College and Research Libraries Research Notes Hard Copy versus Online Services: Results of a Survey Celia Wall, Roger Haney, and John Griffin A suroey was conducted of academic libraries at institutions with enrollments of 10,000 or fewer students to detennine if the availability of abstracting and indexing services online has re- sulted in the cancellation of the equivalent print subscriptions. While suroey findings did suggest that subscriptions to print abstracting and indexing seroices are being cancelled at a significant rate, the availability of online equiv- alents to those seroices was not found to be the primary reason for the cancellations. The availability of bibliographic data- bases online and, more recently, of such databases in CD-ROM format has brought into increased focus the question of whether print versions of abstracting and indexing services might or should be can- celled when the online or the CD-ROM version is available. Tht; particular ques- tion addressed by this study was the effect of the availability of online databases upon the continuation of subscriptions for the print equivalents to these databases. The phenomenon of ''migration,'' can- celling subscriptions to print abstracts and indexes in favor of their online database equivalents, has been well documented in the library literature over the past decade. This literature can be roughly divided into two categories: (1) articles evaluating the economic impact of migration on the data- base producers and index publishers, and (2) articles concerned with libraries' rea- sons for cancelling print indexes and the effects of such cancellations on library us- ers. It was with this second category of lit- erature that the project was concerned. Several studies have been concerned with a specific database, a particular insti- tution, or one type of institution. Esther Baldinger, Jennifer Nakeef-Plaat, and Margaret Cummings1 examined whether Chemical Abstracts online could be substi- tuted for the print copy at a medical li- brary. Even with free searches, a high per- centage of users still chose to refer to the printed abstracts, thus deflating the au- thors' hypothesis. Ann Pfaffenberger and Sandy Echt, 2 on the other hand, substi- tuted the online versions of Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index at Texas Christian University and discov- ered that users of these databases were ex- tremely satisfied with the results. In addi- tion, the online charges for searches during the test period were significantly Celia Wall is Head of the Circulation Department, Waterfield Library, Roger Haney is Associate Professor in the Dept. of Journalism and Radio-Television and John Griffin is Head, Reference Department, Waterfield Library at Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071. This research was made possible by a Faculty/Librarian Coopera- tive Research grant provided by the Council on Library Resources. 267 268 College & Research Libraries less than the subscription costs for both in- dexes. Dennis Elchesen3 did a cost comparison of manual versus online searching at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Univer- sity of California. Every aspect involved in both methods was measured and relative component costs calculated. The study's conclusion was that ''online searching is generally faster, less costly, and more ef- fective than manual searching." Yet for "precision and turn-around time" man- ual searching was preferred. Mark Y. Herring described the decision process of migrating from print to online at King Collepe in Bristol, Tennessee. John A. Timour' s article surveyed biomedical libraries serving 120 accredited medical schools. His survey findings reported that a slight majority of the respondents were in favor of increased online access. Close to 100 special libraries in New York State responded to a survey done by Pamela Kobelski and Betty Miller. 