Journal Deselection Policy

Timing
Subscription payments represent advance commitment of funds for material to be published and supplied over time. Subscription cycles may vary, but the most common is a calendar year commitment beginning in January. In general publishers and subscription agents each require at least eight weeks in advance of the beginning of the new subscription period to process renewal orders and cancellation requests. Dykes Library's practice is to make use of subscription agencies as intermediaries between the Library and the publisher to the fullest extent possible. The Library needs adequate time to prepare instructions to our agents regarding cancellations. Typically, subscription agencies prefer to receive all instructions no later than the end of September. Once the cancellation deadline has passed it is unlikely that cancellation will take effect before the end of the next renewal period. For this reason, cancellation decisions are generally made early in each fiscal year, generally to be finalized by the beginning of September, although budget issues may create a need for mid-year subscription changes.

Faculty Participation
It is important for faculty to work with their liaison librarians in the review of the current slate of journal titles. This continuous review is necessary to ensure the balance between monograph and serial expenditures and to provide for serial renewal. It is through cancelling less important or low use material that new resources can be funded.

Preference for electronic delivery of periodicals over print
Our practice will be to remain sensitive to the needs of different disciplines while preferring electronic delivery of journals and discontinuing the print duplicate copies, wherever feasible. Print copies of an electronic title may be maintained under certain conditions, such as where the content is geographically specific to Kansas or the Kansas City metropolitan area, where journal content cannot be accurately reproduced by standard printing processes, if electronic versions are not complete, or the electronic version is technologically or financially unfeasible.

Deselection Criteria
The Evaluation Criteria of the KUMC Collection Development Policy should be used to evaluate titles recommended for cancellation. In addition, the Associate Director and Collection Development Librarian may consider the following:

Cost and use: we will create a decision spreadsheet that shows use and cost of individual titles wherever feasible. This spreadsheet will then be organized to show high cost titles, low use titles, and high cost per use titles.
What is the cost per use, both in-house and ILL, for the title?
Is the cost of the title high relative to other journals in the collection?
Is the use of the journal low relative to other journals in the collection?

Support of programs at KUMC.
Is the title highly specialized or does it support a broad range of University research/educational activities?
Is the title of a multi-disciplinary nature? If so, have all academic departments concerned been consulted?
Performance of titles and packages.
What is the impact factor of the title (if it has one)?
Is the technical performance of an online journal satisfactory? (E.g., not requiring passwords, reasonable restrictions on seats, PDF files available for printing)
If part of a package, does the publisher permit cancelling individual titles in the package?
Is the publisher's performance satisfactory?
Do print copies arrive on schedule?
Are multiple claims required?
Does the publisher respond satisfactorily to claims?
When cancelling online access to a title does the license permit permanent archival access? If so, how is this access provided? Must we take possession of the files from the publisher? Are they available from a third party?

General issues of quality, access and coverage.
Is the title named on a Brandon/Hill list, or other recognized resource for "core" medical journals? If so, preference may be given to retaining the title.
Is the title readily available at another regents or local or regional biomedical library?
Is retaining a print subscription a prerequisite for receiving online access?
Is the title available more economically as part of a consortial package?
Is the title indexed in major databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL)?

These factors all play a role in deselection decisions, though financial and economic factors usually weigh a little more heavily.

Journal Scoring Matrix
Scoring:
<5 = not a candidate for cancellation
5-10 = consider for cancellation
10+ = strong candidate for cancellation

Criteria	Score
Cost Per Use (over $50=5 points, over $100=10 pts)
Cost of the title relative to other titles (over $1500 =2 points, over $5000 = 5 points)
Usage of the title (less than 100 uses = 2 points, less than 10 uses = 5 points)
Is the title held by another Regents or local or regional biomedial library? (no=-1 point)
Does the title support a broad range of University research/educational activities? (yes=-5 points)
Is technical performance of an online journal satisfactory? (no=5 points)
Is publisher's performance satisfactory? (no=2 points)
Does publisher permit cancelling of individual title? (no=-10 points?)
Is publisher's print-related performance satisfactory? (no=3 points)
Will cancelling online access mean we lose archival (print or online) access? (yes=-2 points)
Is title on Brandon/Hill or other core title list? (yes=-5 points)
Is retaining print a requirement for online access? (yes=-2 points)
Is title available more economically via consortial package? (yes=5 points)
Is title indexed in major databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL) (no=3 points)
Total

Policy Approved by the Library Committee: 2/17/2006