is age an appropriate criterion for moving journals to storage?

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Is Age an Appropriate Criterionfor Moving Journals to Storage?Linda G. Ackerson aa Grainger Engineering Library Information Center ,University of Illinois , Urbana-Champaign, USAPublished online: 11 Oct 2008.

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http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Is Age an Appropriate Criterion

for Moving Journals to Storage?

Linda G. Ackerson

ABSTRACT. One solution to accommodating a growing journal collec-

tion is to move lesser-used journals to storage. Past studies have found

that scientists tend to use the older, rather than the newer, literature of re-

lated disciplines to support their research. If literature is shared between

disciplines with different usage patterns, should age be used to select

journals for storage? A synchronous citation study was used to examine

literature use in physical chemistry. Analysis of the data concluded that

use and age are not related and that storage decisions about physics jour-

nals need not be contingent on the secondary needs of chemists. [Articlecopies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website:<http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights re-served.]

KEYWORDS. Remote storage of journals, use and age, science librar-

ies, collection management, citation studies, obsolescence, interdisci-

plinary libraries

INTRODUCTION

In the late 1600s, the important literature of science resided in only ahandful of journals. By 1826, chemists complained that if they read allthe papers and books published just in their own areas, they would nothave time to conduct experiments (Meadows 1998). As time passed and

Linda G. Ackerson is Assistant Engineering Librarian, Grainger Engineering Li-brary Information Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (E-mail:[email protected]).

The author would like to thank Linda Smith and Tina Chrzastowski for their advicein planning this study.

Collection Management, Vol. 26(3) 2001 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 63

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the volume of information grew, scientists found they had to constantlylimit their areas of research just to retain a certain level of mastery. Thefracturing of research into smaller segments created an ever-increasingbody of disciplinary literature, but reports of results and methods be-came scattered. Research specialties have come to depend on special-ized journals to publish the most relevant accounts of original researchand for review journals to synthesize studies and report them in context.So, while scientists are feeling intellectual overload, libraries are beingsqueezed for physical space to house the growing number of journals.

One solution to the space problem is to move lesser-used journals toremote storage to free up shelf space for current volumes. Lesser-used isoften equated with older journals, based on the adage that use dimin-ishes with age. However, the fracturing of literature affects the nature ofgathering information. Effective literature searching can no longer belimited to a primary discipline but must also include searches in relateddisciplines. As a rule, scientists tend to cite the most recent literature oftheir own disciplines, but past studies have noted that they tend to usethe older literature of related disciplines (Meadows 1974). If literatureis shared between disciplines with different usage patterns, should agebe used as a criterion for selecting journals to be moved to less accessi-ble locations?

LITERATURE REVIEW

Two factors must be considered when evaluating the use of olderjournals: the diffusion of information and the effects of time. The extentto which new ideas spread outside the original area of research is basedon the degree of relevance. By tracing the passage of a single idea overtime, Dahling was able to illustrate why diffusion occurs. Claude Shan-non’s mathematical theory of communication radiated from one disci-pline to another, because it could be applied in various situations tosolve existing problems. Shannon theorized that transmitted informa-tion could be measured and statistical probabilities calculated. The ideawas first dispersed within the originating area of communication engi-neering, applying it to the problem of measuring bandwidth. There werefew barriers to adopting the idea, because its relevance was immedi-ately recognized. Next, it spread to psychology, an area that had longsought a method of measuring communication in order to analyze hu-man behavior (Dahling 1962). Less similar disciplines like journalismwere among the last to adopt Shannon’s idea. Researchers in this area

64 COLLECTION MANAGEMENT

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used the theory to explain the inefficiency of transmitting messagesthrough mass media (Dahling 1962).

The degree of association influences to whom new ideas spread andthe speed of diffusion. Transmission of information within the samesub-discipline is immediate, verified by the citation of more recent pa-pers. The adoption of information across disciplinary lines occurs moreslowly, as evidenced by the citation of older papers. When informationmoves from one discipline to another, innovations spread first to disci-plines that hold like concepts, use similar test methods, and report re-sults in a comparable manner.

