The effects of portfolio purchasing on scientific subject collections

Abstract

A citation analysis was conducted to understand how the purchase of journal portfolios supports the research of faculty in the life, medical, physical and applied sciences and influences collections at The Ohio State University. Of the 253,604 citations from 6,815 articles reviewed, faculty cited 2,407 journal titles ten or more times. Results indicated that less than 50 percent of the titles listed for faculty in the Colleges of Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Veterinary Medicine were acquired through a portfolio. A discussion questioning the value of the portfolio purchase follows, with the author concluding that journal portfolios are contributing to the normalization of library collections.