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Collection Development and Access Plan:
Department of Nutritional Sciences

Prepared by Sharon Giovenale, 11/9/2000. DRAFT: For review by the Department of Nutritional Sciences.

Purpose:

The purpose of this Collection Development and Access Plan is threefold. First, it is a tool for the Library to become better informed of the information and data needs of academic programs on campus. Second, it will outline how existing local collections, networked electronic services, and document delivery services are being utilized to meet the bibliographic needs of these programs. Third, it is hoped that this plan will provide the faculty and the library staff a base for dialog concerning future information needs and areas for cooperation. This plan follows the broad guidelines established in Ownership and Access in a Global Information Market: A Framework for the University of Connecticut Libraries, issued by the Chancellor's Library Advisory Committee in March 1999.

Contents:

I. Characteristics of the Community
II. Collections Budget Expenditure Patterns 1999
III. Current Patterns of Information Service
IV. Emerging Choices

I. Characteristics of the Community

• Degrees and concentrations offered.

  The Department offers four options in Nutritional Sciences leading to the Bachelor of Science degree:
  
  

  The Dietetics program
  
  The Pre-Professional program in Nutritional Biochemistry
  
  The Food Science program
  
  The Nutrition Fundamentals program
  
  Three additional areas of specialization are available. Individual plans of study are designed with a faculty advisor:
  
  
  Nutrition and Sport plan of study requires additional courses in Exercise Science and Leisure studies. Only a limited number of students are admitted to this program during their junior year.
  
  The Community Nutrition plan of study would include additional social sciences courses to enhance the skills of students who are interested in assisting individuals, families, and private or public agencies with evaluating and addressing nutritional needs.
  
  The Food Service Management plan of study would include additional management courses to integrate business skills with nutrition competencies. A field experience is strongly recommended.
  
  Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Science degrees are offered in Nutritional Sciences. There are three major areas of expertise within the Department: Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition, Human Nutrition and Metabolism, and Community Nutrition. Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition is based on laboratory studies utilizing biochemical metabolism in the cell, tissue, and whole animal. Human Nutrition and Metabolism involves human studies or trial to examine nutrient metabolism in health and disease. Community Nutrition focuses on public health areas of nutrition including community-level nutrition assessment, education, and intervention programs. Each emphasis area is interdisciplinary in approach and is supported by other departments at the University of Connecticut, as well as collaborative arrangements with other institutions.
  
  

  Number of faculty and distribution across the system:
  Faculty Members 15 FTE
  Includes eight faculty members shared with other departments, i.e. 4 FTE (2000)
  
  

  Number of students:
  

  Graduate Students 43 (2000-2001)
  

  Undergraduate Students 70 (1999-2000)
  Many of the graduate students live off campus.
  

II. Collections Budget Expenditure Patterns 1999

• Allocated funds for monographs and journals

  Fund	Books	Serials	Total Exp	Sub %	total%
  SCNUTR	$2,021.00	$7,844.00	$9,865.00	1%	0%

  
  
  
  

• Expenditures for relevant networked services

  Title	Projected FY 99/00
  IAC Academic Health Reference	$4,050.00
  MEDLINE	$3,590.00
  SciFinder Scholar	$22,260.00
  Sport Discus	$3,350.00
  Web of Science 2000 cost	$58,050.00
  AGRICOLA	$1,238.00

  
  

• Expenditures in cognate disciplines

  Fund	Books	Serials	Total Exp	sub%	total%
  SCHEAL	$12,722	$37,262	$49,984	3%	1%

  
  The figures for materials in the Health Sciences are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many journal, book, and electronic materials, which are used for research by members of the Department of Nutritional Sciences and are integrated into other subject areas of the Homer Babbidge Library's serial, monograph, and electronic collections. A budget allocation for these interdisciplinary items could not be calculated, because of the wide range of disciplines covered.
  
  The main campus library, Homer Babbidge Library, and the Medical School library in Farmington house current journals and an extensive collection of reference materials.
  

III. Current Patterns of Information Service

1. Characteristics of the Literature

   Growth and Inflation
   Faced with rapidly expanding research literature and double-digit inflation in the costs of its ongoing commitments, the library has both the opportunity and the need to employ a variety of strategies in the delivery of information. Scientific and clinical journal literature is most frequently used during the first five to ten years after publication. The acquisition and electronic distribution of key abstracting and indexing services is a high priority, since these services facilitate rapid identification of relevant materials. Realizing that more of these materials may not be locally available, interlibrary loan and document delivery operations have been automated and supported with collection funds to give you faster and, where possible, more convenient, desk-top service.
   
   Ownership
   Ownership of library materials is still an important consideration, especially for our student population and for faculty who are writing grants and performing other tasks under time constraints. Journals and other serially published materials are the basis of research in the sciences. Some research materials in paper and other non-digital formats will remain important for the foreseeable future, especially since the archiving of journal articles in electronic format is not yet assured by many distributors of this format.
   
   A search of the Web of Science database for evidence of local faculty reading and citation patterns based on sample articles/books reveals the following patterns. Nutritional Sciences faculty cite and are cited by major journal titles in various fields such as nutritional science, pediatrics, health science, clinical medicine, biochemistry, and molecular and cellular biology.
   
