This study analyzes 9,131 citations from the 2002 volumes of journals in eight humanities fields: art, classics, history, linguistics, literature, music, philosophy, and religion. This study found that citation patterns varied widely among humanities disciplines. Due to these differences, it is important for librarians with humanities collection development responsibilities to consider each field separately when making collection development decisions. The authors investigated the language of sources cited in each field. Foreign language citations continue to be dominated by French and German. This study also confirms that, in most humanities disciplines, monographs remain the dominant format of cited sources, although some fields cited monographs less frequently than expected.
The authors analyzed the holdings, circulations, and interlibrary loan (ILL) borrowing requests of the English-language monograph collection at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Data for each area were mapped to conspectus subject areas, using Library of Congress Classifications, and then compared. The resulting data and subject distributions were analyzed by overall holdings, transactions per item, percentage of collection circulated, and a ratio of ILL holdings to requests. The method of analysis used in this study could be fruitfully applied to other research collections to assist with remote storage, preservation, and collection development decisions.n the current economic environment, it is critical for librarians to practice evidence-based decision making. With decreasing library budgets, especially for monographic materials, it also is essential for librarians to assess and manage collections to determine subject areas for acquisition, de-accession, digitization, preservation, and remote storage. One empirical collection assessment method is to examine usage statistics, such as circulation and interlibrary loan (ILL) data. Many librarians employ usage data as an indicator of the library's materials' relevance to user populations.Sonia Bodi and Katie Maier-O'Shea believe that librarians' knowledge of collections is often intuitive and urge librarians to make data-supported collection decisions. They suggest that collection development focus on learning outcomes of library users rather than on strictly comprehensive collections or even curriculum support.1 This approach is impossible without solid data from various perspectives.
in order to identify trends in foreignlanguage citation behavior of humanities scholars over time.The number of foreign-language sources cited in the four subjects has not declined over time. Consistent levels of foreign-language citation from humanities scholars indicate a need for U.S. research libraries to continue to purchase foreign-language materials and to recruit catalogers and collection development specialists with foreign-language knowledge.he current study investigates whether declines in college enrollment in foreign languages are reflected in concomitant declines in the use of foreign-language sources by humanities scholars. The answer to this question has collection development implications for research libraries. With library materials budgets losing purchasing power in real terms over time, and the recent, more drastic cuts many libraries have had to make because of a difficult economic environment, it is tempting to assume that foreign books and journals receive less use and could be cut. Although this may be true for undergraduates, collecting decisions based on assumptions about lower use of foreign-language materials by scholars should be supported by data. The purpose of this study is to collect enough data over a sufficient period of time to be able to determine whether a trend of lower use of foreign-language resources has, indeed, developed.The foreign-language education community has documented a sharp decline since the 1960s in the percentage of college undergraduates studying languages, most severely in the 1980s, from a high of 16.5 per 100 students in 1965 to 7.9 in 1998. 1 Contributing to this decline was the drop in numbers of colleges with language entrance and/or graduation requirements.
Although online information literacy tutorials have proven to be a popular method of delivering instruction to undergraduates, there seem to be relatively few that are targeted toward junior faculty or graduate students. Librarians at the University of Colorado have created an online tutorial for junior faculty and graduate students. "Publish Not Perish: The Art and Craft of Publishing in Scholarly Journals" is an online tutorial that addresses the information literacy needs of junior faculty regarding the subject of publication strategies. It also presents an opportunity to further familiarize junior faculty with the concept of open access publication.
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