Library Resources & Technical Services Volume 52 Number 1

2008·1.6 MB·English

by  Resources and Technical Services Division of the American Library Association

Library Resources
&
Technical Services
ISSN 0024-2527
January 2008
Volume 52, No. 1
Use of the Checklist Method for Content
Evaluation of Full-text Databases
Thomas E. Nisonger
Mass Digitization
Trudi Bellardo Hahn
Converting and Preserving the Scholarly Record
Jeffrey L. Horrell
Who Has Published What on East Asian Studies?
Su Chen and Chengzhi Wang
Web Citation Availability
Mary F. Casserly and Janes E. Bird
An Operational Model for Library
Metadata Maintenance
Jim LeBlanc and Martin Kurth
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Library Resources & Technical Services (ISSN Library Resources
0024-2527) is published quarterly by the American
Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago,
IL 60611. It is the official publication of the &
Association for Library Collections & Technical
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ARTICLES
division of the American Library Association.
Send manuscripts to the Editorial Office: Peggy
Johnson, Editor, Library Resources & Technical Use of the Checklist Method for Content Evaluation
Services, University of Minnesota Libraries, 499 of Full-text Databases 4
Wilson Library, 309 19th Ave. So., Minneapolis,
An Investigation of Two Databases Based on Citations
MN 55455; [phone]; fax: [phone];
e-mail: [email protected]. Advertising: ACLTS, 50 from Two Journals
E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; 312-280-5038; Thomas E. Nisonger
fax: [phone]. ALA Production Services: Troy
D. Linker, Angela Hanshaw, and Chris Keech.
Mass Digitization 18
Members: Address changes and inquiries should
be sent to Membership Department—Library Implications for Preserving the Scholarly Record
Resources & Technical Services, 50 E. Huron Trudi Bellardo Hahn
St., Chicago, IL 60611. Nonmember subscribers:
Subscriptions, orders, changes of address, and Converting and Preserving the Scholarly Record 27
inquiries should be sent to Library Resources
An Overview
& Technical Services, Subscription Department,
American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Jeffrey L. Horrell
Chicago, IL 60611; 1-800-545-2433; fax: (312) 944-
2641; [email protected]. Who Has Published What on East Asian Studies? 33
Library Resources & Technical Services is indexed in An Analysis of Publishers and Publishing Trends
Library Literature, Library & Information Science Su Chen and Chengzhi Wang
Abstracts, Current Index to Journals in Education,
Science Citation Index, and Information Science Web Citation Availability 42
Abstracts. Contents are listed in CALL (Current
A Follow-up Study
American—Library Literature). Its reviews are
included in Book Review Digest, Book Review Mary F. Casserly and James E. Bird
Index, and Review of Reviews.
An Operational Model for Library Metadata Maintenance 54
Instructions for authors appear on the Library
Resources & Technical Services Web page at www Jim LeBlanc and Martin Kurth
.ala.org/alcts/lrts. Copies of books for review should
be addressed to Edward Swanson, Book Review
Editor, Library Resources & Technical Services, NOTES ON OPERATIONS
1065 Portland Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55104; e-mail:
[email protected].
Determining the Average Cost of a Book for
©2008 American Library Association
Allocation Formulas 60
All materials in this journal subject to copyright by Comparing Options
the American Library Association may be photo- Virginia Kay Williams and June Schmidt
copied for the noncommercial purpose of scientific
or educational advancement granted by Sections
107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976.
Index to Advertisers 53
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2 LRTS 52(1)
Editorial
EDITORIAL BOARD Peggy Johnson
Editor and Chair
Peggy Johnson This first issue of 2008 is another terrific collection of
University of Minnesota papers addressing the rapidly changing environment in
which we work. Thomas E. Nisonger returns to a familiar
Members analysis tool, the checklist method, which was developed in a
print environment, and evaluates the full text, indexing, and
Kristen Antelman, North Carolina abstracting coverage of two databases (Library Literature
State University and Information Science Full Text and EBSCOhost Academic
Stephen Bosch, University of Search Premier). Nisonger compares citations to journal
Arizona articles that were published in Library Resources & Technical Services and
Yvonne Carignan, University of Collection Building. He concludes by identifying areas for future research.