Numerous studies have assessed the relationships among scientificdisciplines, using a variety of methods. Some studies were limited to acomparison of literature use between two subject areas. Fussler foundthat up to 12% of the journals cited by chemists were physics titles, andup to 15% of the journals cited by physicists were chemistry titles(Fussler 1949). Anthony and others surveyed the reading habits of sci-entists and found that chemists and physicists both spend about 15% oftheir time browsing the journals of the other discipline (Anthony, East,and Slater 1969). Clark and Kinyon used coverage in indexes to assessthe overlap in disciplines. They found that a large percentage of physicsjournals were heavily covered by the major indexes in other subject ar-eas, including Chemical Abstracts (Clark and Kinyon 1989). I investi-gated the overlap in journal use among multiple subject areas. My studyidentified disciplines that were closest in proximity and found a strongbond between chemistry and physics in terms of shared literature(Ackerson 1999).

A classic review by Rogers examined the question of how new ideasare diffused within a population (Rogers 1962). He surveyed diffusionstudies from areas as diverse as anthropology, sociology, education,and industry. For example, he looked at the adoption of innovativefarming practices and observed the impact of introducing driver educa-tion in schools. Rogers concluded that there were four general princi-ples of diffusion: an innovation is introduced into a new area through anoutside source; diffusion of a new idea takes time; innovations travelthrough established communication channels; and adoption of an inno-vation occurs within a social network.

Not all information is suitable for diffusion among disciplines. Whatis used largely depends on the type of research reported. Articles thatare theoretical in nature, such as those that discuss philosophy and con-cepts are more easily applied between disciplines. The formation of anew concept or the introduction of a new keyword can suggest a differ-

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ent perspective on an existing problem (Dogen and Pahre 1990). How-ever, articles that report experimental results are less likely to be shared,except those that report verified data, such as chemical and physicalproperties (Alverez 1997).

The other aspect of this study involves what Line referred to as “theeffects of time” on the use of literature (Line and Sandison 1974). SinceBurton and Kebler introduced the concept of a half-life in 1960, theconcept has been broadly adopted to explain the aging of literature andpredict how long an article will be used before it becomes obsolete(Burton and Kebler 1960). The concepts of half-life and obsolescencehave been widely criticized by researchers, who say that it infers a lossof value after a specified number of years. Close reading of Burton andKebler’s article shows that they considered whether the analogy of thehalf-life of radioactive materials could be properly used to explain theobserved tendency of older literature to be cited less frequently than re-cent literature. Their conclusion was that the analogy had some validity,but they cautioned that it should not be taken literally. In this paper am-biguous terms, such as obsolescence, aging, and half-life, are groupedunder the expression “effects of time.”

Central to the issue of use over time is the increasing influence of lit-erature growth. The growth factor explains that citation frequency de-creases over time, because the number of articles from which to chooseincreases exponentially, thereby lowering the probability that any onearticle will be cited. There is abundant evidence that myriad factors,aside from the growth rate, affect the use of literature over time. Onesignificant factor concerns the characteristics of information. Somestudies do eventually offer limited value to scientists, because the infor-mation reported has been superseded or shown to be incorrect. Con-versely, some studies gain another life and are cited more heavily asthey get older. The famous example of N-rays illustrates both situa-tions. When N-rays were first proposed early in the twentieth century,the early articles drew an extraordinary number of citations immedi-ately following publication, but research was abandoned when N-rayswere found to be nonexistent. However, this isolated set of about 200papers were used a half century later to study the dynamics of a researchfront (Meadows 1974).

Buckland introduced the idea that citation frequency may be relatedto the characteristics of a discipline and the type of research it conducts(Buckland 1972). His review of a number of studies led him to concludethat the rate of use was based on the tendency toward scatter. Physics re-search is published in a smaller number of core journals, a large per-


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centage of them rapid communications and letter journals. On average,physics articles have a shorter life span because they report continuousrefinements of previous studies. Research in zoology, on the other hand,is published in a wider range of journals that deal with concepts, philos-ophy, and classification and can be more widely diffused (Line 1973).

