UPDATED SUMMARY: replaced print with virtual medical/hospital lib rary Devereaux, MaryJo 19 Mar 2008 13:11 UTC

Whoops! 2nd times the charm!
Hi Everyone, I've had two great NEW replies and have placed them at the top
of the summary for ease of use purposes, for those of you interested.
Again, I wanted to thank everyone for their help!  Enjoy the rest of your
day.

Mary Jo

============================================================
Hi Everyone,

    I need to find out how many hospital libraries are totally virtual or
electronic library or have the majority of their material as a virtual or
electronic collection. [a ratio of electronic to print would be great!].  I
need to know to what extent some libraries have replaced their collections
from hard copy to electronic/digital/virtual collections.  I will summarize
for the list of there is an interest.  I also plan to do a medline search as
well. [sorry about the cross-posting]

TIA.
Mary Jo Devereaux, M.L.S.
Community Medical Center
Physician's Library
1800 Mulberry Street
Scranton PA  18510
v.  570-969-8197
f.  570-969-8902
 ===========================================================
I must have missed your request...  We are a large teaching system (7
hospitals).  Last year we consolidated our two largest hospitals on to one
campus. Since space was a premium, our leadership communicated that we could
do with only a virtual library.  I convened a focus group and interviewed
key stakeholders.  There was a resounding response that the "library as
place" continued to be very important - I'll be presenting a poster at MLA
on this project.

During the past year, we have combined two libraries and will move to a much
smaller space in two weeks.  Obviously we had to migrate to a more extensive
virtual format.  Our print book collection has been reduced by two-thirds.
We did an assessment of print and online coverage and decided to retain
physical access for the last two years of print journals (because of
embargos, etc.).  We discarded volumes covered by online access and will
retain a few older bound volumes of core titles not covered by online
content.

With downsizing, I stressed to leadership that our costs would not decrease.
As a result we have had significant budget increases for each of the past
several .  My book budget has decreased from about $35,000 five years ago to
$16,000 currently.  Print subscriptions have been reduced from about 430
eight years ago to 130 currently.  We have purchased additional STAT!Ref,
OVID, R2 ebooks and added four NetLibrary collections.

One thing that I didn't notice in any of the replies you received was the
risk of losing access to what you had already paid for.  This can happen at
least 2 ways:

1.	You drop a journal subscription, and the publisher doesn't allow
access to years you had previously had online access to.

2.	A publisher, such as Nature, changes the rules and gives access to
only the most recent rolling 4 years after you have gotten rid of your print
backfiles and/or subscribed to the journal for years.  They expect extra
money for access to online backfiles.  You may have paid for the print
version of the journal, then started getting it online, and then pay for it
yet a third time to keep your access.

Despite this, we too are moving to online-only in stages, dropping probably
50 print journals each year within the realm of cost-efficiency.

Another issue is that of print vs. online content being different or
omitting content so that you have to take both to have the complete journal.
I even ran across a journal recently that we had both ways, and the graphics
that were in color in the print issue were b&w in the pdf.  (I hope that
doesn't happen often.)

Over 90% of our journal collection is online only. Out of a collection of
450 print journals (from a few years ago, since we now have over 1,000
thanks to consortial deals), we only have around 40-50 titles still received
in print (and many of those are also received electronically).

I just read:

Tanila P Bardyn and Caroline S. Young. "Migration to an electronic journal
collection in a
hospital library: implications for reference services" Medical References
Services Quarterly, Vol 26 (4) Winter 2007

I'm kind of a hybrid...  stats are:

691 print books
147 electronic books
16 print journals
356 electronic journals

E-books are not nearly as popular or as frequently used as e-journals,
though usage is slowly increasing as people get used to them.  E-journals
have caught on like wildfire, and no one really noticed the print journals
disappearing!

We have about 450 online full text journals and only 125 print journals.
That aboaut 1 print to every 4 online full text.    The book collection
is still heavy on the print, only 50 full text books.

I am right in the middle of this-literally. I got buy-in 2 years ago to
migrate from print (journals only, not books) to online by 2008 with the
exception of retaining print to about 10 'browsing' journals--and
suddenly, it's 2008!

I am an OPL, and I know that the print journals are not getting used AT
ALL. When we started an online subscription, we just stopped the print,
but did not dispose of them, until now. I am sorting through my
remaining print with the intent to dispose of those years that are
duplicated online. I was not able to replace everything with an online
institutional license ($$), so some of the titles we had held in print
are not available online. For those titles I will keep the dead runs of
print and see what happens.

This entails risk, and I am bracing for negative push back mostly from
physicians, which is why I got approval from higher ups. I do firmly
believe this is the way to go and could not justify seeing those
un-used journals sitting there gathering dust.

