The document outlines California Polytechnic State University's approach to optimizing library space by transitioning from print to electronic resources, particularly through analyzing turnaway data from their electronic collection. Key goals included increasing accessibility, improving resource management, and repurposing space while ensuring budget compliance and user needs were met. The project led to a significant increase in back-file usage and the recapture of over 600 linear feet of shelf space, aiming to enhance collaboration and resource sharing on campus.

1. Nikki DeMoville
Electronic Resources Coordinator
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo
Finding a Road from
Turnaway Data to Repurposed
Space

2. 
Goals
Tools & Processes
Results
Using COUNTER JR2 Reports
Introduction

3. 
November 2013
 Shepley Bulfinch architects hired
 5-10 year master space plan
Background
December 2013
 Use it or lose it funding mandate
 Extra $125,000 for collections

4. 
 January – April 2014
 Planning process mandate:
 Clear space in the stacks
 Budget process mandate
 May 1 deadline for large invoices
 Early April: Identify, select, and finalize purchases
 May 2014 – June 2014
 All ERM and cataloging processes
 Withdraw all print
Timeline

5.  Short timeline (6 months)
 Small staff (green highlighted staff completed project)
Challenges
IRRS @ Kennedy Library (ERM, Cataloging, Acquisitions, and ILL)*
Director, Information Resources & Resource Sharing
Electronic Resources Coordinator
Information Resources Coordinator
Serials Coordinator
Cataloging Specialist
Acquisitions Specialist
Resource Sharing Specialists (2)
+ Reference Specialist (0.5, on loan from Academic Services)
*Kennedy Library is the sole library serving Cal Poly, a master’s university with 20,000 students

6. 
 Serve multiple goals at once
 Spend funds before deadline
 On content with proven need
 That also let us remove print
Goal 1: Bang for the Buck

7. 
 Identify what users are trying to access online
 We found:
 Our users were trying to get to older journal content
 Our discovery systems clearly direct users to available
print
 BUT Low circulation metrics and high dust levels
show that our users avoid print copies
 Solution:
 Where turnaways are high, purchase online backfiles
Goal 2: Better Access

8. 
 Preservation:
 Check all withdraw candidates
against WEST
 Environment:
 Recycle withdrawn volumes
 Partnerships:
 Backfile purchases support
interlibrary resource sharing
Goal 3: Reduce Impact

9. 
 Align indexes with online
back-file holdings
Goal 4: Increase Discovery
Image by Chuck Coker,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/caveman_92223/4750606873

10. 
Identify candidate
titles
Justify expenditure
Assess usage
Goal 5: Evidence-informed

11. 
 Looked at several platforms and publishers
 Chose ScienceDirect for content
 And Thomson Reuters for indexes
 Began gathering as much data as possible
Getting Started

12. 
 Consistently high usage on our
campus
 Significant front-file holdings
made back-file turnaways easy to
identify
 No existing back-file licenses
 Strong correlation with print
holdings
 Clean, easily available usage and
holdings data
Why ScienceDirect?
http://cheezburger.com/423941/winners-of-the-pompous-albert-caption-contest

13. 
Source Data
Elsevier Title lists
Back-file prices (packages & individual titles)
Usage data (JR2 Access Denied)
Front-file holdings
Serials Solutions Back-file holdings (non-Elsevier)
Innovative Interfaces
Millennium
Print holdings and circulation data
Thomson Reuters Lists of indexed titles
Western Storage Trust WEST Collection Comparison report
Data Used

14. 
Identification Tool

15. 
Template
Paste in
Formulas handle the rest

16. 
Turnaways
Back-file depth
Front-file subscription
Print holdings
Price of package
Decision Criteria

17. 
 Evaluated 24 back-file packages
 Selected 11 packages + 2 individual titles
Choosing Packages
Easy winner
Doesn’t make the cut
(for our campus)

18. 
 Serials Solutions
 Knowledgebase, ERM, Summon
 MARC records
 SFX
 Link Resolver
 Innovative Interfaces Millennium
 Load MARC records
 Rapid ILL
 Refresh electronic holdings, set flag for lending
Purchase & Activate

19. 
 Print circulation
 Total including in-house
 Currency
 Dustiness
 Preservation
 Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST)
Withdraw Factors

20. 
 Pull from shelves
 Suppress & delete print
holdings
 WEST offers
 Recycle volumes
 RapidILL
 Refresh print holdings
Withdraw Process

21. 
Discovery
 How far back does
your indexing go?
 Cal Poly:
1975 online

22. 
 Thomson Reuters Web of Science
 Compared title lists
 Existing journal back-files
 Newly added journal back-files
Discovery – What to add?

23. 
 Project data:
 Title lists from Web of Science
 Title lists from ScienceDirect backfiles
 Title lists from other back-files (JSTOR, Wiley)
 Match on ISSN
Discovery – Closer Look

24.  Be careful of duplication
 For our grouping of titles, Science Citation Index &
BIOSIS Previews overlapped heavily
 Best choices for us, based on match rates:
 Science Citation Index – back to 1955
 Social Science Citation Index – back to 1956
 Zoological Record – back to 1864
 Very preliminary assessment: did it work?
 Existing back-file use across publishers increased in the
Social Sciences
 Existing back-file use across publishers did not increase
in the Sciences
Discovery – What We Learned

25. 
Linear feet
replaced by
online backfiles
Space Recaptured
 Multi-year, multi-phase project
 Most print withdraws for
material already licensed

26. 
Space In Transition
 Transition collection to
e-preferred
 Continue withdraws for
licensed content
 Strategic online
replacement
 Assess remaining print