Maryland We are delighted to publish two papers based on presentations given at
Mary Casserly, University at Albany the Eighth Annual Symposium on Scholarly Communication, “Converting
and Preserving the Scholarly Record,” held at State University of New York,
Elisa Coghlan, University of
Washington Albany, October 24, 2006. Trudi Bellardo Hahn’s paper, “Mass Digitization:
Implications for Preserving the Scholarly Record,” looks at the intersection (or
Tschera Harkness Connell, Ohio
not) of libraries’ interests and those of commercial entities in terms of qual-
State University
ity, secrecy, and long-term stability. She issues a call for the library profession
Magda A. El-Sherbini, Ohio State
to exercise strong leadership in how best to preserve the scholarly record.
University
Jeffrey L. Horrell, in “Converting and Preserving the Scholarly Record: An
Karla L. Hahn, Association of
Overview,” which was delivered at the same symposium, explores pertinent
Research Libraries
aspects of the challenge and concludes with recommended elements for a
Dawn Hale, Johns Hopkins
campuswide digital repository
University
Su Chen and Chengzhi Wang consider scholarly and publishing trends in
Sara C. Heitshu, University of
Western-language monographs in East Asian studies from 2000 through 2005.
Arizona
Their findings demonstrate increased activity and interest in this area as publish-
Judy Jeng, New Jersey City ers and academia pay more attention to China, Japan, and Korea.
University (Intern)
How persistent is a URL? May F. Casserly and James E. Bird seek to answer
Shirley J. Lincicum, Western this question through statistical analysis and identification of citation character-
Oregon University istics associated with availability. Building on research the authors conducted
Bonnie MacEwan, Auburn in 2002, they report that the overall availability of Web content in the sample
University dropped from 89.2 percent to 80.6 percent.
Carolynne Myall, Eastern Jim LeBlanc and Martin Kurth propose an operational model for maintain-
Washington University ing library metadata. They begin by noting that few libraries devote the same
Pat Riva, Bibliothèque et Archives level of attention and resources to maintaining non-MARC metadata as they
nationales du Québec devote to MARC records and to the traditional catalog. The model that LeBlanc
Diane Vizine-Goetz, OCLC, Inc. and Kurth suggest builds on the idea that the expertise and skills that guide
catalog data curation can be applied to metadata maintenance in a broader set of
information delivery systems.
Ex-Officio Members
This issue’s Notes on Operations piece by Virginia Kay Williams and June
Schmidt investigates methods of determining average prices used in allocation
Charles Wilt, Executive Director,
formulas and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different approach-
ALCTS
es—drawing on data from Mississippi State University Libraries, the Bowker
Mary Beth Weber, Rutgers
Annual, previous acquisition cost data, Blackwell Price Reports, and Blackwell
University, Editor, ALCTS
approval plan profiles.
Newsletter Online
Edward Swanson, MINITEX
Library Information Network,
Book Review Editor, LRTS
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4 LRTS 52(1)
Use of the Checklist
Method for Content
Evaluation of Full-text
Databases
An Investigation of Two Databases
Based on Citations from Two
Journals
By Thomas E. Nisonger
Following a detailed (but not comprehensive) review of the use of citation data as
checklists for library collection evaluation, the use of this technique for evaluat-
ing database content is explained. This paper reports an investigation of the full-
text and indexing and abstracting coverage of Library Literature & Information
Science Full Text and EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier, based on checking
citations to journal articles in the 2004 volumes of Library Resources & Technical
Services and Collection Building. Analysis of these citations shows they were
predominately to English-language library and information science journals pub-
lished in the United States, with the majority dating from 2000 to 2004. Library
Literature & Information Science Full Text contained 21.1 percent of the citations
in full-text format, while the corresponding figure for Academic Search Premier
was 16.1 percent. The database coverage also is analyzed by publication date,
country of origin, and Library of Congress classification number of cited items.
Some limitations to the study are acknowledged, while issues for future research
are outlined.
Thomas E. Nisonger (nisonge@indiana.
edu) is Professor, Indiana University, That the librarianship paradigm is rapidly changing with the evolution from
School of Library and Information a print to an electronic environment is almost a cliché. Relatively new for-
Science, Bloomington.
mats, such as full-text databases, electronic journals, electronic books, and the
Web, offer numerous challenges to contemporary librarians, including a need for
The author gratefully acknowledges his
evaluation techniques. While a host of generally accepted collection evaluation
graduate assistants in Indiana University’s
School of Library and Information methods were developed for the twentieth century’s relatively stable, mostly print
Science, Sara Franks, Catherine Hall, and environment, identifying appropriate evaluation methodologies ranks among the
Suzanne Switzer, who assisted in a variety
library profession’s major challenges in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
of ways, including checking citations in
the databases and helping tabulate As will be illustrated in the following literature review, the checklist method, dat-
the results. ing to the mid-nineteenth century, is one of the oldest and among the most often
used approaches to library collection evaluation. This paper’s purpose is to dem-
Submitted January 14, 2007; tentatively onstrate the use of a citation-based checklist approach by evaluating the content
accepted pending revision March 11,
of two full-text databases: Library Literature & Information Science Full Text and
2007; revised and resubmitted April 6,
2007, and accepted for publication. Academic Search Premier.
