Journal evaluation in a large research library

A six‐month journal evaluation study was conducted at the two NOAA libraries in Boulder, Colorado, from 28 October 1975 to 28 April 1976 to assist in subscription renewal activities, enhancement of collection relevance, and determination of efficient methodology. Data were collected from a use study, circulation and interlibrary loan statistics, a core list, local availability, questionnaire returns, subscription costs, and librarian and patron input. Results showed that (1) monitoring use for three months pulled 84% of the low‐use titles obtained in the six‐month study indicating that a three‐month study is sufficient; (2) considering the lower 31% of the collection in terms of six‐month useage, the same titles were pulled 92% of the time when using raw use versus use density data, indicating that use density data need not be obtained for determination of low value titles; (3) when two or more scientists (about 0.8% of scientists responding to a questionnaire) recommended a title, it appeared as a low‐use (two or fewer uses) title 5.5% of the time (13.7% of the time for one or more scientists) thus indicating the significance of scientists' recommendations; (4) a balance index for determination of collection balance was derived.