Another factor involves the characteristics of information consum-ers, because the same information may be used in different ways overtime (Griffith 1979; Line and Sandison 1974). Researchers engaged inupdating searches are primarily interested in the most recently pub-lished articles to keep pace with changes in their specific research areas.Others are involved in basic searches, in which they seek familiaritywith all literature on a subject, including the older literature. This typeof search is important to scientists moving from one research area to an-other and to individuals whose objectives are to conduct a comprehen-sive literature search. Textbook authors and historians of science alsouse a combination of both recent and older literature in order to presenta balanced account of a subject area.

What these two factors–diffusion and time–have in common is lag.There is a delay between the time research in one discipline is produceduntil it is diffused to other disciplines. The most common method bywhich scientists in one discipline borrow ideas from another is throughfollowing up the references from a key article. Anthony and othersfound this to be a favorite strategy of chemists and physicists (Anthony,East, and Slater 1969). Concepts or methods from a key article can beused by another discipline only when they can be adapted to address anexisting problem. Shannon’s theory appeared in the literature of thesame sub-discipline within a month. It was a year before it was cited inthe psychology literature, but it took seven years before it diffused tojournalism (Dahling 1962).

METHODOLOGY

A synchronous study was undertaken to assess whether age was afactor in the use of literature between two disciplines. The reciprocal re-lationship between the literatures of chemistry and physics has beenwell documented, so the citation behavior between these two disci-plines was analyzed. The sub-discipline of physical chemistry was se-lected because it is a stable area of research; its first specialized journalwas published in 1887 (Vickery 2000). As the bridge between chemis-


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try and physics, this area was expected to yield a sufficient number ofcross-citation cases to examine in order to achieve a reliable outcome.

Despite the shortcomings of the ISI impact factor long discussed inthe literature, it is a useful tool for identifying important research jour-nals by sub-discipline. The 1999 Journal Citation Reports listed 90 jour-nals in the subject category of physical chemistry. The list was sorted byimpact factor and the top 25% of the list (23 journals) were tagged forthe study (see Table 1). Multiple journals were selected to overcome thepossibility that a single prominent journal could distort the true value(Line and Sandison 1974).

Each journal was examined and detailed descriptions were made ofits scope and the kinds of items it published. Items published includedfull-length original research papers; review articles; shorter research ar-ticles variously titled rapid communications, research notes, brief com-


TABLE 1. Citing Journals Used for Study

Title of Citing Journal Type of Journal

Advances in catalysis Review

Annual review of physical chemistry Review

Catalysis reviews-science and engineering Review

Chemistry and physics of carbon Review

Current opinion in colloid and interface science Review

International reviews in physical chemistry Review

Structure and bonding Review

Surface science reports Review

Applied catalysis Original research

Chemistry of materials Original research

Faraday discussions Original research

Journal of the American society for mass spectrometry Original research

Journal of catalysis Original research

Journal of materials chemistry A Original research

Journal of physical chemistry A Original research

Journal of physical chemistry B Original research

Langmuir Original research

Surface science Original research

Tetrahedron asymmetry Original research

Theoretical chemistry accounts Original research

Topics in catalysis Original research

Journal of physical and chemical reference data Mixed

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munications, and priority communications; book reviews; conferenceproceedings; abstracts of papers from conferences; letters to the editor;editorials; and book chapters. Only articles with reference lists were in-cluded, because data were taken from the cited references. As a result,book reviews, abstracts from conference papers, and most editorialswere excluded. Book chapters were also excluded, as the study focusedon journal literature.

A fixed year–1999–was selected as the time period from which cita-tions were sampled. Advances in Catalysis was not published in 1999,due to an irregular publication schedule, so data were taken from the1998 issues. Theoretica Chimica Acta was omitted from the study, be-cause it was superseded in 1996 by Theoretical Chemistry Accounts,which was already on the list of journals to be examined. Therefore, ar-ticles were drawn from only 22 journals. Eight of the 22 were reviewjournals; thirteen published results of original research; and one journalpublished both reviews and original research. The functions of reviewjournals and original research journals are inherently different, and it iswidely believed that review articles cite papers published over a longerperiod of time. The data from these two types were kept separate, so ifthere were a significant difference in cited dates by type of journal, thedata from one would not affect the other.

