Besides the quality of content, here is a list of 6 criteria universally employed by academic librarians in 
making decisions whether to cut a journal or database subscription: 
1. Student Success/Curriculum. Librarians look at courses offered at their institution, and make sure the 
particular resource is not the sole source for research and scholarship being performed in courses. 
2. Usage Data. Librarians have access to standardized data in order to analyze usage. The most common 
indicator of product usage is measuring how many times something was downloaded (in other words, 
a PDF was opened). 
3. Cost and cost-per-use. Librarians look at overall costs in comparison to departmental or college FTE 
and the overall collections budget, as well as the cost of the item divided by the number of downloads 
(cost-per-use). 
4. Overlap. Many companies and publishers provide overlapping information, sometimes the exact piece 
of information (like data or even an article), other times comparable information (not unlike Coke and 
Pepsi). Librarians evaluate products that overlap to ensure the best use of funds to serve the most 
students and faculty. 
5. Licensing. Librarians are unable to offer access to products where licensing terms are unfavorable to 
usage, or put the University at risk. 
6. Accreditation. Librarians consider the needs of a particular program in terms of accreditation. If those 
needs are not completely aligned with the Libraries, it is common for departments to cost-share on 
these items. 
 
For more information, please see the American Library Association webpages on Collection Development 
(http://www.ala.org/tools/atoz/Collection%20Development/collectiondevelopment) or the following 
resources: 
Elmore, Marcus. RCL: Resources for College Libraries, 2007. New Providence, N.J.: R.R. Bowker, 2006. Also 
available online at http://www.rclinfo.net/  
Frost, William J. The Reference Collection: From the Shelf to the Web. Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Information 
Press, 2005.  
Gregory, Vicki L. Selecting and Managing Electronic Resources: A How-to-Do-It Manual. New York: Neal 
Schuman Publishers, 2000.  
Kovacs, Diane K., and Kara L. Robinson. The Kovacs Guide to Electronic Library Collection Development: 
Essential Core Subject Collections, Selection Criteria, and Guidelines. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 
2004.  
Lee, Stuart D., and Frances Boyle. Building an Electronic Resource Collection: A Practical Guide. London: Facet, 
2004.  
 
Prepared by Jeffery Sundquist, Assistant Dean for Research and Collections 
February 16. 2018