In mid-1998, Drexel University’s W.W. Hagerty Library became the first U.S. university library to make the strategic decision to migrate to an electroniconly journal collection. Before today’s world of omnipresent electronic information, Drexel’s idea was radical. The majority of librarians and faculty believed seven years ago, and some still do, that the academic library’s fundamental mission is to acquire, make available and preserve printed materials.

Drexel was the ideal place for this “experiment.” President Constantine Papadakis’s preference for the electronic paradigm is well known, and we agreed that students and faculty would benefit from the quick “whenever and wherever” availability of electronic information. We also correctly believed, as was demonstrated later, that electronic delivery would save one of the University’s most valuable resources: faculty time.

Drexel’s strong technology focus facilitated the rapid migration to electronic journals. The Drexel user community is uncommonly computer-literate.The University’s roots go back to the Drexel Institute of Technology, and Drexel’s largest colleges even today are engineering and business. In 1983, Drexel became the first academic institution in the nation to require incoming students to purchase microcomputers. Incentives were provided to faculty to use the computers in their courses. Fifteen years later, in 1998, Drexel’s wired network was ubiquitous and robust, and development of a campuswide wireless network had begun.The library was the first wireless site on campus. Furthermore, Drexel was building extensive e-learning programs, and our commuter
and part-time students were showing a preference for electronic information.And the University administration allocated substantial additional funding to the library.

Another factor contributing to our decision to “go electronic”was the belief on the part of the library administration that, in the electronic environment, preservation should no longer be the responsibility of many individual libraries.The model that makes sense in this new order is for a mix of organizations with national and international scope to step forward and assume archiving roles.This is, in fact, happening.We have purchased access to several archival collections from publishers and non-profit organizations.

When the decision to migrate to an allelectronic journal collection was made, Drexel’s Hagerty library held 1,700 print titles. The process proceeded quickly, with electronic versions of most key print journals in science, technology and business made available within three years. Substantially
increased funding, along with the smaller average subscription costs of electronic journals compared to print, made rapid expansion of the electronic collection possible (see Chart 1). In 2002, Drexel University took over MCP Hahnemann University, adding Drexel University College of Medicine, the College of Nursing and Health Professions and the School of Public Health to Drexel’s academic units. Merger of the print collections and electronic collections of the two universities over the next year resulted in a significant increase in journal access for all colleges and schools. Students and faculty today have access to nearly 15,000 current electronic titles and many additional back years.The electronic collection is a mixture of single titles obtained through our serials vendors, publisher packages, aggregator packages and full-text databases.

The print journal collection has stabilized at a few hundred. It consists of browsing titles (e.g., Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, Science), design arts titles, core clinical titles (for browsing by medical students and clinicians on call) and other important titles for which a satisfactory electronic substitute does not exist.

The acceptance level of electronic journals at Drexel is very high, as illustrated in Chart 2. It is important to note that in 1999 journal usage, both print and electronic, in the Drexel library system was about 93,000 compared to 872,000 six years later. This growth in usage of about 840 percent in six years was only achieved because of the expansion of our electronic journal collection by 240 percent, from 4,400 journals in1999 to 15,000 in 2004.This expansion facilitated the use of electronic journals and contributed to the dramatic growth in usage. Chart 2 presents full-text views of electronic articles of only those journals for which vendors supplied use data, and therefore does not represent the full extent of electronic journal use at Drexel. Considering that our electronic journal use is thus undercounted, the increase in use of the electronic format is even more pronounced than shown in the chart.

Arguing that Drexel’s electronic journal migration represented a model that many libraries would likely follow,we received funding in 2000 from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to assess how the library’s shift to electronic journals impacted staff and costs. The goal was to create a case study of Drexel’s experience in order to develop a methodology for use by other libraries. The project captured all costs in the broad areas of space, systems, supplies and staff,
then allocated them to unbound print journals, bound older print journals or electronic journals. Summary results are shown in Chart 3.

The findings suggest that for Drexel, when all costs are considered, use of electronic journals is less expensive than print—approximately $2 per use versus $9 for current print titles and $30 for bound print volumes, with space costs accounting for most of the difference.1 We used the rental costs of comparable space to calculate those costs. Another clear finding of this study is that electronic journals require more user support, that is, reference staff time.

With the assistance of Donald W. King, a nationally recognized leader in scholarly publishing and library economics, we conducted a readership survey in 2002 to determine the impact of the electronic journal collection on Drexel faculty and doctoral students.2 Key findings included the following:

Since these studies were completed in 2002, nearly all reference resources in the Drexel library system are now also acquired in an electronic format. Although the large-scale availability of electronic books has lagged behind journals, many subjectspecific electronic book collections have become available in science, technology and medicine, and there are several sizable projects underway to digitize books.The Drexel library system has nearly 50,000 electronic books. Similar to journals, use of our electronic book collection in the sciences and technology is high compared with print counterparts. But unlike journals,we continue to build a print book collection,
because we believe that libraries should strive for a balance of print and electronic books that is driven by the needs of the various academic disciplines.

Drexel’s W.W. Hagerty Library has evolved remarkably since 1998.With the constantly escalating amount of electronic information required by academic pursuits, it is easy to forget that our commitment to an electronic library was controversial even a few years ago. Now, other college and university libraries are adopting an electronic-only strategy for journals.With a strong electronic collection and a talented, service-oriented staff, our library system is well positioned to provide the Drexel community with the ever-more-sophisticated information resources it will need in the future.

Notes
1.Carol Hansen Montgomery and Donald W. King,“Comparing Library and User Related Costs of Print and Electronic Journal Collections: A First Step Towards a Comprehensive Analysis,” D-Lib Magazine, October 2002 (volume 8, number 10).
2.Donald W. King and Carol Hansen Montgomery, “After Migration to an Electronic Journal Collection: Impact on Faculty and Doctoral Students,” D-Lib Magazine, December 2002 (volume 8, number 12).

For more information, please contact:
Carol Hansen Montgomery, Ph.D.
Dean of Libraries
Drexel University
3141 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-895-2750
montgoch@drexel.edu

- top -