DATA COLLECTION

The following information was collected about each journal: numberof articles published in 1999 (taken from the Journal Citation ReportsJournal Summary List); the number of issues published in 1999 (takenfrom Current Contents); and journal type. The assignment of journaltype was based on the kinds of articles and the proportions of each kindpublished in 1999. Journal type was classified as “original research” ifthe journal published reports of basic research or the results of experi-mental work, or as “review” if the journal was devoted to providing de-scription, compilation, and evaluation of original research inspecialized areas. For example, Applied Catalysis B published two re-views and 100 original research articles in 1999, so it was classified as“original research” type. Eleven of the 12 articles published in SurfaceScience Reports in 1999 were reviews, so this title was classified as “re-view” type. However, The Journal of Physical and Chemical ReferenceData published 14 review articles and seven original research articles in1999, so it was labeled as “mixed,” rather than assigning it to one jour-nal type or the other.


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This descriptive data was supplied to the Illinois Statistics Office, aconsulting center supported by the Department of Statistics at the Uni-versity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Center staff used a computer-ized table of random numbers to generate a sampling strategy for eachjournal type, based on a desired reliability level of 95%. The samplewas composed of 22 articles from 12 journals. For example, the 3rd,11th, and 18th articles in the 1999 volume of the Annual Review ofPhysics and Chemistry were specified. Current Contents was used toidentify the 3rd, 11th, and 18th articles, and the reference lists fromthese articles were photocopied.

For each article in the sample, the following data were recorded: typeof citing journal (i.e., original research, review, or mixed), year of eachcited reference, title of each cited journal, and subject of each cited jour-nal. The subject was assigned by one of two methods. If the cited jour-nal was an ISI source journal, the subject was assigned in accordancewith the subject categories specified for the journal. If the cited journalwas not an ISI source journal, the subject was assigned using the OCLCsubject headings.

Subject categories in ISI are not broadly labeled by discipline, but arebroken into sub-categories. In order to distinguish one discipline fromanother, an assignment key was devised to specify the sub-categoriesused to define each discipline. According to this key, the followingsub-categories were labeled as chemistry: general chemistry, analyticalchemistry, applied chemistry, inorganic and nuclear chemistry, medici-nal chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, catalysis, chro-matography, kinetics, polymers, and macromolecules. The discipline ofphysics was represented by the following sub-categories: general phys-ics; applied physics; atomic, molecular, and chemical physics; con-densed matter physics; fluids and plasmas physics; mathematicalphysics; nuclear physics; particles and fields physics; optics, acoustics,and thermodynamics.

ISI usually assigns more than one sub-category to a title. If a citedjournal also fell into a sub-category outside those identified as chemis-try or physics, the journal was considered to belong to the related disci-pline. For example, a journal whose sub-category was biochemistrywas classed as biology, because the aim of the study was to explore theuse of literature shared between chemistry and physics. Some citedjournals publish articles that are authored and cited by scientists inmany disciplines. Titles such as Science, Nature, and Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences play an important role in the research ofchemists by reporting studies of potential interest from other disciplines


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that may have otherwise been missed (Meadows 1976). These titleswere assigned the subject label of multidisciplinary. The assignmentkey ensured that cited journals were consistently designated as one dis-cipline or the other, but the author recognizes there may be questionsabout the assignment of some sub-categories.

Up to 200 citations were analyzed from an article. If the list of refer-ences appended to an article numbered more than 200, data were takenfrom only the first 100. Consultation with the Illinois Statistics Officeaffirmed that the first 100 references are sufficient to represent the cita-tions from an article. References do not occur in rank order on a refer-ence list but are arranged alphabetically by the primary author’s nameor in the order they appear in the text. Data were taken from a total of1,177 references and were entered into a Microsoft Excel file.

