CORE COLLECTIONS OF JOURNALS FOR NATIONAL INTERLENDING PURPOSES

Centralized national provision for inter/ending provides a better service than decentralized provision but can be difficult and expensive to implement, so partial centralization should be considered. Journals are specially suited to central collections. Concentration of demand on a relatively small number of journals means that collections of 7,000–8,000 titles could supply 80% of demand and 2,000 titles 50% in many countries. There are however problems in identifying journals for core collections. Bibliometric methods can be shown to be of little help. Analysis of demand at the British Library Lending Division indicates that rank lists are not very stable over time; and various factors such as language or stage of economic development will cause variations that make it difficult to apply core lists between countries (though it may be possible to allow for differences, especially if core lists based on current demand could be obtained from a number of different countries). Once a core collection had been set up, it would have to attract sufficient requests to monitor demand and adjust its contents accordingly. If a comprehensive collection is not possible, limitation to certain subjects has advantages. As collections grow, additional journals will be cheaper to acquire, though the unit cost per request will still be lower for the journals in heaviest demand. It is concluded that the concept of core collections is sound, but further data are needed before the practical problems of setting up such collections can be properly assessed.