Yale University Library Collection Development Council

Cost-Per-Use Data

The University of Wisconsin-Madison journal cost-per-use data are now available on the web at:

http://www.wisc.edu/wendt/misc/costben/costben.html

The information is frequently requested and this is by far the easiest way to make it available.

The UW-Madison libraries started systematically compiling usage data on the journals in our collections about five years ago. During that time period our confidence in the soundness and usefulness of the data has steadily increased. Viewed by many librarians and faculty as a questionable practice at the beginning, the Journal Cost Benefit Reports are now considered an indispensable part of our collection management process. But only a part--the cost-per-use information is never used in cancellation decision-making without considering other ways of assessing the value of a journal.

We have gone to unusual lengths to provide contextual information about the Cost Benefit Reports. Reading the introductory matter as well as "More information about these reports" is highly recommended to any prospective user of the data.

In the next few months we will also begin publishing cost-benefit studies that replicate and extend the methodology developed by the late University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Henry Barschall. The Barschall Studies, as we propose to call them, are intended as a service to the academic community and as an expression of academic freedom. Even after his death, Professor Barschall's research on journal costs and value continues to be the subject of lawsuits in which the plaintiff alleges that his work was "false and misleading advertising" in an effort to suppress its distribution. The Barschall Studies are a joint project of the School of Library and Information Studies and the General Library System of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.