   

2. Collection Development
   1. Areas of Focus
      

      Nutritional Sciences is a scientific and clinical journal intensive area. The demand for more electronic journal access will continue to grow.

      We have chosen not to collect most clinical journals, since that is well covered by the University Health Center and duplication of most materials is no longer a fiscal possibility.
      
      

   2. Acquisition Strategies
      

      A. Monographs

      University of Connecticut uses the Yankee Book Peddler Approval/Slip Plan, which covers U.S. scholarly and trade publishers plus their Canadian and British equivalents which directly distribute in the U.S. The majority of our books are received through this plan on a weekly basis.
      
      

      B. Journals
      
      The University Storrs Campus Libraries do not generally collect clinical health care journals. Health Reference Center Academic provides many full text electronic articles. Access to clinical materials is readily available through the University of Connecticut Health Center Library at Farmington. Interlibrary loans from the Health Center usually can be obtained within two working days. We are establishing collaborations with the University of Connecticut Health Center Library for acquiring electronic resources, such as full text electronic journals. Increasing electronic networking between the Storrs campus and the Lyman Maynard Stowe Library allows access to many additional health sources. It is expected that this mutually beneficial relationship will continue to expand in the future, especially given the fact that replication of expensive research titles at both campus locations will occur less and less in the future. The demand for electronic access to full text journals is increasing dramatically.
      
      The University Libraries subscribes to many scientific journals related to research in the Department of Nutritional Sciences. New subscriptions are only fundable under existing budgetary allocation levels. Ownership will be considered over access only when the title is inexpensive, heavy use is certain, and expenses for ILL/document delivery approach or exceed the subscription cost.
      

   
   

3. Access Development

   In order to help Department of Nutritional Science researchers locate the research materials they need, the University of Connecticut Libraries will use a combination of local collections, licensed electronic products, subject and program-based web links, current awareness services, and interlibrary loan and document delivery.
   
   

   1. Indexes, Abstracts, Library Catalogs and Bibliographic Utilities
      
      We will help you quickly identify needed information by system-wide distribution of: current awareness services, (UnCover, Current Contents), indexes and abstracts (e.g. Agricola, MEDLINE, SciFinder Scholar, Web of Science), library catalogs and automated and subsidized Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan.
      
      

   2. Electronic Journals, Books and Data

      User enthusiasm and economic incentives have caused the library to embrace electronic only access to commercial as well as non-profit journal packages. With the subscription year that begins in January 2004, if a cost savings is available, the libraries are generally converting journal subscriptions that currently bring us both print and electronic copies to electronic-only provision.

      We are making this change on a publisher-by-publisher basis. Many of our electronic journals do not come directly by license from the publisher, but instead through aggregator products such as Lexis-Nexis Academic, Dow-Jones, InfoTrac and Wilson Web. The arrangements between aggregators and publishers are constantly in flux. Only when titles are available through multiple aggregators, in a complete and reasonably current version will the cancellation of print be considered.

      We have resisted going electronic-only up to now because of concerns about long-term, archival access. Commercial publishers cannot be relied upon to archive their content once the prospect of additional sales approaches nil. Although a solution is far from in place, we believe that technologies now under examination, with funding from the National Science Foundation among others, will yield solutions whereby the largest research libraries will undertake the distributed archiving of digital content in all our interest. We expect that even the largest commercial publishers will, ultimately, cooperate with such an arrangement.

      One of the primary goals in the immediate future will be to identify the journals for which we have a subscription but not electronic access, and attempt to add said access. Often the stumbling block for doing so is the license agreement. Additionally, many of the society journals are only now being made available electronically. Often, online access to these titles is free with a print subscription. Retaining access to the already respectable menu of online journals provided by the Library is an ongoing library goal although this effort is becoming increasingly difficult. Because of unsustainable inflation of scholarly journals, electronic only access may be increasingly viewed as a viable option. The question of permanent access to reliable archives of this material is not yet resolved, making such a switch a risky venture.

      Furthermore, electronic journals can be hot linked to web based indexes like Web of Science, and the electronic resources listed above. Additionally, the Library’s electronic journal locator, eCompass, facilitates the identification of specific e-journal titles "owned" by the Library (i.e., accessible via the University internet domain, ".uconn.edu".)

      
      

   3. Document Delivery / Interlibrary Loan
      
      Since journal materials may not be locally available document delivery and interlibrary loan operations have increased automation of these services and have been augmented and supported with collection development funds. The data extracted from these newly automated operations will be important in helping the Library determine which journals we need to own locally or access electronically and which can be delivered from other libraries and document delivery services, in a timely and cost-effective manner.
      
      

   4. Significant Campus or external resources
      
      As the literature in the sciences expands and journal subscription prices inflate at a rate greater than that of the budget, no one library is able to collect everything. We will rely more on cooperation between libraries. Certainly there will be more cooperative purchasing and licensing arrangements with the University of Connecticut Health Center.
   
   

IV. Emerging Choices