economic downturn. Once again the Library is facing budget dilemmas. Adding additional strain to an already stressed financial situation, the State of Colorado is discontinuing its allocation of funds to support electronic library resources for State-supported institutions. Consequently, the electronic resources landscape will undergo alterations at many Colorado libraries, including the Kraemer Family Library. The current study is an effort to learn what has changed and what has remained the same in the world of full-text aggregator databases during the past decade by revisiting the seventy-nine journal titles featured in the 1999 study (Serials Review, v.26, no.3 (2000)). Did the Library cancel print subscriptions for any of these
Academic libraries rely on full-text aggregator databases for their dual roles as journal indexes and journal content providers. As library budgets tighten, some libraries may consider cutting direct journal subscriptions to low-use, high-cost titles if they are available in the aggregator databases they license. Libraries that do this take the gamble that content for the titles will remain available and current; risk aside, they can generally count on continuous indexing for them. In this study the authors revisit the pros and cons of replacing journal subscriptions with full-text aggregator access as a potential cost-saving measure. In 1999 librarians at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Kraemer Family Library (KFL) faced a journal cancellation project to accommodate an impending budget shortfall. At that time, KFL targeted for cancellation print journal subscriptions for titles with low-usage counts (a title was counted as used each time a print volume or issue was reshelved) and titles that were available in the following full-text aggregator databases: Expanded Academic Index ASAP, General Business File ASAP, Periodical Abstracts, ABI/Inform, and WilsonSelect. In 1999 these databases were valued primarily for their abstracting and indexing capabilities even as they were recognized for their “added value” as fulltext content suppliers for selected journals. To understand the implications of cancelling journals based on their availability in full-text aggregators, KFL librarians undertook a study to compare print journals to their online counterparts within full-text databases.1 The study sample consisted of seventy-
Thohira, formerly Electronic Serials Librarian, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is Electronic Resources Acquisitions Librarian, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD 21218, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Chambers is Catalog/Archives Librarian, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Sprague, formerly Reference Librarian, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is Reference/Instruction Librarian, University of Idaho Library, Moscow, ID 83844, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. 0098-7913/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2010.07.001
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journals in 1999 or later? Does KFL still have online full-text access to them and, if yes, what kind of access? If KFL has both print and electronic access to the titles in full-text, aggregator databases, how does print and online content compare today in terms of currency, coverage, and rendering of graphics? As we strive to minimize the negative impact of current budget deficits on our users, answers to these questions may help us to make informed journal cancellation decisions and full-text, aggregator database choices.
criteria, including perpetual access, stability, full scholarly content, and high quality graphics. There have also been a number of studies directed at examining journal content as presented in full-text aggregator databases. In 2005, Xiaotian Chen compared aggregator treatment of graphics and found an array of differences among them, including missing graphics in HTML formatted articles, sometimes without any indication that graphics are present in the original version of the articles.8 Chen divided full-text databases into two categories: “stable e-journal collections” (such as JSTOR or Project MUSE) and “unstable full-text databases” (such as Expanded Academic ASAP or Academic Search Elite). He focused on the “unstable full-text databases,” since missing graphics were not considered an issue of concern in the “stable e-journal collections.” Chen viewed graphics as integral parts of an article that need to be included in full-text databases. In their effort to develop criteria for withdrawing print journals, Marianne Bracke and Jim Martin (2005) compared print journals to their online counterparts in Elsevier's ScienceDirect, including an assessment of online scanned images and discovered that they were able to withdraw fewer print journals than expected because of less than adequate representations of some titles found in the database.9 They found that even in more stable e-journal collections, such as ScienceDirect, problems with missing issues and poorly scanned images could occur. Studies examining journal content in full-text databases often discuss the issue of embargoes, the delays in availability of current issues that may be imposed by publishers. Embargo periods can range from one week to one year or longer. Sam Brooks (2003) discussed some underlying reasons for embargoes, including pricing models, and argued that without the journal embargoes, full-text database vendors would not be able to provide the wide range of titles currently offered.10 He described the distinctions between titles available in full-text databases and e-journals provided directly by publishers. Brooks cautioned librarians not to cancel a journal subscription solely due to the title's availability in a full-text database but rather to focus on usage data and the prestige of the journal as the basis for cancellation decisions. The current literature review suggests that librarians understand the nature and limitations of full-text aggregator content for longterm journal access. However, for some libraries it may become necessary to rely on aggregator content for lower-use titles, given the current economic situation. These recent articles provide useful criteria, such as completeness, usage data, duplication, timeliness, and reliability that can help librarians make informed decisions about full-text databases and journal cancellations.
