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!).