6 Their results showed that although online searching was widely used by these li- braries, there was no evidence of wide- spread migration from print to online. The major study in this category was done by Frederick Lancaster and Herbert Goldhor7 who surveyed a variety of types of libraries using a diversified list of data- bases. While Lancaster and Goldhor pre- dicted an acceleration from print to online, most research did not support such a con- tention. Certainly online availability was listed as a contributing factor in some deci- sions to cancel print subscriptions, but it was by no means the main reason, nor the second most-cited reason, for such deci- sions. We believed, however, that previous studies had examined the wrong popula- May 1990 tion. We hypothesized that a survey of li- braries at small liberal arts colleges- institutions with enrollments of fewer than 10,000 students-would find a greater incidence of migration than had been reported by larger institutions. Our suspicion was that the poor economy of recent years had affected small liberal arts colleges more than larger institutions. METHODOLOGY A mail survey, funded by a grant from the Council on Library Resources, was conducted. Library directors at four-year colleges and universities with enrollments of fewer than 10,000 students were sent a three-page, eleven-question survey (see appendix A). To generate a mailing list of such institu- tions a search was conducted in Peter- son's College Database (Dialog File 214), a comprehensive file of degree-granting, post-secondary colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Peterson's listed 1,516 small college li- braries from which 1, 167 were selected for the study. The 349 eliminated from the original list did not fit the criterion of ''lib- eral arts colleges and universities.'' Those eliminated were special libraries, e.g., medical libraries, law libraries, Bible school libraries. Respondents were asked to indicate the enrollment of their institutions in terms of one of nine categories. For purposes of analysis the institutions were recoded into the three categories used in Peterson's College Database (see table 1). The five re- _spondents that did not indicate enroll- ment were deleted from analyses using enrollment as a variable. The total return rate of 63.4% repre- sented an excellent response using mail TABLE 1 PERCENTAGE OF SURVEY RETURNS BY ENROLLMENT CATEGORIES Returned %of Total Enrollment Sent No. % Returned Category I Under 1,000 367 219 59.7 29.6 Category IT 1,000-4,999 622 404 65.0 54.5 Category ill 5,000-9,999 178 113 63.5 15.2 Unreported 5 Total 1,167 741 63.5 99.3 questionnaires, and the returns in each category indicated good representation across enrollment categories. Because of this it was decided that a second mailing, originally planned and budgeted, was un- necessary. Responses were coded on computer data sheets by two student workers and then submitted for analysis to the Murray State University Computer Center. The analysis was done using Statistical Pack- age for the Social Sciences (SPSSx). Fre- quency counts were determined for each question and enrollment size was recoded to reflect Peterson's College Database cat- egories. Chi-square was used for testing the significance of cross-tabulation results. SURVEY FINDINGS All Services Owned The survey began by asking respon- dents to review a list of commonly held print abstracting and indexing services and to indicate which of the titles were Research Notes 269 currently held, recently cancelled, or never subscribed to. For titles currently held, respondents were asked to indicate whether consideration was being given to cancellation. The list of thirty-six titles used by Lan- caster and Goldhor (1981) served as the basis for this list. Several titles were de- leted from the original list since they were titles held by more specialized libraries than this survey targeted, e.g. World Tex- tile Abstracts. Two titles-MLA Bibliography and America: History and Life-were added to the original list. Each title did have an equivalent online database accessible through one of the major online venders. Table 2 shows the list of twenty-six print abstracting and indexing services and the number of libraries currently owning or having owned the titles and those libraries who had never owned the titles. Table 3 shows the number of libraries planning to keep each title and those planning to can- cel or who had already cancelled each title. In reviewing the data reported by those TABLE2 STATUS OF LffiRARIES' SUBSCRIPTIONS TO ABSTRACTING/INDEXING SERVICES Currently Own Or Have Owned Never Owned No Response Title No. % No. % No. % MLA BibliogrAhy 644 86.9 82 11.1 15 2.0 Psychological bstracts 641 86.5 86 11.6 14 1.9 PAIS 595 80.3 126 17.0 20 2.7 Congressional Record 578 78 .0 140 18.9 23 3.1 Chemical Abstracts 549 74 .0 169 22.8 23 3.1 Resources in Education 540 72.8 181 24.4 20 2.7 Biological Abstracts 521 70 .3 196 26.5 24 3.2 CIJE 500 67.4 222 30.0 19 2.6 America: History & Life 463 62.4 239 32.3 39 5.3 Historical Abstracts 436 58.8 273 36.8 32 4.3 Dissertation Abstracts 416 56 .1 292 39.4 33 4.5 Physics Abstracts 268 36.1 433 58.4 40 5.4 American Doctoral Dissertations 