Literature Review Since 1999, several studies have appeared in the literature addressing the journal cancellation process in academic libraries in view of the increased availability of electronic resources. In 2002, Halcyon Enssle and Michelle Wilde reported on ways to use journal usage data gathered from a variety of sources, including usage data provided by full-text aggregator services, in conjunction with journal impact factors to identify journals for cancellation and to help justify journal cancellation decisions.2 From a survey of Association of Research Libraries member institutions, Karen Rupp-Serrano, Sarah Robbins and Danielle Cain (2002) presented criteria for making print retention versus electronic format retention decisions.3 In their discussion of aggregator databases, they encouraged libraries to assess whether titles duplicated in multiple sources are worth their cost and also whether an aggregated title is an adequate substitute for the print or publisher-supplied electronic version. The authors also discussed completeness in general as a criterion for making retention decisions. In some cases, cancelling the print version would be a disservice to the journal's readers if important content, such as editorial matter, is missing from the online version. Sulekha Kalyan (2002) described methods for identifying print titles that overlap with journals found in selected full-text aggregator databases and the criteria used in one academic library to cancel the overlapping print titles.4 Titles that were duplicated in more than one full-text database were targeted for cancellation, although titles with an embargo period of one to three years were excluded from the list of potential cancellations. Kalyan noted the importance of monitoring the changing mix of titles available in the full-text databases, as well as the need to provide on-demand, no cost document delivery service to users as a back-up service in cases where content was no longer available through the aggregator. Janice Jaguszewski and Laura Probst (2000) also raised concerns about the potential of losing access completely to certain titles when a resource is leased rather than owned, and an archive is not made available.5 William Walters (2003) stressed the importance of long-term sustainability in determining if online resources could be considered viable substitutes for print subscriptions. In addition to the widely-accepted criteria of completeness, timeliness, and reliability of online journal resources, he described several guidelines that may help ensure sustainable access, such as requesting that the provider demonstrate a commitment to the long-term provision of each journal title in a collection of journals and that site licenses include provisions for permanent library retention of any content purchased. Online journal packages that do not meet these criteria, such as aggregator databases, are considered supplements rather than replacements for permanent journal subscriptions.6 A recent article by Aparna Zambare and others (2009) described the criteria developed by Central Michigan University Libraries to guide their transition from print journal subscriptions to electronic only formats.7 According to their policy guidelines, print journals should be discontinued only if the online equivalent meets ten
Methodology The current study, undertaken from May 5, 2008 to October 7, 2008, was designed to answer ultimately, one major question: What happened to the seventy-nine journal titles examined in KFL's 1999 study? Specifically the authors wanted to know: Does the Library still have access to full-text content for them either in print or online? If online content is available for a title within an aggregator, what can be said about the quality of that online content regarding:
1. Currency (Do users have access to the latest issue of a journal?) 2. Coverage (Do users have access to all major articles within a given journal issue?)
3. Graphics (Are tables, figures, formulas, or other graphical elements found in printed articles available and/or properly rendered in their online versions?