52(1) LRTS Use of the Checklist Method for Content Evaluation of Full-text Databases 5
The Guide to the Evaluation of Library Collections lished during the 1960s have sometimes been termed classic
offers a succinct definition of the checklist approach: “With studies: Coale’s evaluation of the Newberry Library’s Latin
this procedure the evaluator selects lists of titles or works American Colonial history holdings along with comparative
appropriate to the subjects collected, to the programs or data for the University of Texas at Austin, the University of
goals of the library, or to the programs and goals of consor- California at Berkeley Libraries, and the Hispanic Society
tia. These lists are then searched in the library files to deter- of America, and Webb’s assessment of medieval studies, art
mine the percentage the library has in its own collection.”1 history, political science, physics, Slavic studies, and United
More specifically, the lists are checked in the library’s cata- States and United Kingdom social and literary history at the
log (originally a card catalog, now an online public access University of Colorado.7
catalog [OPAC]). The checklist technique (sometimes in combination
The benefits and drawbacks associated with the check- with other approaches) also has been used for the evalu-
list technique have been discussed in the literature by ation of library holdings in science and technology at the
Lockett, Lundin, and the author, among others.2 On the University of Idaho by Burns; the periodicals collection
positive side, lists can be compiled to meet the needs of a at James Madison University by Bolgiano and King; his-
particular library or type of library and they can be exam- tory of Christianity at Ohio State University by Shiels and
ined to increase knowledge of the literature. Lists also are Alt; music at Louisiana State University by Taranto and
straightforward to implement, require little subject exper- Perrault; irrigation at the University of Illinois by Porta
tise, and provide objective data that is easily understood. On and Lancaster; biocatalysis and applied molecular biology
the negative side, the collection might hold other resources at Columbia University by Kehoe and Stein; theatre arts at
better than those on the list; all items on the list are not of the University of California at Sacramento by Snow; math-
equal value; appropriate lists might be difficult to locate; ematics at Winona State University by Dennison; the legal
held items might not be available because they are checked collection at Suffolk University Law Library by Flaherty;
out, missing, or for other reasons; and many lists focusing on and graphic novels at the University of Memphis (although
a single subject area do not consider resources from other specific results are not reported) by Matz.8 In addition, the
disciplines. One of the more compelling criticisms is the fact method was used by Larson to test the accuracy and consis-
that the checklist approach was developed to test ownership tency of assigned Conspectus collection levels in French lit-
in the traditional model of librarianship and usually does erature by twenty Research Libraries Group (RLG) libraries
not consider items obtained on interlibrary loan or licensed in a Conspectus verification study.9 Note that this paragraph
electronically. does not contain a comprehensive listing as numerous other
examples could be cited.
History of the Checklist Method
Citation-based Checklists
According to Mosher and other authorities, the earli-
est reported collection evaluation in an American library, Most of the earliest checklist evaluations used bibliogra-
published in 1849, used the checklist method.3 That inves- phies, recommended lists, or other so-called “authorita-
tigation, written by the Smithsonian Institution’s assistant tive” sources. Yet the Guide to the Evaluation of Library
secretary Charles Coffin Jewett, used the citations in leading Collections outlines fifteen possible sources for a checklist,
mid-nineteenth century textbooks in chemistry, commerce, such as course syllabi or reading lists, publisher or dealer
ethnography, and international law as the checklist and catalogs, bestseller lists, the holdings of important librar-
concluded that North American libraries were inadequate ies, and so on.10 Two of the fifteen relate to citations: lists
compared to their European counterparts.4 of highly cited journals, such as those in the Institute for
A major collection evaluation at the University of Scientific Information’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and
Chicago during the early 1930s relied upon the checklist “citations contained in publications.”11
method. As part of an ambitious collection-building project Citation analysis is a well-established library and infor-
led by M. Llewellyn Raney, more than four hundred bib- mation science research methodology that is frequently
liographies were checked by approximately two hundred used to analyze scholarly communications patterns as well
faculty members resulting in a multimillion dollar desid- as for numerous evaluative purposes. Citations selected
erata list.5 In the mid-1930s, Waples and Lasswell used from journals, textbooks, dissertations and theses, faculty
the checklist approach to evaluate select social science publications, and other sources have frequently been used
areas in six major American research libraries, including as collection evaluation checklists. The advantages and
the Library of Congress (LC), Harvard, and the New York disadvantages of using citations for checklists have been
Public Library.6 Two checklist collection evaluations pub- reviewed by this author.12 The technique is based on the
6 Nisonger LRTS 52(1)
assumption that the cited sources were used by researchers, citations from Duane’s Clinical Ophthalmology along with
and thus should be contained in a library collection support- another non-citation source.22 Her checklists were used by
ing research. Relevant interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary members of the Association of Vision Science Librarians
citations might be included that would not appear on other to evaluate their collections with results for twenty-one
lists specific to a particular subject. Among the disadvan- unidentified libraries reported.
