Building a Comprehensive Serials Decision Database at Virginia Tech

Abstract

Although for many years academic libraries have relied on data on cost, library use, or citations to inform collection development decisions respecting serials, they have not fully exploited the possibilities for compiling numerous measures into comprehensive databases for decision support. The authors discuss the procedures used and the advantages realized from an effort to build such a resource at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), where the available data included the results of a zero-based faculty survey of serials needs.