Guidelines and Criteria

Guidelines

Careful judgment is required in establishing new journal subscriptions; journals represent an ongoing commitment of fiscal resources. Journal prices increase much more rapidly than the library's budget, resulting in less money for other resources. New subscription requests will be reviewed to assess potential use, availability of indexing, and alternate means of access through open access or document delivery.

Requests for new subscriptions may be submitted through the department's library liaison or to the Resource Management Department. Once a month the Coordinator for Resource Management submits journal subscription requests to the Outreach Services Department for consideration. Subscriptions approved then go to the Library Director for a final decision.

Criteria

When considering a journal subscription the Outreach Services Department considers the following:

• Format-electronic access to journals is preferred; only under rare circumstances will the library consider a print subscription.
• Indexing of the title- journals must be indexed in at least one subscription database to which Furman has access.
• Full text availability in Furman's resources- if a requested title is available in current full text databases, the scope of the coverage of the full text is assessed.
• Accessibility- the subscription should be seamlessly accessible on campus through IP authentication and through FU login credentials off-campus.
• Dependability- the subscription provider should be stable and dependable with minimal system down-time.
• Cost- the cost of the journal  compared to other journals in the field. The cost of the journal must be able to be supported by the library allocation for materials in that subject.
• Departmental justification- departmental justifications vary, and depend upon the information submitted. In some cases a department can cite specific information that has a special impact on the potential use of the journal by students.

The Outreach Services Department takes these various pieces of information, weighs them against each other, and makes a recommendation as to the purchase of the resource.

If you are interested in submitting a request for a journal, please contact your departmental liaison, the Resource Management Department or use the form below to submit a request.