Supplementing the Library Collection with Digital Content from Engineering Departments
Karen ClayStanford University
Questions
• What information is being produced in the SoE labs? (What types of publications? Digital-only or digital with online equivalent?)
• How accessible is this information? (Is it in the Library? At a stable URL?)
Methods
• Hired Engineering Graduate students to discover and input the information found
• Discovery methods: - browsing the lab web sites - google search of engineering web space for .pdf files - asking the labs for an inventory of their output
Refworks database
• Bibliographic information• Document type• Document format• Document size• URL• Availability in Library
Assessment of the data
• Grey Literature predominates, but its primarily “standard” grey literature, not digital-only items
• Many URLs are not stable (at least 1% of URLs had changed or disappeared after only 5 months).
Grey Literature Predominates
Document types breakdown
Journal Articles19%
Book Chapters1%
Dissertations9%
Videos or DVDs4%
Conference Papers65%
Misc. Web Publications2%
Most of the online documents DO have a print equivalent
Conference Papers35%
Dissertations5%
Technical Reports57%
Misc. Web Publications1%
Videos / DVDs2%
Many Documents are Not in the Library
Document type: % available in Library
Dissertations 94%
Journal articles/book chapters 92 %
Technical Reports 57 %
Conference papers 15 %
Other (slides, videos etc) 0 %
All types 47%
Documents not in the Library
D is s e r ta tio n s J o u rn a l A r tic le s / B o o k
C h a p te rs
T e c h n ic a l R e p o r ts
C o n fe re n c e P a p e rs
O th e r
O v e ra ll
0 %
1 0 %
2 0 %
3 0 %
4 0 %
5 0 %
6 0 %
7 0 %
8 0 %
9 0 %
1 0 0 %
% A v a ila b le in L ib ra ry
Collections Assessment
What materials are we missing in the library?
Journals/Books not in the Library
D is s e r ta tio n s J o u rn a l A rt ic le s / B o o k
C h a p te rs
T e c h n ic a l R e p o r ts
C o n fe re n c e P a p e rs
O th e r
O v e ra ll
0 %
1 0 %
2 0 %
3 0 %
4 0 %
5 0 %
6 0 %
7 0 %
8 0 %
9 0 %
1 0 0 %
% A v a ila b le in L ib ra ry
Journals/Books not in the Library
• Missing articles from 12 journal titles and 3 book titles
• No journal titles had more than one missing article
• 2/3 of the missing materials are in the Biomedical Engineering field
Dissertations not in the Library
D is s e rta t io n s J o u rn a l A r tic le s / B o o k
C h a p te rs
T e c h n ic a l R e p o r ts
C o n fe re n c e P a p e rs
O th e r
O v e ra ll
0 %
1 0 %
2 0 %
3 0 %
4 0 %
5 0 %
6 0 %
7 0 %
8 0 %
9 0 %
1 0 0 %
% A v a ila b le in L ib ra ry
Dissertations not in the Library
• Missing 3 non-Stanford dissertations; and 3 Master’s theses
Conference Proceedings & Technical Reports
D isserta tions Journal A rtic les / B ook
C hapters
T echnical R eports
C on ference Papers
O ther
O vera ll
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
% Available in L ibrary
Conference Proceedings
• Many of the missing conference proceedings were cited repeatedly on the web pages
• Some of the more commonly cited missing conference proceedings are local, small-scale conferences (for example the Center for Turbulence Research Summer Program)
Conference Proceedings & Technical Reports
D isserta tions Journal A rtic les / B ook
C hapters
T echnical R eports
C on ference Papers
O ther
O vera ll
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
% Available in L ibrary
Technical Reports
• Although we are missing about 40% of the technical reports in the database, these technical reports are produced by 14 of the 66 Labs or Centers. (only about 1/5).
Conclusions• There is a lot of locally produced, relevant
grey literature on the web which is missing from the library.
• Most of this literature is still produced in “traditional” formats – formats which have a print-based equivalent
• This literature is currently scattered, difficult to search, and the URLs are not stable (it should be in the library!).