In Focus

Best Practices

Getting the Best Out of Print: Shelf-Ready Journals

Kittie Henderson, director of academic and law divisions, EBSCO
Heather Klusendorf, media relations coordinator, EBSCO

To paraphase a line from Charles Dickens, “these are the best and worst of times.” Researchers now have multiple options for accessing the content they need while librarians are left trying to apply outdated workflows to both print and electronic resources.

The shift to electronic format has resulted in libraries, regardless of size, being able to offer round the clock access to a range of materials unimaginable a few decades ago. The special needs of electronic format are well documented with daily postings to library listservs asking about license negotiation and the best way to establish and maintain access to electronic resources.

For many libraries, the shift to electronic format has also come at a time of unprecedented budget pressures. In addition to collection shifts and cuts, staffing is often reduced or frozen. The mantra of doing more with less can only go so far. Libraries are forced to make very difficult resource allocation decisions. Often those decisions result in a lack of resources for handling print journals with an increased focus on electronic formats. But in the rapidly expanding electronic format world, some titles remain only available in print. Additionally some libraries continue to order print copies that replicate the online content to fulfill consortial collection development agreements and for archival purposes.

Reduced staffing makes the care and feeding of electronic collections, while maintaining traditional print support services such as check-in, processing and claiming, very challenging for many libraries. The emergence of electronic formats has made review of print titles necessary. For instance, once the only format available, print titles are now evaulated each year to determine if the content is still essential to the collection. Unlike electronic format, where backfiles are easily available, print resources must be managed on an ongoing basis to assure full runs.

Shelf-ready services for monographs are well established. Increasingly libraries are applying the same concepts to journals. A shelf-ready journal service will do the heavy lifting for you—literarily. Journal consolidation services, such as the EBSCO JETS service, can handle all tasks associated with expediting print issues from the publisher to your shelves.

Shelf-ready journals arrive at your library with the following:

Packing list and check-off list to assist with shelving
Labels ready for the shelf with your library’s details
Option to integrate check-in with your Integrated Library System (ILS)
Claiming for damaged or missing issues handled by expedite service staff

The only action left for staff is the physical shelving of the print issues. Customizable services include tattle taping, property stamps, call number labels and more to help with preparing issues with all the information that your library needs for transferring journals directly to the shelf.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Not all print journals are good candidates for an expediting service. In consultation with your agent, you should pick and choose the titles from your collection that will benefit most from going through a consolidation process. Some agents offer the ability to manage this service through their online system. For example, EBSCO JETS customers use EBSCONET®, our complimentary online subscription management platform, to easily manage and track JETS titles through an intuitive Web-based interface.

How Does a Journal Consolidation Service Work?

EBSCO JETS is one example of a shelf-ready journal service offered by a subscription vendor. This particular service operates as follows:

Decide which journals you would like to include in the service
Determine method and frequency of delivery
EBSCO sends your order to the publisher
Publisher sends print issues to JETS
JETS staff checks-in issues received
JETS staff generates claims if needed
JETS staff performs optional services such as tattle taping
JETS staff securely packs issues for delivery
Shelf-ready journals are delivered to your library with reports detailing shipment and claims

There are many features that a journal consolidation service must offer in order to truly reduce work associated with managing the delivery of print issues. A shelf-ready journal service must have locations worldwide to meet true consolidation needs. It must have an established track record of reducing print journal workflow for customers. Access to issue information must be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Most importantly, you must be able to order and manage your journals from the same service with access to thousands of titles from a range of various disciplines. This creates an ideal situation for collection building and maintenance with one central location for ordering and invoicing.

Print collections remain valuable despite a growing concentration on electronic collections. While librarians are assisted with the management of electronic collections via newly developed products such as e-resource management systems (ERMS), e-journal listing services and link resolvers, little has changed to assist them with print journal collection workflows. It is no longer efficient to allocate multiple staff to manage print journal processing; yet, print issues must still be available on the shelves. A shelf-ready journal consolidation service allows librarians to take advantage of the best of times while avoiding the worst of times, assuring that the age of wisdom continues with readily available access to all resource formats.

Established in 1944, EBSCO is a leading information agent providing consultative services and cutting-edge technology for managing and accessing quality content, including print and e-journals, e-packages, research databases, e-books and more. www.ebsco.com