27. 
 Group Study
Space Repurposed - Next
 Faculty – Student
Collaboration
 Campus
Partners

28. 
Space Repurposed - Future
Images: Shepley Bulfinch / Anna Gold

29. 
Quick summary
Usefulness
Our JR2 experience
COUNTER Reports
Illustration from Margarita philosophica, 1503, by Gregor Reisch (d.
1525). Typ 520.03.736, Houghton Library, Harvard University

30. 
 Basic definition:
 All successful full text requests, regardless of year
 Useful for:
 Simplest measure of total usage
 Identify high-use journals
 Clues to usage patterns—browsing vs. downloads
 Caveats:
 Doesn’t separate front- and back-files
COUNTER JR1

31. 
 Basic definition:
 Full text requests from an archive
 Useful for:
 Separate usage for back-files
 Quick usage assessment after back-files are licensed
 Caveats:
 Older report, optional with COUNTER version 4, may
not be available
 Basically replaced by JR5
COUNTER JR1a

32. 
Basic definition:
All successful full text requests, broken out
by year of publication
Useful for:
Assessment
Usage patterns
 New vs. old – half-life and speed of decline
Trend analysis & projection
COUNTER JR5

33. 
 Doesn’t measure what you don’t have
 Usage for articles > 15 years old often combined
 Trend analysis past 15 years becomes problematic
 Can help to decide if embargoed access is enough
 JR1 HTML-PDF ratio can give context to high counts
for current content
 Look for changes to the pattern year-over-year
JR5 Tips

34. 
JR5 Usage Trend

35. 
 Basic definition:
 Access Denied: content item not licensed
 ScienceDirect :
 When a user tries to access an article or chapter to which
they are not subscribed and which is not accessible
through open access, the user is directed to the abstract
version. (http://usagereports.elsevier.com/Report_Descriptions/COP4%20communication.pdf)
 Useful for:
 Prediction
 Finding out what your users are trying to access
COUNTER JR2

36.  Only measures turnaways in the native platform
 Does NOT count attempted use through link
resolver
 Best suited to large publishers (“destination” sites)
 Things to look for:
 High usage (JR1 or JR5)
 Search stats (DB1) if available
 Platform design that drives additional use
JR2 Tips

37. 
 Conversion to usage
 Mean difference across the entire package was -6.6
 Median difference across the package was 0
 Comparison is for purchased titles, back-files only
 Additional 748 turnaways for front-file content in 2014-15
How JR2 Compared to Usage
2014-15
Article Requests
2013-14
Turnaways

38. 
2013-14
(Turnaways)
2014-15
(Back-file
Use only)
2013-14 Use
(Front-file
only)
2014-15 Use
(Front-file
only)
Animal Behaviour 111 127 548 795
Soil Biology and
Biochemistry
21 36 271 366
Aquaculture 97 100 304 255
Behaviour Research
and Therapy
90 45 277 262
Journal of
Biomechanics
258 186 1,123 1,731
Turnaway/Request Examples

39. 
 Capstone projects, theses, and faculty research can
have a large effect, especially at non-research-
intensive campuses
Expect Fluctuation
2013-14
(Turnaways)
2014-15
(Back-file
Use only)
2013-14 Use
(Front-file
only)
2014-15 Use
(Front-file only)
Journal of Human
Evolution
81 9 158 46
Vaccine 4 14 432 873

40. 
 JR2 is an indicator of interest that requires low effort by
the user
 ILL requires more user effort, so barrier is higher
 ILL numbers tend to be very small compared to licensed
use
 Owning the content in print mostly prevents ILL requests
JR2 Compared to ILL
2013-14
ILL Requests
2013-14
(Turnaways)
2014-15
(Back-file Use only)
Behavior Therapy 4 58 27
Journal of Dairy Science 0 373 309
Veterinary Parasitology 5 5 9

41. 
 JR2 can show you content your users want …
… but only if it’s online
JR2 and Print Holdings
Journal of Dairy Science
Print Holdings in open stacks 2001-2009
Print Holdings pageable from storage 1917-2000
Online Holdings 1995-current
Total use of print volumes since 1980s 437
Last recorded use of any print volume Pre-1996
Online use 2013-14 (front-file content) 1,854
Turnaways 2013-14 373
Back-file use 2014-15 309

42. 
 Current content generates more attention
 If back-file content is licensed, remaining turnaways
signal interest in front files
Identifying Potential Subscriptions
Journal of Equine Veterinary Science
May 2013-Apr 2014 (JR5 Use – All) 0
May 2013-Apr 2014 (JR2 Turnaways) 112
May 2014-Mar 2015 (JR5 Use – Only back-files licensed) 66
May 2014-Mar 2015 (JR2 Turnaways – Front-files not licensed) 86
Apr 2015 (JR5 Use – Back-files licensed) 8
Apr 2015 (JR5 Use – Front-files – Subscription begins) 117

43. 
 The Undocumented Title
 Not on any list, not activated anywhere
Used anyway!
 Print: not used, layer of dust
 Possible of indicator of strength of ScienceDirect
platform
 The Access Glitch
 Temporary access loss showed up in JR2 reports
Interesting Side Notes

44. 
 New coverage: 4,568 years across 252 title families
 3,300+ uses in the first year
 Favorable cost per use
 600 linear feet of shelf space recaptured
 NO COMPLAINTS!
Final Results

45. Thanks for listening!
Contact me:
Nikki DeMoville
ndemovil@calpoly.edu