Evaluation of Chemistry Journals at IIT Kharagpur, India: use and citation analysis.

Maharana, Bulu ; Mishra, Smaranika ; Sethi, Bipin Bihari 等

Introduction

Globally, librarians spend enormous sums of money to acquire library materials irrespective of the fact that national, state, and local economies vary widely, as do individual library budgets. Traditionally, librarians believed in a "collect everything" approach. But with recent budget limitations, space constraints, and rapid growth of digital materials, most librarians cannot continue with the same approach anymore. Librarians, as professionals, try to build and maintain collections that will meet their collection development goals and be appropriate for their users (Agee, 2005, pp. 92-95).

In this environment, it becomes a dilemma for the librarian, whether to switch completely to a digital environment or not. By evaluating current collections, librarians may better manage future collection development. Collection evaluations help librarians ascertain the usability of materials in their collections to the user community.

Aims and Objectives

The present study evaluates the collection of Chemistry Journals at IIT Kharagpur library with following objectives;

* To provide a strong basis for better collection management.

* To evaluate the performance measurement of Journals for research.

* To help cost-effective subscription of journals.

* To understand the impact of Chemistry Journals on research.

* To provide information regarding the global as well as local impact of each Chemistry Journals.

Scope and Limitations

The scope of the present study is confined only to Chemistry Journals subscribed by Central Library, IIT Kharagpur. It is quite a difficult task to take all the Journals subscribed by the Central Library under the purview of the study. The present study, therefore, has the following limitations:

i. The research is limited to the jurisdiction of IIT Kharagpur. (i.e. limitation by the type of institution covered)

ii. The population of this study is confined to the faculty and research scholars of Department of Chemistry,

IIT Kharagpur but not of any other Department (i.e. limitations by the size of the sample)

iii. For the evaluation of chemistry journals, the present study investigates only the usage statistics and impact factor but not any other aspect (i.e. limitation by type of investigation).

iv. In the present study SciFinder Scholar has been used to retrieve usage statistics of some selected Journals through citation analysis (i.e. limitation by database covered).

Methodology

In the present study, the questionnaire data coupled with citation statistics from SciFinder were used for the evaluation of Chemistry Journals. A simple questionnaire was prepared to elicit pertinent data on the usage of journals by the respondents. In the second part of the study, the cited references of selected Journals for the year 2005 and 2006 were collected from SciFinder Scholar based on the analyzed data of questionnaire. At last ISI impact factor of each Chemistry Journal was obtained to find out the global usage trend of the journals in Chemistry.

Analysis of Data and Discussion

The researcher has devoted all its effort to meet the goal of the study, starting from drafting a simple questionnaire to distribute it to the faculty and research scholars of the Department of Chemistry, IIT Kharagpur. All the Journal titles categorized under Department of Chemistry have been collected from the website of Central Library. The Department of Chemistry, IIT Kharagpur is scattered in three different building, viz. Main Building, Organic Lab and High Pressure Lab. The researchers have distributed and collected 31 questionnaires from the faculty and research scholars available within the period 19th April 2007 to 25th April 2007. From the 31 collected questionnaires, only 30 questionnaires are being taken into study. The data collected from the questionnaire are divided into two segments for effective interpretation. The first part deals with the types of Journal version available in the Central Library and how many numbers of users prefer which one. The gathered data are portrayed in Tabl-1 for necessary analysis and interpretation.

The above table clearly describes about the preferred version of journals by user and percentage of use out of total sample (30) retrieved from the questionnaire. It is interesting to discover that, 21 (70%) respondents prefer to use both print and online version of the journals. However, 8 (26.66%) respondents like to use only online version and only 1 (3.33%) prefers only the print version of the journal. The data indicates that though digital and electronic technology has a great impact on publishing industry, they can not replace print or hard copy of journals completely.

Use of Journals

The second part of the questionnaire highlights about the usage of journals by the local users. Every library need to evaluate the usage statistics of their journals, since a major part of library budget is spend on it. There should not be a random selection of journals; it needs to be placed on a strong foundation of qualitative and quantitative data. With this objective in mind, the researcher has made an effort to study the usage statistics of all the 51 journals, taken as sample for the present study. At the same time researcher has also gathered the ISI Impact Factor of Journals which can be traced from the following table. The following table can also provide evidence about the local and global importance of each Chemistry Journals to the end users.

Table-2 uncovers the frequency of use of journals by the faculty and research scholars of the Department of Chemistry along with its respective percentage. It was found that some of the journals like Journal of American Chemical Society and Chemical Reviews are the highly used by more than 90% of the users. It was further found that 14 (27.45%) out of 51 journals are used only by 10% of the users. None of the users are using journals, Chemical Research in Toxicology and Electroanalysis. The rest of the journals have moderate percentage of use. From the above table it conclude that some of the journals have very low percentage of use and still library is subscribing them as a part of the package or individually.

