Journal Subscription Selection Process

HSLIC follows the procedure below when a request for a new journal subscription is received from a faculty, staff or student at the Health Sciences Center:

Initial Inquiry and Information Gathering

Requests for new subscriptions are routed to the Collection Management Librarian for investigation.

The Collection Management Librarian gathers information about the title.  At a minimum, the following questions are answered:

• Is the title already available at UNM? (if so, the process ends with a response to the requester)
• Do we have access to an embargoed version of the title?
• Is the journal indexed in a major HSLIC database (e.g. PubMed or CINAHL, depending upon the subject area)?
• Have we owned the journal in the past and discontinued the subscription?
• What is the price of an institutional subscription in electronic format?
• What is the cost of a personal subscription in electronic and/or print format?
• How many issues are there per year?
• What is the Impact Factor and the rank within the subject area?
• The volume and diversity of interlibrary loans placed over a two to four year period.
• What is the Copyright Clearance Center royalty fee per article?

This information is then sent back to the requestor with a preliminary opinion on purchase, and reasons supporting the opinion.  A communication outlining the next steps in the process is also provided.

Departmental Support and Cost-Balancing

New journal requests may originate at any level of the organization, however, after the initial information gathering (described above); formal requests must come to HSLIC from an HSC faculty member.

Formal requests should include:

• Justification of need
• How institutional priorities are addressed by the title
• An estimate of the HSC audience size for the journal 

Requests which include supporting statements from additional faculty members are given additional consideration for purchase.

When all the information has been gathered, a recommendation is made by the Collection Management Librarian to the Collection Resources Group for approval, further investigation or declining of the subscription request

The decision and reasoning is communicated by the Collection Management Librarian to the department requestor.

Approved requests are held until the designated time for ordering and canceling titles.

In the event that the budget does not allow the purchase of a requested title, HSLIC may elect to contact the requesting department, with a list of currently received subject specific journals. The department may be asked to work with HSLIC to select subscriptions to cancel which would help to offset the cost of the requested title.

Adopted December 2011 by the HSLIC Print & Electronic Resources Committee