210 28 .3 486 65.6 45 6.1 Pollution Abstracts 185 24 .9 512 69.1 44 5.9 Social Sciences Citation Index 164 22 .1 540 72.9 37 5.0 Science Citation Index 151 20.4 553 74.6 37 5.0 Bibliography & Index of Geology 150 20.2 549 74.1 42 5.7 Environmental Abstracts · 135 18.2 561 75.7 45 6.1 Government Reports Announcements 134 18 .1 559 75.4 48 6.5 LISA 117 15.8 585 78.9 39 5.3 Ent,eering Index 97 13.1 603 81.4 41 5.5 Bib ·ography of Agriculture 95 12.8 600 81.0 46 6.2 Electrical & Electronic Abstracts 66 8.9 628 84.8 47 6.3 Co~uter & Control Abstracts 63 8.5 630 85.0 48 6.5 Met s Abstracts 32 4.3 660 89.1 49 6.6 Weekly Governmental Abstracts 27 3.6 661 89.2 53 7.2 270 College & Research Libraries May 1990 TABLE 3 LffiRARIES' PLANS FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO ABSTRACTING/INDEXING SERVICES Title MLA BibliograXhy Psychological bstracts PAIS Congressional Record Chemical Abstracts Resources in Education Biological Abstracts CIJE America: History & Life Historical Abstracts Dissertation Abstracts Physics Abstracts American Doctoral Dissertations Pollution Abstracts Social Sciences Citation Index Science Citation Index Bibliography & Index of Geology Environmental Abstracts Government Reports Announcements LISA En~eering Index Bib · o~aphy of Agriculture Electrical & Electronic Abstracts Comatuter & Control Abstracts Met s Abstracts Weekly Governmental Abstracts libraries who planned to cancel or who had already cancelled services, ten titles stood out. Over 50% of the libraries cur- rently holding Chemical Abstracts, Physics Abstracts, Pollution Abstracts, and Bibliogra- phy of Agriculture planned to cancel or had already cancelled the titles. Over 40% planned to cancel Biological Abstracts, His- torical Abstracts, American Doctoral Disserta- tions, Environmental Abstracts, LISA, and Electrical and Electronics Abstracts. These figures are particularly significant for Chemical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, and Historical Abstracts because of the larger number of libraries subscribing to these services in the first place. Over 70% of the libraries in each emoll- ment category reported having cancelled one or more subscriptions to abstracting and indexing services. Reasons for Cancelling All Services For each title a library had cancelled or was about to cancel, the respondent was asked to indicate the "Single Most Impor- Cancelled or Plan to Keep Plan to Cancel No. % No. % 571 88.7 73 11.3 594 92.7 47 7.3 537 90.3 58 9.7 526 91.0 52 9.0 247 45.0 302 55.0 496 91.9 44 8.1 292 56.0 229 44.0 458 91.6 42 8.4 283 61.1 180 38.9 226 51.8 210 48.2 305 73.3 111 26.7 147 54.9 121 45.1 111 52.9 99 47.1 87 47.0 98 53.0 130 79.3 34 20.7 102 67.5 49 32.5 115 76.7 35 23.3 78 57.8 57 42.2 105 78.4 29 21.6 62 53.0 55 47.0 66 68.0 31 32.0 38 40.0 57 60.0 37 56.0 29 44.0 51 81.0 12 19.0 27 84.4 5 15.6 17 63.0 10 37.0 tant Reason'' for cancelling. Four possible reasons were provided along with an ''other'' line for additional reasons. Although most respondents did follow instructions and listed only one reason, many gave a combination of reasons for cancellation. Several respondents noted that rarely could one reason be singled out as the most important reason, indicating that usually a combination of reasons more accurately represented the true situ- ation. One respondent indicated, ''It is never as simple as one reason.'' Another noted, "It is usually a combination of nearly equal reasons (cost, use, online).' ; In Table 4 the cancelled titles are listed with a breakdown of the reasons given for cancelling the titles. The incidence of mul- tiple responses mentioned earlier caused the numbers in the columns for reasons to exceed the total number of cancellations reported for any given title. For nine of these titles cost was given as a primary reason for cancellation. Four- teen titles were cancelled primarily due to TABLE4 LffiRARIES' REASONS FOR CANCELLING ABSTRACTING/INDEXING SERVICES* Available Available Cancelled or Cost Lack of Use Online Nearby Other Total No . Title Plan to Cancel No . % No . % No . % No. % No. % of Responses Chemical Abstracts 302 213 59.2 45 12.5 67 18.6 30 8.3 5 1.4 360 Biological Abstracts 229 136 51.5 40 15.2 68 25.8 17 6.4 3 1.1 264 Historical Abstracts 210 81 36.8 83 37.7 41 18.6 8 3.6 7 3.2 220 America: History & Life 180 77 38.7 77 38.7 38 19.1 3 1.5 4 2.0 199 Physics Abstracts 121 52 37.7 48 34.8 27 19.6 6 4.3 5 3.6 138 Dissertation Abstracts 111 32 28 .6 40 35.7 26 23.2 9 8.0 5 4.5 112 American Doctoral Dissertations 99 15 16.3 59 64.1 6 6.5 3 3.3 9 9.8 92 Pollution