Practical Interpretation of Citation and Library Use Studies

Abstract

Most studies of journal citations and library use are of little if any practical use to librarians and information system designers because of inadequate data collection and analysis. The paper considers the data required to guide (a) the librarian in acquisition (current and retrospective), discarding, and binding; and (b) the information system designer in selecting journals to be scanned for secondary services, selecting items from journals scanned, and retiring items from active files.