Citing References Collected from SciFinder Scholar

Before coming to a conclusion about the usage of journals and dropping them from the collection, the library need to verify the relevancy of the data collected through questionnaire. The researcher has traced the citing references of journal articles by IIT Kharagpur faculty and scholars in their research papers using SciFinder Scholar Database. As SciFinder is a database of Chemistry and Chemical Sciences and also provide citation search comparable to Science Citation Index, no other database can be proved as better as this. Simultaneously, most of the faculty and research scholar of this institute also use SciFinder Scholar for their research. The researcher has randomly selected 5 low usage journals and 5 high usage journals as sample for the study, based on the data retrieved from Table-2. And all the citing references by IIT, Kharagpur faculty and research scholars are traced using various steps in SciFinder Scholar. The use of Journals through citing reference can be better understood from the following table.

The above table shows that Journal of American Chemical Society is highly cited (33) by the faculty and scholars of Chemistry at IIT Kharagpur. Similarly, Angewandte Chemie (27), Chemical Communications (26), Chemical Reviews (22) are mostly cited. However, the number of citation from journals likes Biotechnology Progress (02), Chemical Research in Toxicology (03), and Electroanalysis (01) are very low. Two journals, Energy & Fuels (00), and Molecular Pharmaceuticals (00) have not been cited by any one.

Comparison of Data

To prove the significance of the questionnaire data, it has compared with the citing references drawn from SciFinder. The data of the 10 sample journals are compared and shown in the following table.

From the above table researcher conclude that data collected through questionnaire about the usage statistics is very relevant. The journals which are not referred by the faculty and scholars in the questionnaire have either very low or zero cited references in SciFinder. The comparative analysis has been graphically represented as under.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Suggestions

All the librarians practice to build a rich and well organized collection of documents in a cost-effective way for their library. But it can not be achieved with out knowing its utilization percentage along with user satisfactory level. For this regular evaluation of collection is needed. The investigator has proposed some suggestions as illustrated below for better collection management:

1. The journals which are never used or insignificantly used such as Molecular Pharmaceuticals, Electroanalysis, Energy & Fuels, Chemical Research in Toxicology, Biotechnology progress, etc. can be dropped from the package by negotiating with the publishers.

2. The library can go for subscription of online archive of heavily used journals or article based purchasing to provide quality based service.

3. The local usage percentage and ISI Impact Factor of each journal may be added with the list of Department wise journal distribution in the library website. This can prove as a value added service for the end users.

4. Usage studies of this type may be carried out each year before the order is placed for the journals.

Conclusion

Projects are being undertaken to study on a specific topic with available data and to come to an end with some observation and findings. After collection of data and analyzing, it is found that most of the Chemistry Journals subscribed by the Central Library have a high impact on the use for research carried out by Department of Chemistry, IIT, Kharagpur. But there also some journals which have a very low impact with regard to their use by the user community. These types of journals with low usage are neither recommended nor referred by the faculty and research scholars of the Department of Chemistry. Still they are subscribed by the Central Library as a part of journal packages offered by different publishers. At the same time it is also found that most of the users like to use both online and print version of journals. So the present study concludes that all the journals of Central Library need to be evaluated for better organization of the collection.

References

Bhatnagar (O P). Research Methods and Measurements in Behavioural Sciences. 1981. 1st ed. Agricole Publishing Academy; New Delhi; p. 228

Ghosh (B N). Scientific Method and Social Research. 1982. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd; New Delhi; pp. 231 & 237.

Agee (Jim). "Collection evaluation: a foundation for collection development". Collection Building. v. 24 (3). 2005; p. 92-95.

Mosher (Paul H)."Collection Evaluation or Analysis: Matching Library Acquisitions to Library Needs". Foundations in Library and Information Science v.10; 1980. Jai Press Inc.; Greenwich; p.528 & 531.

Opie (Clive). Doing Educational Research: A Guide for First-Time Researchers. 2004, Vistaar Publications; New Delhi; p.16

Vignau (Barbara S S). "Collection Development in a digital environment: an imperative for information organizations in the twenty-first century". Collection Building. V. 25 (4). 2006; p. 139 - 144

Bulu Maharana

Lecturer, P. G. Department of Library & Information Science

Sambalpur University

Smaranika Mishra

Librarian, Silicon Institute of Engineering & Technology, Sambalpur

Bipin Bihari Sethi

Professional Asst. Central Library, Sambalpur University

Table-1: Distribution of Data by Preferred Versions of Journals

                         Preferred Version   Percentage out of
Sl. No.   Version Type   by Users            Total Sample (n=30)

1.        Only Print     1                   3.33 %
2.        Only Online    8                   26.66 %
3.        Both           21                  70 %

Table-2: Distribution of Data by Usage Frequency of Journals

                                             Use Percentage
                                 Nos. of     out of Total     Impact
Name of Journal (s)              users (f)   Sample (n=30)    Factor