Abstracts 98 23 22.3 60 58.3 13 12.6 2 1.9 5 4.9 103 MLA Bibliography 73 34 47.2 27 37.5 9 12.5 1 1.4 1 1.4 72 PAIS 58 19 29.7 26 40.6 12 18.8 5 7.8 2 3.1 64 Bibliography of Agriculture 57 13 22.0 31 52.5 6 10.2 6 10.2 3 5.1 59 Environmental Aostracts 57 12 24.0 27 54.0 8 16.0 1 2.0 2 4.0 50 r LISA 55 10 18.5 30 55.6 8 14.8 3 5.6 3 5.6 54 Congressional Record 52 12 23.5 23 45.1 2 3.9 8 15.7 6 11.8 51 Science Citation Index 49 32 59.3 8 14.8 7 13.0 5 9.3 2 3.7 54 Psychological Abstracts 47 21 42.9 10 20.4 13 26.5 1 2.0 4 8.2 49 Resources in Education 44 9 19.6 15 32.6 14 30.4 2 4.3 6 13.0 46 ~ CIJE 42 12 25.0 10 20.8 10 20.8 1 2.0 15 31.2 48 Ill Bibliography & Index of Geology 35 11 25.6 20 46.5 6 14.0 1 2.3 5 11.6 43 tO Social Sciences Citation Index 34 21 56.8 9 24.3 4 10.8 1 2.7 2 5.4 37 e: n Engineering Index 31 14 42.4 9 27.3 7 21.2 1 3.0 2 6.0 33 =- Electrical & Electronics Abstracts 29 8 30.8 11 42.3 7 26.9 0 0.0 0 0.0 26 z Government Reports Announcements 28 3 12.5 15 62.5 3 12.5 2 8.3 1 4.2 24 0 ... Com:Euter & Control Abstracts 12 3 33.3 3 33.3 3 33.3 0 0.0 0 0.0 9 tO Wee y Governmental Abstracts 10 4 28.6 7 50.0 1 7.1 1 7.1 1 7.1 14 Ill Metals Abstracts 5 1 20.0 1 20.0 1 20.0 1 20.0 1 20.0 5 *Although the survey asked for only the single most important reason for cancellation, many libraries gave a combination of reasons; others did not provide a reason. Therefore, for any given title the sum of N the five reasons will not equal the total cancellations reported. Percentages are based on the total number of responses given, not the total number of cancellations. ......:J ~ 272 College & Research Libraries lack of use. In two instances-America: History and Life and Computer Abstracts- cost and lack of use were of equal impor- tance. These data show that, while sub- scriptions are being cancelled for a number of reasons, cost and lack of use outweigh other considerations. Of particular significance for the pur- poses of this project was the indication that, while online availability was a defi- nite factor in cancellation decisions, in most cases, it appeared to be far less sig- nificant a factor than cost and/or lack of use. However, one noteworthy sidelight to the question came from respondents who had chosen not to start a subscription to certain titles because of their availability online. "Online availability of several databases has allowed us not to begin sub- scribing to some needed indexes which we would have trouble affording,'' onere- spondent noted. Another indicated, "On- line is considered when evaluating poten- tial purchases." "We can resist demand for SCI and SSCI in print because of on- line," yet another commented. When size of institution based on enroll- ment was factored into the cancellation process, it was clear that libraries at insti- tutions in all three categories were cancel- ling at roughly equal rates for each of the reasons (see table 5). Results of Cancellations Of equal importance for the purposes of the project was the extent to which cancel- lation of abstracting and indexing services had increased online searching, how well users had accepted this ''migration,'' and whether savings from abstracting and in- dexing titles had been reallocated to subsi- dize computer searching. May1990 When asked if their libraries had can- celled any subscriptions to printed ab- stracting and indexing services because of their availability online, 256 (34.5%) of the respondents indicated that online avail- ability had been a factor in their decision to cancel. Of that number, 164 (64.1%) were libraries at institutions with 1,000-4,999 students. Forty-five (17.6%) were at insti- tutions with fewer than 1,000 students. The remaining 47 (18.4%) were at institu- tions with 5,000-9,999 students. At first glance these figures appear to disagree with those shown in table 4 that lists reasons given by libraries for cancel- ling abstracting and indexing services. We believe this discrepancy to be due to two factors. First, table 4 represents the "sin- gle most important reason'' for cancelling abstracting and indexing services. Sec- ond, libraries may well have cancelled ti- tles not included in the survey's list of ab- stracting and indexing services. In fact, many of the less-frequently held, more es- oteric titles that were excluded from the list might well be prime targets for cancel- ling due to their availability online. Paying for Online Searches Two questions concerning how users paid for online searches were included in the survey. First, the 568 respondents whose libraries offered online search ser- vices were asked how searches were nor- mally paid for. One hundred eighty-one (31.9%) of these respondents indicated their libraries subsidized 100% of the search costs and another 203 (35. 