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Table 1. Status of the Journals in the 1999 Study a Decade Later
154
X X X
X
X
X
X
X X
X
X
E E X
X
Canceled subscriptions Canceled subscriptions lost available in publisher packages at KFL from aggregators
X
X
X
X
X X
X X
X
X
X
X
X X
X X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Access completely lost to KFL
X
X X X
X X X
X X X X X X X X X
X X
X X
X
X
X X
X X
Wilson Access lost Gale EBSCO from KFL current current current access aggregators access access X X E X X X X X X X X X X X X X X E X X X
X X
X X X X
X X E E X X X X X X
X X X
X
X
X X X X
X X X X
X X
X X
X
X X
X X E X X
X X X
X
X
X X X X X
X
Serials Review
Journal Name American Biology Teacher American Indian Culture and Research Journal American Midland Naturalist Behavioral Medicine Canadian Geographic Change Child Study Journal Clearing House Comparative Education Review Contemporary Economic Policy Critical Studies in Mass Communication (Title changed to: Critical Studies in Media Communication) Economic Development & Cultural Change Economic History Review Education and Treatment of Children Educational Administration Quarterly Educational Forum Elementary School Journal Explicator Financial Executive Financial Management Ground Water Hispanic American Historical Review Historian: A Journal of History History and Theory IBM Journal of Research and Development IBM Systems Journal Industrial & Labor Relations Review International Organization International Small Business Journal International Social Science Journal Intervention in School and Clinic Journal for the Education of the Gifted Journal of Asian and African Studies Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching Journal of Consumer Affairs Journal of Consumer Research Journal of Environmental Education Journal of Experimental Education Journal of Geography Journal of Higher Education
Current KFL subscriptions X X X
Current KFL subscriptions still available in Titles available aggregators in KFL aggregators X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X
X
X
E X X X X
X X X X
X X
X X
X X X X X
X
X X
X
X
X X
X X
E X
X X
X
X X E X E X E E
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X X X
X X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X 20
X 13
X
X
X X E
X X
X
X X X
X X
X X
X
X
X E X X E
X X
X
X E X
X
X
X
X X
X X
X
X X X X
X X
X
X
X X
X
26
19
X X X X X X X
52
X X X
35
X X
32
37
X X 27
7
Full-Text Databases: A Case Study Revisited a Decade Later
E = Embargoed title (current issues not available).
X
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155
Journal of Interamerican Studies & World Affairs (Title changed to: Latin American Politics and Society) Journal of Interdisciplinary History Journal of International Business Studies Journal of Management Information Systems Journal of Management Studies Journal of Military History Journal of Money, Credit & Banking Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Journal of Personality Journal of Popular Culture Journal of Soil & Water Conservation Journal of Special Education Journal of Teacher Education Labor History MELUS Modern Philology Monist Philosophical Quarterly Political Quarterly Politics & Society Presidential Studies Quarterly Psychiatry Public Manager: New Bureaucrat Public Opinion Quarterly Quarterly Review of Biology Reading Research and Instruction (Title changed to: Literacy Research and Instruction) Reference & User Services Quarterly Regional Studies Remedial and Special Education Review of Educational Research Roeper Review School Science & Mathematics Science & Society Social Studies Soil Science Southern Economic Journal Studies in American Fiction Teaching Children Mathematics Urban Affairs Review Totals
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To answer these questions the librarians created a spreadsheet to collect data for each of the seventy-nine titles regarding its subscription status at KFL and its availability in an aggregator database or in an online journal package (see Table 1). KFL's open URL link resolver Serials Solutions was used to determine which databases or resources supplied full-text of the titles in the study. For titles available within an aggregator, the authors noted whether a given title was active (updated with newer content on a regular basis), active but embargoed, and, in the absence of a stated embargo period, whether the most current issues were available online. When encountering an embargoed title, the authors checked to see if its stated embargo period had been exceeded. Apart from currency, other elements noted were missing issues or gaps in coverage for any title within a full-text database. For titles available at KFL in print and in one or more aggregator, the authors compared selected print issues of a title to their online counterparts to determine if major articles or major content were available online. Finally, the study compared selected print articles to their full-text, aggregator database counterparts noting the relative quality of the online representations including the quality and/or availability of graphical elements.
Wilson database: ▪ Wilson OmniFile Full Text Mega This study is based on a small sampling of titles significant to the Kraemer Family Library which serves UCCS, a comprehensive baccalaureate university with selected masters and doctoral programs. Even so, it highlights some of the complexities that most academic libraries must deal with today in their efforts to supply full-text journal content to their users.
Status of the Titles Methodology The first objective was to ascertain the status at KFL of the same seventy-nine titles featured in the original study by determining which titles KFL still subscribed to either in print or online, which titles were canceled, and which titles were available in KFL's aggregator databases. Essentially, the intent was to answer these questions: Did KFL cancel subscriptions to any of the seventynine titles? Are the seventy-nine titles still available in aggregator databases? Did KFL lose access to any of these seventy-nine titles?