tages, some citations may be peripheral to the topic, the Bland checked citations from twenty-five textbooks
technique focuses on library patrons who publish, and an (five each in mathematics, philosophy, physics, psychology,
item might be cited simply because it is available rather than and sociology) against the holdings of the Western Carolina
because it is the best resource. University Library, predicated on the assumption that the
Heidenwolf asserts that the use of citations for check- collection’s relevance for teaching purposes would be tested
lists originated during the 1950s and cites a 1957 study because the citations were taken from textbooks for courses
by Emerson.13 She categorizes Jewett’s well-known 1849 taught in the curriculum.23 Following up on Bland’s work,
evaluation, described above, as an example of checking an Stelk and Lancaster checked citations from five religious
“authoritative bibliography,” but Jewett’s study also was a studies textbooks against the holdings of the University of
citation-based checklist, as it used references from text- Illinois at Urbana-Champaign undergraduate and main uni-
books.14 The most frequently used methods for selecting versity libraries, and confirmed the technique’s usefulness
citations for checklist evaluation will be reviewed below. for evaluation of undergraduate collections.24 In another
Note that illustrative examples are provided for each cat- permutation on the use of textbooks, Currie selected one
egory rather than a comprehensive review. citation from the textbook for each of eighty courses taught
at Firelands College, a two year-branch of Bowling Green
State University, to create a checklist for evaluating both the
Citations from Journals
branch and the main library.25
This researcher used two methods for selecting citations
from political science journals (the first based on three
Citations from Dissertations and Theses
years of the American Political Science Review and the
second based on one year of five other journals) to evalu- Citations from dissertations and theses have been used as a
ate the political science collections of George Washington, checklist to test the ability of university libraries to support
Georgetown, Howard, Catholic, and George Mason uni- doctoral- and master’s-level research. In the earliest known
versity libraries.15 Utilizing the author’s second method, study, Emerson analyzed the citations in twenty-three engi-
Heidenwolf used citations from five epidemiology journals neering dissertations completed at Columbia University
to evaluate the epidemiology collection in the University of from 1950 through 1954, and then used them as a checklist
Michigan Library system and its Public Health Library.16 to evaluate the Columbia Libraries engineering holdings.26
Gleason and Deffenbaugh selected citations from three Herubel used a list of the journals and serials cited twice
biblical studies journals to evaluate the University of Notre in philosophy dissertations written at Purdue University as
Dame Library’s holdings on that topic.17 In addition to a checklist for evaluating the Purdue library’s periodical col-
other methods, Crawley-Low evaluated the University lection.27 The University of California at Irvine’s library was
of Saskatchewan’s toxicology collection by using citations evaluated by Buzzard and New based on a checklist of cita-
to books from a three-year run of the Annual Review of tions selected from thirty-six dissertations (twelve each from
Pharmacology and Toxicology as a checklist.18 Journal cita- the sciences, social sciences, and humanities) completed at
tions also were used in a checklist evaluation of irrigation that institution.28 Citations from sixty-five master’s theses in
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Porta human resources development were used by Moulden to
and Lancaster.19 evaluate the National College of Education’s ability to sup-
port off-campus programs.29
Citations from Textbooks
Citations from Faculty publications
This is the approach used by Jewett in the 1840s.20 Among
numerous methods employed in the evaluation of the The selection of citations from dissertations as well as facul-
Washington University School of Medicine’s ophthalmol- ty-authored books and articles at Loughborough University
ogy monograph collection, Gallagher used the one hundred in the United Kingdom has been reported by Lewis in a
monographic citations in the classic textbook Ophthalmology: study that also examined interlibrary loan (ILL) records
Principles and Concepts as a checklist to address the ques- to determine if unheld items had been borrowed.30 To test
tion whether the book could have been written with the the capability of the Pennsylvania State University’s branch
library’s resources.21 In a similar vein, Watson selected campus libraries to support faculty research, Neal and Smith
52(1) LRTS Use of the Checklist Method for Content Evaluation of Full-text Databases 7
checked citations from journal articles published by branch database under evaluation rather than in a library’s OPAC.