7%) parti- ally subsidized searches. In the remaining 184 (32.4%) libraries, searches were not subsidized. In this last group respondents reported TABLES REASONS FOR CANCELLATION BY ENROLLMENT CATEGORIES* Total Surveys Cost Use Online Other Elsewhere Total No . Returned No . % No . % No. % No. % No . % of Responses Category I 219 113 39.4 92 32.1 46 16.0 20 7.0 16 5.6 287 Category II 404 206 33.6 198 32.2 114 18.6 49 8.0 47 7.6 614 Category III 113 49 33.3 61 41.5 23 15.6 11 7.5 3 2.0 147 Totals 736 368 35.1 351 33.5 183 17.5 80 7.6 66 6.3 1,048 • As in Table 4, libraries giving a combination of reasons cause the sum of the reasons to exceed the total number of surveys returned per enrollment category. Percentages are based on the total number of reasons given, not the number of surveys returned . three ways in which the searches were be- ing paid for: (1) individual requesting a search paid the entire costs of the search in 31 (5.4%) of the libraries; (2) searches were paid for entirely by department/ grant ac- counts in 6 (1.0%) of the libraries; and (3) a combination of these two methods was used in 147 (25.8%) of the libraries. Respondents indicating their libraries had cancelled abstracting and indexing services because of online availability were next asked how searches were paid for in the online equivalents of these ab- stracting and indexing services. One hun- dred seventy libraries (65.6%) reported that the library subsidized 100% of the search costs for the cancelled services; an- other 49 (18. 9%) partially subsidized searches in the databases. In 5 (1. 9%) the individual paid the entire cost of the search; in 4 (1.5%) department/grant ac- counts paid the entire costs. At 31 (11.9%) of the libraries the searches were paid for by a combination of department/grant ac- counts and the individual. A look at library subsidies generally and after cancellations were made indicated an interesting trend (see table 6). The per- centages given "For all searches" in table 6 were based upon the total number of li- braries reporting that they had online search services. The percentages given "For cancelled A/1 services" were based only on those libraries that indicated they had cancelled subscriptions due to online availability of an abstracting and indexing service. These statistics indicate that those li- braries cancelling abstracting and index- ing services tend to subsidize searching in the database equivalents of those services more than they do for normal searching. Research Notes 273 As one respondent put it, ''It would not be fair to take away these services and then make undergraduates pay for accessing their online equivalents.'' Of the 181. respondents who indicated that they subsidized 100% of the cost of searching, 170 (93.9%) of them had also cancelled print subscriptions to abstract- ing and indexing services. Cancellations and Increase in Searching One concern of some libraries contem- plating cancellation of print abstracting and indexing services in favor of online is that the result will be a marked increase in searching in the equivalent databases. Survey results did not find that to be the case. Of the 242libraries responding to a question on this issue, only 86 (35.5%) re- ported that they had experienced an in- crease in the number of searches per- formed in the database equivalents after the subscriptions had been cancelled. User Satisfaction with Online Substitutes A second concern of libraries is user ac- ceptance of online substitution. Results of the survey indicated that users appeared to be quite satisfied with the substitution of online searching for the print abstract- ing and indexing services. Of the 250 re- spondents, 100 (40%) believed users were "strongly satisfied" with the change; an- other 62 (24.8%) believed users were ''somewhat satisfied.'' One respondent at a library that had cancelled titles and sub- sidized online searching stated that they, ''have had tremendous success with fac- ulty free searches." Seventy-six (30.4%) indicated users were "neither satisfied nor dissatisfied." While only 12 (4.2%) of the respondents TABLE6 METHOD OF PAYMENT FOR ONLINE SEARCHES Method of Payment Library subsidizes 100 percent Library subsidized _partially Individual pays entirely Department/Grant pays entirely Combination of Department/Grant and Individual Total For Cancelled All Services