Limitations of the Study
Results and Analysis
In 1999 KFL librarians examined full-text content of seventy-nine titles in five distinct aggregator databases. KFL no longer has access to two of those resources, ABI/Inform and Periodical Abstracts; however, today the Library has access to more than one hundred databases through EBSCOhost, Gale, Wilson, and other vendors. Consequently, for the current study of those same seventy-nine titles, it was not feasible to examine full-text content in every single vendor-supplied source. Instead, the study considered each vendor's products as a whole since title coverage was the same across all the databases supplied by a given vendor. Although some of the sample titles had a full-text presence in databases such as Contemporary Women's Issues, Business and Management Practices, Business and Company Resource Center, Health and Wellness Resource Center, LexisNexis Academic, and Factiva, this study excluded them because they provided only selective content for the titles they did cover. The analysis also excluded databases that serve as content providers for selected journals such as ProjectMuse and BioOne. The following full-text databases are represented in the current study:
Did KFL cancel subscriptions to any of the seventy-nine titles? Yes - since 1999 KFL canceled fifty-three (67%) of the seventynine titles under review, leaving twenty-six (33%) current subscriptions remaining (Table 1). Twelve of the twenty-six current subscriptions are for print only as of the time of the study. The remaining fourteen are either print-plus-online or online-only subscriptions. Are the seventy-nine titles still available in our aggregator databases? The current study revealed that only fifty-two (66%) of the seventy-nine titles are still available in KFL's current lineup of aggregator databases. This means that twenty-seven of them are not available in the Library's aggregators today. This is an aggregator database loss of 34 percent of the titles despite the fact that KFL has access to far more aggregator databases than it did a decade ago. Of the twenty-six remaining subscriptions, nineteen are still available in the Library's full-text aggregators today, while seven are no longer available via aggregators. Did the library lose access to any of the seventy-nine titles? Of the fifty-three titles that KFL canceled over the ten-year period, twenty of them are not available in the current lineup of aggregator databases. Out of those twenty titles, thirteen were now available in other online sources, such as publisher packages provided by University of Chicago Press, Taylor & Francis, Sage, and Duke University Press at KFL. The Library lost access completely to seven of the canceled titles. This represents a loss of current access to 9 percent of the original sample of seventy-nine titles. Overall, the status of our seventy-nine sample titles had changed dramatically since 1999. With more than a third of the titles no longer accessible via aggregator databases, this study confirmed that libraries should not rely on full-text databases as a long-term solution for journal title access. The loss of aggregator access was mitigated somewhat by the increased availability of publisher packages in our case; however, 9 percent of the sample titles were still completely lost to our users over the past ten years. The dynamic nature of aggregator databases, with titles being continually added, dropped or embargoed was clearly demonstrated in our small sample.
EBSCOhost databases: ▪ Academic Search Premier ▪ Business Source Premier ▪ CINAHL Plus with Full Text ▪ Communication and Mass Media Complete ▪ MAS Ultra - School Edition ▪ Middle Search Plus ▪ Professional Development Collection Gale databases: ▪ Academic OneFile ▪ Computer Database ▪ Expanded Academic ASAP ▪ General OneFile ▪ General Reference Center Gold ▪ Health Reference Center Academic
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Currency of the Titles
Table 3. Status of Embargoed Titles in Aggregator Databases
Methodology To establish a measure of currency for the seventy-nine journals in our sample set, the authors had to determine the most current issue published for each one by consulting several sources: the publisher's Web site, our journal distributor's Web site (EBSCONET), or the journal's contents pages within a database. Once the most current issue available for a title was established, the authors examined each content provider's holdings to see which titles in the sample set were active titles within each database. Next, the active titles were examined to determine how up-to-date they were. If a title fell behind, the number of current issues that were unavailable was noted. However, if a title's current content was embargoed in a given source, that was counted separately as an embargoed title and checked for inconsistencies between the stated embargo period and the most current issues available within the database.