faculty against the system holdings.31 Haas and Lee evalu- Typically, a list of journal titles is checked against the ven-
ated the University of Florida library’s periodical holdings in dor’s list of titles theoretically contained in the database. For
forestry by checking journal titles cited in faculty publica- example, Carr and Wolfe used core lists of education and
tions as well as articles written by faculty.32 biology journals to evaluate four electronic databases at the
University of Wisconsin system libraries.39 At the University
of Hawaii at Manoa, Brier and Lebbin used Magazines for
The Lopez Method
Libraries as a checklist to evaluate the title coverage of three
Although infrequently used, the Lopez method offers an databases.40 Black used the list of journals covered in JCR to
interesting variation on citations as checklist technique that evaluate four full-text databases.41 Jacobs, Woodfield, and
is worth noting. Lopez described an evaluation method, Morris compiled core journal lists, based on local citations
developed at the State University of New York at Buffalo by British researchers, that were checked against the cover-
Library, that extends the checklist technique through age of four major databases as well as the British Library
four hierarchical levels.33 He explain this approach in the Document Supply Centre.42 Instead of checking titles,
following: Grzeszkiewicz and Hawbaker checked the articles from
sample issues of journals subscribed to by the University of
Select at random from a critical bibliography, a the Pacific Library in Business Index ASAP.43 This literature
number of references. Check these references review identified only two published cases in which citations
against the library’s holdings. If those references were directly checked in databases—the method used in this
are available, then take as your second reference, study. Tyler, Boudreau, and Leach selected 6,170 citations
the first citation in that publication’s footnote. from the first available 2000 issue of an unnamed number of
Repeat the procedure until either the library lacks core communication studies journals and checked them for
the material cited or until a fourth and final citation coverage in three communication studies indexes and five
is obtained.34 multidisciplinary databases.44 Schaffer used a sample of 368
citations from more than 150 articles published by psychol-
Lopez then outlined a 10-20-40-80 scoring method ogy department faculty at Texas A & M University between
for items held at levels one through four respectively.35 2000 and 2002 as a checklist (although that term is not used
This researcher reported a test of Lopez’s method at the by Schaffer) for evaluating the content of twenty-six elec-
University of Manitoba Library in four subject areas (family tronic full-text databases licensed by the library.45
therapy, the American novel, modern British history, and
Medieval French literature) that concluded that the method
measured a collection’s depth for supporting research, but Databases Evaluated in this Investigation
was unreliable because of inconsistent results between the
two different tests in each subject.36 Library Literature & Information Science Full Text, pub-
lished by H. W. Wilson, contains “full text of articles from
nearly 150 journals as far back as 1997” and indexing cover-
Use of Checklists in Database Evaluation
age for four hundred journals dating to 1984.46 Although
Ever since so-called full-text databases emerged during this database has undergone name changes and migration
the 1980s, the completeness of their coverage has been from print to CD-ROM to a Web-interface, it can be traced
debated and, to some extent, researched. One of the earlier to Library Literature, the well-known library science index
investigations of full-text database content, published by originally published in print format by the American Library
Pagell in 1987, bore the provocative and catchy-sounding Association in 1921.47 This product was chosen for evalu-
subtitle, “How Full Is Full?”37 A variety of methods have ation because of its pedigree and reputation as a premier
been used or proposed to assess full-text database content library and information science database.
