Value of the online newspaper collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

Hess, Kirk M.; Hoover, Sarah

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/49227 Copy

Description

Title

Value of the online newspaper collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

Author(s)

• Hess, Kirk M.
• Hoover, Sarah

Issue Date

2014

Keyword(s)

• Academic Library Assessment
• Newspapers

Abstract

The University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign licenses or owns over 10k current and historical electronic newspaper titles through five main vendors—EbscoHost, Gale, LexisNexis, Newsbank, and ProQuest, including the Library PressDisplay platform, yet we do not have a reliable way to measure the value of an individual newspaper to our campus. This analysis collected information on utility at the title and vendor levels. The next step is to analyze cost and quality, then develop a three-factor weighted value algorithm to score titles and aggregators as a tool for collection development. Utility was measured through reports of full-text article requests in 2012 and 2013. Results revealed that a small number of titles drove the use for almost each of the vendors, and several vendors included a large number of titles that were never used. In addition, many of the most-used titles appear to have been part of data mining activity. The study also revealed some problems that would need to be remediated to fully compare online newspaper titles and collections, such as overlap in title lists, and other variables that should be evaluated in our factors, such as the impact of discovery and link resolver systems.

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49227

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