Vendor
Active Full-Text Titles
Embargoed Titles
Titles with Embargo Period Exceeded
EBSCO Gale Wilson Total
52 32 37 121
17 (33%) 0 0 17 (14%)
2 (4%) 0 0 2 (2%)
While EBSCO databases ranked high in currency, they also contained the highest number of embargoed titles in our sample group (Table 3). Of the fifty-two active, full-text titles available through EBSCO, seventeen (33 percent) were embargoed, and two of the seventeen (4 percent) had exceeded their stated embargo periods based on the most current issues found for them in EBSCOhost resources. Although Gale and Wilson databases are not free of journal embargoes, our sample included no embargoed titles for these vendors. Despite the high number of embargoed titles, EBSCOhost databases remain strong providers of current full-text journal content. Although the 1999 study reported on occurrences of delayed titles in the aggregator databases under review, it did not account for delays that may have resulted from publishers' embargo restrictions. This study revealed overlaps in title coverage among the fulltext resources, as did the earlier study; however, the current study identified overlaps among vendors' products as a whole rather than overlaps within individual databases which was the focus of the 1999 study. Of the fifty-two titles available in the aggregators, twenty were unique titles (found only in one full-text database) while thirty-two titles were available from multiple vendors, including twenty titles that were available in all three aggregators (Table 4).
Results and Analysis Fifty-two of the seventy-nine sample titles were available, with no stated embargo periods, in KFL's present-day full-text aggregators. Overall there were 104 occurrences of those fifty-two titles within all databases combined (Table 2). For fifty-eight of those occurrences (56 percent) the most current issue was available within the databases. Conversely, forty-six occurrences of the titles (44 percent) represent titles that were not up-to-date. Of the fortysix that lagged behind within the databases overall, fourteen cases (13 percent overall), represent titles that were behind by two or more issues. Considering currency based on the vendors represented in this study, EBSCOhost provided full-text access to thirty-five nonembargoed titles in our seventy-nine- title sample set and twentysix (74 percent) of them were up-to-date. Within EBSCOhost products, only nine titles (26 percent) were behind by one or more issues. Gale databases provided full-text access to thirty-two of the seventy-nine sample titles, a lower number than either EBSCO or Wilson offered. Furthermore, current issues were available for only fourteen (44 percent) of the Gale titles and over half of them, eighteen titles (56 percent), were behind by one or more issues. At the same time, our one Wilson resource offered thirty-seven fulltext titles in the title sample, the highest number of titles offered by any of the vendors, yet only eighteen of those titles (49 percent) were completely up-to-date. With nineteen of the titles (51 percent) behind by one or more issues, Wilson fared little better than Gale in terms of current issue access. While these figures are noteworthy for the study, the authors cannot draw evenhanded vendor comparisons from this study since KFL does not have the same databases in 2009 as it did in 1999. However, in 1999 KFL had no access to EBSCOhost resources. As Table 2 demonstrates, if this were true today, the Library would have realized a significantly higher reduction in online, full-text current issue availability for the titles in our sample.
Coverage/Content Methodology The authors evaluated coverage of journals within the full-text aggregators by comparing content found in print journal issues to content available within our aggregator databases. At the time of this study, KFL still subscribed to twenty-six of the seventy-nine sample titles. These twenty-six titles comprised our coverage comparison group (see Table 1). However, as of 2008, the Library switched from print to electronic only subscriptions for six of them. For the twenty print subscribed titles, the authors compared content within the vendors' databases to the content in all 2008 print issues held by KFL. For the six e-only subscribed titles, the print was compared to online counterparts for 2007 issues. The study used the tables of contents in the print issues as the sources for identifying the issue content to look for online. The authors searched for online availability of major articles, as well as online availability of supplementary content such as editorial columns, book reviews, and publication information.