coverage and quality, including Pagell’s comparison of print Part of the EBSCOHOST suite of databases mar-
issues with database coverage; Black’s average JCR impact keted by EBSCO, Academic Search Premier is advertised as
factor for journals contained in the database (that also were “designed specifically for academic institutions” and offering
covered by JCR); and Jacsó’s summing of the impact factor “the world’s largest, multidisciplinary full-text database.”48
of all of a database’s JCR journals.38 This product contains full text for “nearly” 4,650 serials,
The checklist method also has been used to evaluate with backfiles as far back as 1975 “or further” for more than
indexing and abstracting coverage, full-text content of data- one hundred journals; furthermore, indexing and abstracts
bases, or both. In this modification of the traditional check- are provided for 8,200 titles.49 This service was selected for
list approach, each item on the list is checked against the investigation because it is an important multidisciplinary
8 Nisonger LRTS 52(1)
database that includes library and information science with 3. a full-text entry
an academic focus. 4. no record in the database
One might ask why compare a specialized full-text
database with a general one (rather than two specialized An Excel spreadsheet was used to calculate the overall
or two general databases), and does not such a comparison periodical coverage for LRTS and Collection Building in
unfairly advantage the former when based on citations from both databases; in other words, the distribution of the jour-
its discipline? Library Literature & Information Science nal’s citations to periodicals among the four categories out-
Full Text is the only full-text database specific to that disci- lined above. For purposes of final analysis, categories one
pline, as LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts and two were combined into a single indexing and abstract-
and Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts ing coverage category. The spreadsheet also was used to
are not advertised as full-text services. Academic Search tabulate the results by title and by publication date of the
Premier, although a multidisciplinary database, is known to cited articles, facilitating analysis by those variables. Note
have significant library and information science content and that analysis by language, subject, and place of publication
is actually listed under “library and information science” in did not require a spreadsheet.
the “Databases by Subject” menu selection on the Indiana
University library Web page.50 While a better performance
by Literature and Information Science Full Text would be Analysis of the Citations
presumed, it is useful to gather empirical evidence to test
this assumption and to examine the differences in the two The 2004 LRTS contained 910 citations, counted according
databases’ coverage. At the project’s conclusion, the results to the method described in the preceding section. Table 1
from the two databases were similar enough to suggest it presents a breakdown of these citations by format. A major-
was not unreasonable to compare them. ity of the citations (60.0 percent) were to periodical articles,
while books were the second most frequently cited format
(12.4 percent). If the citations for books and book chapters
Procedures (3.9 percent) are combined, 16.3 percent (calculated from
the raw data rather than by adding percentages) of the cita-
The citations to periodicals in the 2004 bibliographical vol- tions were to monographs. The Web accounted for 11.7
umes of Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS), percent of the citations: 10.7 percent to Web documents and
volume 48, and Collection Building, volume 23, served as 1.0 percent to Web sites.
the source for this investigation. All citations in endnotes Table 2’s summary of journals cited in LRTS shows
(referred to as “references” in both journals) or appended that LRTS itself was the most frequently cited title, with
in “further reading” or bibliography sections were consecu- its 43 citations accounting for 7.9 percent of the 546
tively numbered, classified by format, and entered into an total. The ten most cited journals (those cited 22 times
Excel spreadsheet. Citations were counted according to the or more) accounted for more than half the citations (52.0
item-to-item link approach developed by Garfield and used percent). Yet a total of 115 different titles were cited,
in the Institute for Scientific Information’s Web of Science. with 62 cited only once, 14 twice, 9 cited three times,
Thus, if a specific bibliographic item was cited twice in one and 9 cited four times. In counting titles, a title change
article, it was counted as only one citation, but if cited in two is considered a different title (following the policy of the
different articles it counted as two citations. A small number Institute for Scientific Information). Accordingly, Library
of nonbibliographical items (editor inquiries to the author Acquisitions: Practice & Theory and its later title, Library
included as numbered footnotes apparently in error) were Collections, Acquisitions & Technical Services, are listed
disregarded. separately.
The cited periodical titles were checked in the OCLC The 2004 volume of Collection Building contained
WorldCat database to verify their subject (based on Library 256 citations. Table 3 indicates that journal articles were
of Congress classification number) and country of publica- the most frequently cited format (41.8 percent), although
tion. During the spring 2005 semester, the citations to peri- they accounted for a smaller proportion of citations than in
odicals were checked (by author and, if not found, by title) LRTS. In contrast to LRTS, where monographs were the
in two databases: Library and Information Science Full Text second most frequently cited format, Web sites (18.4 per-
and Academic Search Premier. Each checked periodical cent) and Web documents (9.8 percent) accounted for 28.1
citation was initially classified into one of four categories: percent (calculated from raw data rather than by adding
percentages) of the Collection Building citations, whereas
1. a citation only books (19.9 percent) and book chapters (3.1 percent) com-
2. a citation plus an abstract prised 23.0 percent of the citations.