  In terms of electronic vs. print, in the past year, we acquired 2
electronic book titles from Rittenhouse R-2, and 10 print books(core
collection for the residents).  Med Exec(who pays for materials) suddenly
decided they wanted no print books, and the 10 I ordered took some
persuading from the director of the residency program(I've suggested
Stat-Ref for electronic books, but they are balking because of price).
Starting this year, the only print journals we have left are JAMA and NEJM.
Med Exec didn't want any print, but these two titles are popular and come
with online access.  We have had EBSCO Medline with Fulltext for a year now,
which is about 1100 journals.

We are about 1/3 electronic.  We are moving to more electronic for journals
but just discontinued electronic books.  Physicians like electronic journals
and prefer print copies of books.

 one statistic I saw the other day stated that only 60% of medical
literature back to 1992 is available online.  I saw this in the MLA
presentation http://mlanet.org/ppt/myths_truths_0610.ppt
This is located on the MLA web page about hospital libraries:
http://mlanet.org/resources/vital/
We continue to provide major textbooks both online and on the shelf and
collect both medical and nursing titles online.  Over the last 10 years
we've decreased our print journal collection from around 500 titles to less
than 100.
We are going through the process of downsizing our physical facility, and
are also looking at going mostly electronic.  I am very much interested in
what you glean from our collective minds.  It looks at this point in time
like we will be going about 80% electronic with our journals, but probably
only about 50% with books.

We went to a totally electronic format beginning this year with the
exception that we carry the current year of our titles in print.  The
reviews are "mixed" - this was an administrative decision without
total support from faculty.  It enabled us to downsize space
requirements (stacks took about 1/3 of our space).  It did not result
in increased costs; some of our titles were actually less expensive
going only electronic.  Note that we are not a hospital but a basic
science cancer research center - there may be some considerations
regarding patient care, nursing and other staff, which we do not have
to deal with.

We have Softlink Liberty ASP as our PAC and
Online Reference tool, but the hospital has
yet to pay for it, so I unfortunately can't
give you much regarding experience with an
electronic library.

However, we do have several journals online.
Right now, it's an electronic to print ratio
of 1:3, largely because our journals budget
was slashed significantly (about 25%) between
2005 to 2007. Our print holdings are still
where it's at in our collection; however,
because no one has weeded in over ten years,
and I still have most titles from 1980 - present,

We are pretty much all virtual now as far as anything current, some 500
electronic journals thru OVID package.
We still have backissues of maybe 200 print titles for now til space runs
out.   We haven't so much replaced as just down sized and gotten rid of all
our books except a very small collection of nursing, leadership and videos.

We have been incorporated into another department Quality Resource Center
and are not really a "library" anymore.

We are totally electronic  -- with a lot of old journals in the garage we've
replaced almost all of our print journals with electronic (only 31 print
title and a few of these are duplicated electronically).  The only ones left
are those with free electronic access with print and a couple of title
(Elsevier) whose expense in electronic format we simply can't justify but
still need.  We have only about 25 electronic books.  Our library is going
towards virtual, but it is more cost effective to make it a gradual process.
As new books, journals become easier to get online,w e are purchasing the
online versions..  In 2007, 69% of the resources were from online sources;
in 2006 it was 54%. We keep the minimum number of hard copy journals to meet
docline ILL standards, although more of our  journals are available
online(ILL can be written in to the license agreements). Staff still  come
in to read current issues of  journals. And not all books are available
online. We keep some older texts on the shelf, with a note to check online
for the most recent editions. We also have a  hard copy collection of
atlases,  guidelines, books about complications and emergency treatments and
basic texts (in case the power fails).

-----Original Message-----
From: Devereaux, MaryJo [mailto:MaryJo.Devereaux@CMCHEALTHSYS.ORG]
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 2:25 PM
To: MEDLIB-L@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: SUMMARY: replaced print with virtual medical/hospital library

Sorry about this summary being delayed.........but as promised, this is what
you all shared with me and I thank you greatly!  I hope this helps others
also.   IF anyone want to add their information, please feel free to email
me off-list and I will re-summarize if possible.

On 2/14/08, Devereaux, MaryJo < MaryJo.Devereaux@cmchealthsys.org
<mailto:MaryJo.Devereaux@cmchealthsys.org> > wrote:

Hi Everyone,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

    I need to find out how many hospital libraries are totally virtual or
electronic library or have the majority of their material as a virtual or
electronic collection. [a ratio of electronic to print would be great!].  I
need to know to what extent some libraries have replaced their collections
from hard copy to electronic/digital/virtual collections.  I will summarize
for the list of there is an interest.  I also plan to do a medline search as
well. [sorry about the cross-posting]

TIA.