Table 2. Currency of Full-Text Titles (Embargoed Titles Excluded)
Vendor
Active Titles
EBSCO 35 Gale 32 Wilson 37 Total for all databases 104
Up-to-Date Active Titles Active Titles Two or More One Issue Active Issues Behind Behind Titles 26 14 18 58
(74.3%) (43.8%) (48.7%) (56%)
6 (17.1%) 12 (37.5%) 14 (37.8%) 32 (30.8%)
3 6 5 14
Table 4. Overlap in Availability of the Titles in Aggregator Databases Status
(8.6%) (18.7%) (13.5%) (13.4%)
Titles Available from Only One Vendor Titles Available from Two Vendors Titles Available from Three Vendors Total Titles Available in Full-Text Databases
157
Number of Titles % of Titles 20 12 20 52
38.5 23.0 38.5 100.0
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Table 5. Missing Full-Text Issues (Embargoed Titles Excluded)
Vendor
Active Titles with No Embargos
EBSCO Gale Wilson Total for all databases
Active Titles with No Missing Issues
35 32 37 104
31 29 32 92
Active Titles Missing One Issue
(88.6%) (90.6%) (86.5%) (88.4%)
Active Titles Missing Two or More Issues
1 (2.9%) 1 (3.1%) 4 (10.8%) 6 (5.7%)
3 2 1 6
EBSCO databases provided full-text content for twelve of the twenty-six titles examined in this part of the study. One title was only available in HTML format while the other eleven were available solely in PDF formats. Gale databases had ten of the twenty-six titles. Nine were available in both PDF and HTML formats, and the remaining one was available in HTML only. Wilson had sixteen of the twenty-six titles, the highest number in this sample subset, and all were available in both PDF and HTML formats. The increased prevalence of PDF content in full-text databases over the past ten years has resulted in an overall improvement in the quality and availability of graphics. Taken as a whole, only two of the twenty-six titles were unavailable in PDF format. Nearly all of the HTML content reviewed was in some way defective (Table 6). For example, there were instances where tables or figures were missing. Sometimes missing content was indicated, for example the phrase “table omitted” might take the place of an actual table. Other times, graphics were missing without a trace. Also in some cases symbols, such as Greek letters used in scientific or mathematical formulas, were missing, unclear or improperly rendered. Despite the smaller sample set used to evaluate graphics, our evaluation of HTML content produced results very similar to those of the1999 KFL study. The current findings also concur with those of Chen, who in 2005 reported similar HTML graphics deficiencies in the aggregator databases he reviewed.13 For the most part, the quality of PDF full-text content was good. Occasionally, however, as Table 6 indicates, the authors found instances, predominately in the Wilson database, where PDF fulltext articles lacked a crisp, clear focus. This quality issue sometimes affected the clarity of illustrations contained within an article by making them appear fuzzy or difficult to discern when compared to the print versions.
(8.5%) (6.3%) (2.7%) (5.7%)
Results and Analysis In terms of major article availability online, with the exception of one title,11 all the vendors—EBSCO, Gale, and Wilson—provided complete coverage of the major articles for issues of the titles they carried. This is an improvement over the 1999 study results in which only 83 percent of the major articles were available online. Although findings for issue content availability were positive, some content problems existed within the databases (see Table 5). Overall, 11 percent of the titles provided were missing entire issues at the time of the study. Gale offered complete coverage for 91 percent of the titles it carried, followed by EBSCO with no missing issues for 89 percent of its titles. Wilson, which had the most complete content in the 1999 study, had the highest number of missing issues in this study.
Graphics Methodology Graphics were the illustrative items and/or non-textual information found in journal articles including images, figures, tables, and symbols. The goal in this phase of the study was to compare the quality of the graphics found in print to their online, full-text counterparts in the aggregator databases. Comparisons were limited to the twenty-six titles in our seventy-nine-title sample for which KFL still held current print issues. For each of these, the authors randomly selected three articles from the latest issues available both in print and online to make comparisons. When a journal issue appeared in more than one database, the same articles were compared across all of them. In addition, the study noted the format used by the vendors to convey article content—HTML, PDF, or both—and reviewed selected articles in each available format. Of the databases examined in the 1999 study, only those provided by Gale offered “full-image” (or PDF) versions of journal articles. In today's world, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web Consortium and Section 508 Guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act are powerful incentives for vendors to supply full-text content that is accessible to persons with visual impairments.12 To that end, most database vendors are supplying either enriched PDF content or HTML content that is readable with screen reading software. However, an examination of full-text accessibility in this context was beyond the scope of the current study.