No . % 170 65.6 49 19.0 5 1.9 4 1.5 31 u.o 259 100.0 For All Searches No. % 181 203 31 6 147 568 31.9 35.7 5.5 1.0 25.9 100.0 274 College & Research Libraries believed the users were dissatisfied to some degree. Even this perceived dissatis- faction on the part of users was tempered by one respondent with the comment, ''Faculty think they are missing some- thing but they have not yet tried the sub- stitute online service." CONCLUSIONS The hypothesis upon which the study was based was that libraries at small lib- eral arts colleges-institutions with enroll- ments of fewer than 10,000 students- would have a greater incidence of migration than had been reported in the literature for larger institutions. Analysis of the data collected by the survey did not support this hypothesis. While the results of the survey did sug- gest that libraries are cancelling subscrip- tions to printed abstracting and indexing services at a significant rate, the availabil- ity of online equivalents to those services was not given as the primary reason for cancellation. Rather findings indicated that the cost of the subscriptions was the primary concern in the decision to cancel; lack of use was the second most cited con- cern. Online availability ranked third in the list of reasons given for cancelling the print subscriptions to abstracting and in- dexing services. Only 256 (34.5%) of the li- braries surveyed indicated they had actu- ally cancelled any subscriptions to print abstracting and indexing services because of their availability online. These findings May 1990 are consistent with earlier research re- ported in the literature. Comments made by several respon- dents, however, suggest that recent tech- nological advances in the information in- dustry, notably CD-ROM, may have a more substantial impact upon printed ab- stracting and indexing services than has online searching. Approximately two dozen respondents listed CD-ROM as the primary reason for cancelling abstracting and indexing titles, e.g., most notably Psy- chological Abstracts and the ERIC indexes. One respondent indicated he ''would can- cel frequently used abstracts for CD-ROM but not for .online." Another concluded, "CD-ROM will redefine the directions of online vs. print." The authors agree with this prediction and believe there is a need for further re- search that would take into account the in- creasing availability and use of CD-ROM products. The current research was begun just as these products were being intro- duced into libraries and therefore could not fully explore this aspect of computer- based indexing and abstracting systems. One problem that future researchers should anticipate is the difficulty of study- ing a technology that is evolving as rapidly as the online industry is. A mail survey is, by its very nature, a slow process. From the time the research is begun until it is complete, the technology can make tre- mendous advances. This is a problem that needs to be recognized in advance. REFERENCES 1. Esther L. Baldinger, Jennifer P.S. Nakeef-Plaat, and Margaret S. Cummings, "An Experimental Study of the Feasibility of Substituting Chemical Abstracts On-line for the Printed Copy in a Medium- Sized Medical Library," Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 69, no.2:247-50 (1981). 2. Ann Pfaffenberger and Sandy Echt, ''Substitution of SciSearch and Social SciSearch for Their Print Versions in an Academic Library," Database 11:63-71 (1980). 3. Dennis R. Elchesen, ''Cost-Effectiveness Comparison of Manual and On-line Retrospective Biblio- graphic Searching," Journal of the American Society of Information Science 29:56-66 (1978). 4. Mark Y. Herring, "Online Databases vs. Hard Copy Subscriptions," Library Hi Tech 1:63-68 (1983) . 5. John A. Timour, "Use of Selected Abstracting and Indexing Journals in Biomedical Resource Li- braries," Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 63, no.3:330-33 (1979). 6. Pamela G. Kobelski and Betty Miller, "Impact of Online Search Services on Special Libraries," Sci- ence and Technology Libraries 7, no.1:67-85 (1986). 