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

The data set was submitted to the Illinois Statistics Office for analy-sis. Summary information for each journal type was generated, usingthe S-PLUS statistical software package. The results are shown in Table 2.As expected, chemistry and physics articles accounted for the majorityof citations in all journal types. Up to 11% of the citations were tomultidisciplinary journals, with the remainder to miscellaneous otherdisciplines (e.g., engineering, biology, and geology).

In the single mixed journal, an overwhelming proportion of the citedreferences was to chemistry journals and the cited date ranges weremuch wider than those of the other two journal types. The great differ-ences between this type and the other types could have resulted from thecharacter of this specific journal, rather than being representative ofmixed journals. Since there were no other mixed journals with which tocompare these values, the data from this journal were not used in furtheranalysis.

The median citation age was calculated later, using the discrete anal-ysis method, in which years are treated as discrete units, rather than as aseries of quarters or months (Cunningham and Bobcock 1995). To cal-culate the median citation age, the median cited date is subtracted fromthe date of the citing article. For example, if the median cited date is1992 and the citing article was published in 1999, the median citationage is seven years. The median age is a more descriptive measure of usethan the median date, which varies according to the citing year selected.In original research articles, the median age at which chemists cited


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TA

BLE

2.S

umm

ary

Dat

aby

Typ

eof

Jour

nal

Rev

iew

Jour

nals

Dis

cip

line

No.re

fsP

roport

ion

Earlie

stdate

cited

Late

stdate

cited

Media

ncitation

date

Media

nage

Che

mis

try

293

41%

1923

1998

1993

6ye

ars

Phy

sics

183

25%

1937

1998

1994

5ye

ars

Orig

inal

Res

earc

hJo

urna

ls

Dis

cip

line

No.re

fsP

roport

ion

Earlie

stdate

cited

Late

stdate

cited

Media

ncitation

date

Media

nage

Che

mis

try

144

56%

1941

1999

1993

6ye

ars

Phy

sics

5321

%19

2119

9819

927

year

s

Mix

edJo

urna

ls

Dis

cip

line

No.re

fsP

roport

ion

Earlie

stdate

cited

Late

st

date

cited

Media

ncitation

date

Media

nage

Che

mis

try

158

80%

1918

1998

1979

20ye

ars

Phy

sics

116%

1941

1992

1968

31ye

ars

72

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their own journals was six years, while for physics, it was seven years.In review journals, the median citation age of chemistry articles used bychemists was six years, while in physics, it was five years. There wasonly one year’s difference in the ages of the articles cited when the anal-ysis was limited to journal type. Even when original research and re-view journals were combined, the median citation age of chemistryarticles were the same, with only a two-year difference in the citationages of physics articles.

Libraries differ in the amount of space they have available and maywant to consider using a cut-off date to decide what to transfer to stor-age. The data were analyzed to determine how many years of journalsthe library would need to retain to satisfy a certain level of anticipatedjournal requests. Bootstrap, a re-sampling method used for analyzingnonparametric data, was employed to determine the confidence intervaland point estimate of a given percentile.

The summary data shown in Table 1 identified the ranges of yearscited by chemistry and physics articles. Because the ranges were ex-tremely wide, there was some concern about whether the earliest citeddates skewed the distribution and affected the median dates. To detectthe effect of outliers in the 90 percentile, for example, the data were firstranked and then the 90 percentile was taken as the estimate. The sam-pling scheme was repeated 5,000 times using the original data with re-placement. These 5,000 numbers formed the reference distribution, andthe confidence interval was calculated from the distribution. If outlierswere present, they did not occupy more than 90% of the data set, sothere was only a small probability that the mean of the distribution wasone of the outlier values.

Table 3 shows the number of years to be retained to satisfy a certainpercentage of demand at a probability level of 95%. Fifty percent of thechemistry literature chemists are likely to need would be available bykeeping a back-run of nine years of chemistry journals, while 50% ofthe physics articles consulted by chemists would be available by retain-ing the last seven years of physics journals. However, to satisfy 90% ofthe needs of chemists, chemistry journals should be retained for 38years, while a 31-year back-run of physics journals would have to bemaintained.