Summary The current study reconfirms what was learned from the 1999 study—that it is risky business for libraries to rely upon full-text aggregator databases for long-term access to specific journal titles. During the past decade, KFL lost access via full-text databases to twenty-seven (34 per cent) of the sample set of seventy-nine titles examined in 1999. This is a significant loss of full-text title content. KFL was fortunate to obtain access to many of these titles through publisher packages and consortial agreements. However, other libraries of this size may not be as fortunate. Furthermore, this recent comparison of print journals to their online counterparts in aggregator services revealed many of the same problems found a decade earlier. For instance, the current study showed that KFL had full-text access through its aggregators to latest-issue content for only 56 percent of the sample titles that are still available in full-text databases. The 1999 study showed that latest-issue content was available for 55 percent of them through the aggregators on hand at that time. However, this apparent slight improvement in currency is negated by the fact that the 1999 investigators did not account for delays that may have been caused by publishers' embargoes. If the embargoed
Table 6. Quality of Graphics in Aggregator Databases Vendor
Titles
Titles with PDF
Titles with HTML
PDF Quality Problem
HTML Quality Problem
Missing Graphics
EBSCO Gale Wilson
12 10 16
11 9 16
1 10 16
2 0 7
1 7 16
1 7 14
158
Missing Sci. Expressions 0 2 2
Missing Symbols
Color Graphics not in Color
0 1 4
0 1 0
Volume 36, Number 3, 2010
Full-Text Databases: A Case Study Revisited a Decade Later
titles in the current study are added to the mix, then only 48 percent of full-text titles were up to date in the aggregators reviewed in 2009. This represents a significant drop in overall currency from a decade ago. Although we detected no missing articles within the journal issues examined online, this good news is somewhat overshadowed by the fact that gaps in coverage of one or two issues occurred for 11 percent of the active titles under review. Finally, with regard to graphics contained in print versions of journal articles, graphics in online article counterparts suffered many of the same deficiencies, detected primarily in HTML formats, seen in 1999—often graphical elements were completely missing or they were improperly rendered. However, since more articles in full-text databases are now available in PDF format, there have been overall improvements in the availability and quality of graphics.
Like many libraries, KFL gains access to numerous full-text products through consortium and group purchase or group license agreements with various vendors and publishers. When a license agreement expires, access rights to the products they represent are renegotiated and renewed or else they are dropped. This in part explains why KFL's offerings look so different today as compared to ten years ago—changes were driven by negotiating the best deals. This case study raises questions of concern for all libraries and points to further and more intriguing research possibilities. What would a study that analyzes aggregator packages in general reveal? Journal publishers will continue to deliver content to aggregator vendors, but will publishers charge more for their content in the future? If so, will vendors pass those costs on to the libraries who license their products? Will embargo periods continue and/or be lengthened? Publisher changes have resulted in loss of content in aggregator databases in the past; will this continue to be the case? If database vendors compete successfully for exclusive rights to publishers' contents, what impact will this have on libraries' product choices? How will changes to aggregator databases impact our users and their ability to access the information they need in a timely manner? These are important questions for all libraries looking for ways to leverage their dollars in the full-text arena. Certainly technology and economics will continue to shape the future of the full-text journal environment and libraries must remain committed to purchasing those products that best serve the majority of their users. How this will play out in the future remains to be seen.