Journal of American Chemical     28          93.33 %          7.419
  Society
Chemical Reviews                 27          90 %             20.869
Angewandte Chemie                26          86.66 %          9..596
Chemical Communications          23          76.66 %          4.43
Chemistry: A European Journal    23          76.66 %          4..907
Accounts of Chemical Research    22          73.33 %          13.141
Journal of Organic Chemistry     21          70 %             3.675
Organic Letters                  21          70 %             4.368
European Journal of Organic      20          66.66 %          2.598
  Chemistry
Tetrahedron Letters              20          66.66 %          2.477
Tetrahedron                      19          63.33 %          2.610
Tetrahedron: Asymmetry           19          63.33 %          2.429
Synthetic Communications         16          53.33 %          0.860
Organometallics                  15          50 %             3.473
Synthesis                        15          50 %             2.401
Journal of Medicinal Chemistry   13          43.33 %          5.076
Inorganic Chemistry              12          40 %             3.851
Journal of Natural Products      12          40 %             2.267
Chemistry of Materials           11          36.66 %          4.818
Journal of Chemical Education    11          36.66 %          0.51
Langmuir                         11          36.66 %          3.705
Organic and Biomolecular         11          36.66 %          2.547
  Chemistry
Crystal Growth and Design        10          33.33 %          3.551
Dalton Transactions              10          33.33 %          3.00
European Journal of Inorganic    10          33.33 %          2.514
  Chemistry
Journal of Molecular             10          33.33 %          2.348
  Catalysis--A: Chemical
Nano Letters                     10          33.33 %          9.847
Journal of Physical              09          30 %             4.033
  Chemistry--B
Chemical and Engineering News    08          26.66 %          0.521
Journal of Physical              08          26.66 %          2.898
  Chemistry--A
Journal of Molecular             07          23.33 %
  Catalysis--B: Enzymatic
Physical Chemistry Chemical      07          23.33 %          2..52
  Physics
Analytical Chemistry             06          20 %             5.635
Journal of Solid State           06          20 %             1.725
  Chemistry
Synfacts                         06          20 %
Biophysical Journal              04          13.33 %          4.585
Organic Process Research and     04          13.33 %          1.749
  Development
Biomacromolecules                03          10 %             3.618
Journal of Combinatorial         03          10 %             4.197
  Chemistry
Molecular Pharmaceuticals        03          10 %
Bioconjugate Chemistry           02          6.66 %           3..943
Energy and Fuels                 02          6.66 %           1.494
Molecular Biosystems             02          6.66 %
Biotechnology Progress           01          3.33 %           1.635
Electrophoresis                  01          3.33 %           3.850
Inter Journal of Quantum         01          3.33 %           1.19
  Chemistry
Journal of Chemical              01          3.33 %           2..923
  Information and modeling
Journal of Chemical Theory &     01          3.33 %
  Computation
Journal of Proteome Research     01          3.33 %           6..917
Chemical Research in             00          0 %              3..339
  toxicology
Electroanalysis                  00          0 %              1.266

Table-3: Data Distribution by Citing References

                                                     No. of Cited
Sl. No.   Name of Journal (s)                         References

1.        Journal of the American Chemical Society        33
2.        Angewandte Chemie                               27
3.        Chemical Communications                         26
4.        Chemical Reviews                                22
5.        Journal of Organic Chemistry                    17
6.        Chemical Research in Toxicology                 03
7.        Biotechnology Progress                          02
8.        Electroanalysis                                 01
9.        Energy & Fuels                                  00
10.       Molecular Pharmaceuticals                       00

Table-4: Comparison of Questionnaire Data with SciFinder Data

Sl.                                  Abbreviated   Usage statistics
No.   Name of Journals               Name          from Questionnaire

1.    Angewandte Chemie              AC            26
2     Biotechnology Progress         BP            01
3.    Chemical Communications        CC            23
4.    Chemical Research in           CRT           00
        Toxicology
5.    Chemical Reviews               CR            27
6.    Electroanalysis                EL            00
7.    Energy & Fuels                 EF            02
8.    Journal of the American        JACS          28
        Chemical Society
9.    Journal of Organic Chemistry   JOC           21
10.   Molecular Pharmaceuticals      MP            03

Sl.                                  Usage statistics
No.   Name of Journals               from SciFinder

1.    Angewandte Chemie              27
2     Biotechnology Progress         02
3.    Chemical Communications        26
4.    Chemical Research in           03
        Toxicology
5.    Chemical Reviews               22
6.    Electroanalysis                01
7.    Energy & Fuels                 00
8.    Journal of the American        33
        Chemical Society
9.    Journal of Organic Chemistry   17
10.   Molecular Pharmaceuticals      00

Fig.1: Distribution of Data by Preferred Version of Journals

Preference of use of Journals

Only Print      1 (3.33%)
Only Online     8 (26.66%)
Both           21 (70%)

Note: Table made from pie chart.

Fig. 2: Distribution of Data by Citing References

Distribution of Journals by number of cited references

Journals      Numbers of
           cited references

JACS             33
AC               27
CC               26
CR               22
JOC              17
CRT               3
BP                2
EL                1
EF                0
MP                0

Note: Table made from bar graph.