Bourne’s discussion of the law of diminishing returns is particularlyrelevant here. The core group of users a library wishes to accommodatecan help to determine a cut-off date. He states that, “. . . a disproportion-ate effort is usually required to raise the system performance from a ca-pacity to satisfy some high fraction to satisfying 100 percent of the user


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requirements” (Bourne 1965, 94). A great many more volumes wouldbe required to satisfy 90% of the anticipated needs than to satisfy 80%.What the library retains is also influenced by factors such as the leveland performance of interlibrary loan and document delivery servicesprovided.

CONCLUSION

The results of my study differ from previous studies that found disci-plines have a strong tendency to use the older, rather than the newer lit-erature of related disciplines. I found that physical chemists cite physicsarticles that are of comparable age to those of chemistry. If older phys-ics articles are extensively used to support the research of chemists, itwould be evident in the area of physical chemistry. Instead, in this sam-ple, the older articles chemists cite are from the chemistry literature or


TABLE 3. Years to Be Retained to Satisfy Specified Percentage of Demand

Chemistry Journals

50 percentile, at 95% reliability level

Confidence Interval Point Estimate Standard Error

1990-1991 1990 0.5314



1977-1981 1979 1.3659



1961-1971 1965 2.7812

Physics Journals



1992-1994 1994 .05926



1978-1983 1981 1.3716



1986-1977 1973 2.5517

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are to papers from multi-disciplinary journals. Therefore, storage deci-sions regarding physics journals need not be contingent on users fromrelated disciplines. If journals are retained at a level that satisfies physi-cists, they are likely to satisfy chemists as well.

It is worth noting that many of the previous studies that characterizedliterature use between disciplines as a function of age were reportedprior to 1980. Among the most frequently cited studies include those ofFussler (1949), Burton and Kebler (1960), Price (1965), and Meadows(1974). However the nature of scientific research has changed dramati-cally since the 1960s (Ziman 1994), with a growing trend toward col-laboration. Economic factors, including the cost of sophisticatedinstruments, equipment, and materials; the need for more highly-trainedsupport staff; and the tendency of interdisciplinary research projects toattract federal funding, encourage researchers from multiple disciplinesto share resources. Scientists who participate in interdisciplinary en-deavors bring their expertise and specialized knowledge of current re-search in their own areas to the table. It is less likely that chemists willuse the older literature of physics in this situation.

The summary data from this study shown in Table 2 demonstrate thatreview articles are no more likely to cite a wider date range of literaturethan are original research articles. The oldest physics article from 1921was cited in an original research article, while the oldest chemistry arti-cle from 1923 was cited in a review article. These are extreme values,however, and the median citation dates for chemistry and physics arti-cles in both original research and review journals are 1992 to 1994.

Although current journals are widely available online, many librariesstill buy print copies, which continue to consume shelf space. Older is-sues are being converted to electronic format and available online toprint subscribers, but the print counterpart usually remains in the li-brary. Science research libraries will undoubtedly continue to retain andadd to their print collections for many years, and managing print collec-tions will continue to be an important part of maintaining a relevant col-lection of documents for scientific research.

REFERENCES

Ackerson, LG. (1999). Visualizing the configuration of scientific literature: a study ofdisciplinary relationships. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 39, 43-52.

Alvarez, P., & Pulgarin, A. (1997). The diffusion of scientific journals analyzedthrough citations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48,953-958.


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Anthony, L.J., East, H., & Slater, M.J. (1969). The growth of the literature of physics.Reports on Progress in Physics, 32, 709-767.

Bourne, C.P. (1965). Some user requirements stated quantitatively in terms of the 90percent library. In A. Kent, & O.E. Taulbee (Eds.), Electronic information handling(pp. 93-110). Washington, DC: Spartan Books.

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Received: 11/11/01Peer-Reviewed: 11/26/01

Revised and Accepted: 12/03/01


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