Conclusions Full-text aggregator databases are vital abstracting and indexing resources, and they are also useful journal content providers. However, as our 1999 study demonstrated and our 2009 study reconfirmed, their journal contents are not viable substitutes for actual journal subscriptions. Evidently the broader library community has accepted this fact. A 2009 ITHAKA S + R report that analyzed “… which types of journals can be withdrawn responsibly today… ” observed that, “… libraries tend not to withdraw backfile volumes that are available online only via an aggregator resource, because they do not believe that they have sufficient assurance of the reliability of their contents.”14 To be fair, database vendors do not market their full-text journals as replacements for journal subscriptions. A 2004 KFL study of relationships between database vendors and journal publishers described many of the complex processes vendors and publishers engage in to promote their respective products and protect their profits, yet every vendor who participated in that study strongly discouraged libraries from favoring full-text database journals over journal subscriptions.15 Perhaps more significantly, the current study demonstrates the dynamic nature of the full-text journal environment. Vendorpublisher relationships are becoming even more complex as vendors seek journal content rights from publishers, sometimes exclusive rights, and journal publishers continue to develop and market content databases of their own, including the “big deal” packages sold by Elsevier, Sage, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and others. Furthermore, publisher changes and publisher mergers create a complex environment for librarians to navigate. For example, what happens to the backfile content when a publisher changes? Does the old content stay with the publisher or move to the new publisher? If the content moves to the new publisher, are they going to honor the perpetual and archival access rights under the old publisher's license agreement? These are previously unknown territories for libraries and the practices we establish today will have far reaching consequences for libraries in the future. Rick Anderson describes five general categories of publishing models that librarians now need to work with.16 He uses the term “the Churning Constant” to describe the publishing model that includes aggregator databases in which titles may change at unpredictable rates. While the general size and coverage of the aggregator databases remain fairly constant, new titles are continually being added, while others are dropped. The aggregators provide valuable content for students doing research, but libraries cannot rely on them for permanent ongoing journal access. As budgets tighten, librarians may need to decide if aggregator access will be considered adequate for some low-use titles, even though there may be a risk of loss of access in the future.
Notes
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1.
Nancy Sprague and Mary Beth Chambers, “Full-Text Databases and the Journal Cancellation Process: A Case Study,” Serials Review 26 (3) (2000): 19–31.
2.
Halcyon R. Enssle and Michelle L. Wilde, “So You Have to Cancel Journals? Statistics That Help,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 26 (2002): 259–281.
3.
Karen Rupp-Serrano, Sarah Robbins and Danielle Cain, “Canceling Print Serials in Favor of Electronic: Criteria for Decision Making,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 26 (2002): 369–378.
4.
Sulekha Kalyan, “Non-Renewal of Print Journal Subscriptions that Duplicate Titles in Selected Electronic Databases: A Case Study,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 26 (2002): 409–421.
5.
Janice M. Jaguszewski and Laura K. Probst, “The Impact of Electronic Resources on Serial Cancellations and Remote Storage Decisions in Academic Research Libraries,” Library Trends 48 (4) (2000): 799–820.
6.
William H. Walters, “Criteria for Replacing Print Journals with Online Journal Resources,” Library Resources & Technical Services 48 (4) (2004): 300–304.
7.
Aparna Zambare, Anne Marie Casey, John Fierst, David Ginsburg, Judith O'Dell and Timothy Peters, “Assuring Access: One Library's Journey from Print to Electronic Only Subscriptions,” Serials Review 35 (2) (2009): 70–74.
8.
Xiaotian Chen, “Figures and Tables Omitted from Online Periodical Articles: A Comparison of Vendors and Information Missing from Full-Text Databases,” Internet Reference Services Quarterly 10 (2) (2005): 75–88.
9.
Marianne Stowell Bracke and Jim Martin, “Developing Criteria for the Withdrawal of Print Content Available Online,” Collection Building 24 (2) (2005): 61–64.
10.
Sam Brooks, “Academic Journal Embargoes and Full Text Databases,” The Library Quarterly 73 (3) (2003): 243–260.
11.
The authors discovered a missing article for Canadian Geographic from an EBSCO resource. However, EBSCO provided a “rights notice” and a disclaimer: “This database normally includes full text of articles available from this publication. However, this particular article is not included at the request of the rights holder.” The authors presume that this article was blocked from
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EBSCOhost in compliance with the Tasini Act. For more information, see: http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/copyresources/libraries-and-thetasini-case.shtml.
14.
Roger C. Schonfel and Ross Housewright, What to Withdraw? Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization. [United States]: Ithaka S + R, 2009. http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/what-to-withdraw.
12.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0” http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ (accessed May 24, 2009); Section 508 ADA http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction= Content&ID=12.
15.
Mary Beth Chambers and SoYoung So, “Full-Text Aggregator Database Vendors and Journal Publishers: A Study of a Complex Relationship,” Serials Review 30 (3) (2004): 183–193.
16.
13.
Chen, “Figures and Tables Omitted from Online Periodical Articles.”
Rick Anderson, “Managing Multiple Models of Publishing in Library Acquisitions,” Against the Grain 22 (1) (2010): 18–20.
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