7. Frederick W. Lancaster and Herbert Goldhor, "The Impact of Online Services on Subscriptions to Printed Publications," Online Review 5, no.4:301-11 (1981). Research Notes 275 APPENDIX A Hard Copy versus Online Services Survey 1. Below is a list of commonly held print indexing and abstracting services. In the blank to the left of each title, please place the LEITER which best describes your library's situation regarding each title. A-currently held, plan to keep B-currently held, plan to drop C-cancelled since 1980 D-cancelled prior to 1980 E-never owned 1 ___ America: History and Life 2 ___ American Doctoral Dissertations 3 __ Bibliography of Agriculture 4 __ Bibliography and Index of Geology 5 ___ Biological Abstracts 6 ___ Chemical Abstracts 7 ___ Computer and Control Abstracts 8 ___ Congressional Record 9 ___ Current Index to Journals in Education 10 ___ Dissertation Abstracts International 11 ___ Electrical and Electronics Abstracts 12 ___ Engineering Index 13 ___ Environmental Abstracts 14 ___ Government Reports Abstracts 15 ___ Historical Abstracts 16 ___ Library and Information Science Abstracts 17 __ Metals Abstracts 18 __ MLA Bibliography 19 __ PAIS Bulletin 20 ___ Physics Abstracts 21 ___ Pollution Abstracts 22 __ Psychological Abstracts 23 ___ Resources in Education 24 ___ Science Citation Index 25 ___ Social Sciences Citation Index 26 ___ Weekly Government Abstracts 2. We are interested in determining the reasons why indexing and abstracting services are cancelled. For each title you have listed above as cancelled or about to be cancelled, indicate below the SIN- GLE MOST IMPORTANT REASON for cancelling that title by placing the NUMBER 1-26) of the title after the appropriate reason. Cost: ----------------------------------- Lackofuse: -------------------------------- Available at nearby library: -------------------------- Online availability:----------------------------------------------------- Other (please specify): ------------------------------------------------- 3. Does your library offer online bibliographic search services? __ Yes IF YES, for how long? __ __ No IF NO, SKIP TO QUESTION 10. 4. Below is a list of the online databases equivalent to the titles of indexing and abstracting services in Question 1. In the blank to the left of each title, please place the LEITER which best descibes your library's current situation regarding each database. A-frequently searched C-rarely, if ever, searched B-occasionally searched D-unavailable through library's vendor America: History and Life AGRICOLA BIOS IS CA Search COMPENDEX 276 College & Research Libraries Congressional Record Abstracts Dissertation Abstracts Online ERIC Enviroline GeoRef Historical Abstracts IN SPEC LISA MLA Bibliography MET AD EX NTIS PAIS International Pollution Abstracts Psyclnfo Sci Search Social SciSearch 5. In general, how are searches paid for? __ 100% subsidized by library __ partially subsidzed by library May1990 __ library does not subsidize (Circle A, B or C below) A-paid for by individual B-paid for by department/grant account C-both A and B 6. Has your library cancelled any subscriptions to printed indexes/abstracts because of their avail- ability online? __ Yes IF YES, please go on to Question 7. __ No IF NO, SKIP TO QUESTION 10. 7. Specifically for those print indexes/ abstracts which you have cancelled because of online availabil- ity, how are searches paid for? 100% subsidized by library partially subsidized by library library does not subsidize (Circle A, B or C below) A-paid for by individual B-paid for by department/grant account C-both A and B 8. Has there been an increase in the number of searches performed in those databases equivalent to the cancelled indexes/abstracts? __ Yes __ No 9. How satisfied would you say users have been with this new situation? Strongly satisfied Somewhat satisfied Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied Somewhat dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied 10. What is the approximate enrollment of your institution? Under 500 2,500-2,999 500-999 3,000-4,999 1,000-1,499 5,000-6,999 1,500-1,999 ' 7,000-10,000 2,000-2,499 11. Is your institution primarily: __ Liberal arts Specialized __ Religious Thank you for your cooperation in completing this survey. We welcome any comments which you believe relevant to the purpose of this survey. Please make these on the back of this page. We plan to begin coding and compiling survey results on May 30 and would greatly appreciate having your completed survey returned by that date to: CLR Grant Survey, Waterfield Library, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071. Name of institution: ________________________________________________________ __ To libraries worldwide, we are.much more than the sum of our parts. Why do leading academic, research and public libraries rely on Blackwell North America? We could give a lengthy list. Our people. Our technology. Our many services tailored precisely to library needs. And our affiliation with B.H. 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