Mary Jo Devereaux, M.L.S.
Community Medical Center
Physician's Library
1800 Mulberry Street
Scranton PA  18510
v.  570-969-8197
f.  570-969-8902

   _____

Over 90% of our journal collection is online only. Out of a collection of
450 print journals (from a few years ago, since we now have over 1,000
thanks to consortial deals), we only have around 40-50 titles still received
in print (and many of those are also received electronically).

   _____

I just read:

Tanila P Bardyn and Caroline S. Young. "Migration to an electronic journal
collection in a

hospital library: implications for reference services" Medical References
Services Quarterly, Vol 26 (4) Winter 2007

   _____

I'm kind of a hybrid...  stats are:

691 print books

147 electronic books

16 print journals

356 electronic journals

E-books are not nearly as popular or as frequently used as e-journals,
though usage is slowly increasing as people get used to them.  E-journals
have caught on like wildfire, and no one really noticed the print journals
disappearing!

   _____

We have about 450 online full text journals and only 125 print journals.

That about 1 print to every 4 online full text.    The book collection

is still heavy on the print, only 50 full text books.

   _____

I am right in the middle of this-literally. I got buy-in 2 years ago to

migrate from print (journals only, not books) to online by 2008 with the

exception of retaining print to about 10 'browsing' journals--and

suddenly, it's 2008!

I am an OPL, and I know that the print journals are not getting used AT

ALL. When we started an online subscription, we just stopped the print,

but did not dispose of them, until now. I am sorting through my

remaining print with the intent to dispose of those years that are

duplicated online. I was not able to replace everything with an online

institutional license ($$), so some of the titles we had held in print

are not available online. For those titles I will keep the dead runs of

print and see what happens.

This entails risk, and I am bracing for negative push back mostly from

physicians, which is why I got approval from higher ups. I do firmly

believe this is the way to go and could not justify seeing those

un-used journals sitting there gathering dust.

   _____

 In terms of electronic vs. print, in the past year, we acquired 2
electronic book titles from Rittenhouse R-2, and 10 print books(core
collection for the residents).  Med Exec(who pays for materials) suddenly
decided they wanted no print books, and the 10 I ordered took some
persuading from the director of the residency program(I've suggested
Stat-Ref for electronic books, but they are balking because of price).
Starting this year, the only print journals we have left are JAMA and NEJM.
Med Exec didn't want any print, but these two titles are popular and come
with online access.  We have had EBSCO Medline with Fulltext for a year now,
which is about 1100 journals.

   _____

We are about 1/3 electronic.  We are moving to more electronic for journals
but just discontinued electronic books.  Physicians like electronic journals
and prefer print copies of books.

   _____

one statistic I saw the other day stated that only 60% of medical literature
back to 1992 is available online.  I saw this in the MLA presentation
<http://mlanet.org/ppt/myths_truths_0610.ppt>
http://mlanet.org/ppt/myths_truths_0610.ppt

This is located on the MLA web page about hospital libraries:
<http://mlanet.org/resources/vital/> http://mlanet.org/resources/vital/

We continue to provide major textbooks both online and on the shelf and
collect both medical and nursing titles online.  Over the last 10 years
we've decreased our print journal collection from around 500 titles to less
than 100.

   _____

We are going through the process of downsizing our physical facility, and

are also looking at going mostly electronic.  I am very much interested in

what you glean from our collective minds.  It looks at this point in time

like we will be going about 80% electronic with our journals, but probably

only about 50% with books.

   _____

We went to a totally electronic format beginning this year with the

exception that we carry the current year of our titles in print.  The

reviews are "mixed" - this was an administrative decision without

total support from faculty.  It enabled us to downsize space

requirements (stacks took about 1/3 of our space).  It did not result

in increased costs; some of our titles were actually less expensive

going only electronic.  Note that we are not a hospital but a basic

science cancer research center - there may be some considerations

regarding patient care, nursing and other staff, which we do not have

to deal with.

   _____

We have Softlink Liberty ASP as our PAC and

Online Reference tool, but the hospital has

yet to pay for it, so I unfortunately can't

give you much regarding experience with an

electronic library.

However, we do have several journals online.

Right now, it's an electronic to print ratio

of 1:3, largely because our journals budget

was slashed significantly (about 25%) between

2005 to 2007. Our print holdings are still

where it's at in our collection; however,

because no one has weeded in over ten years,

and I still have most titles from 1980 - present,

   _____

We are pretty much all virtual now as far as anything current, some 500
electronic journals thru OVID package.

We still have back issues of maybe 200 print titles for now till space runs
out.   We haven't so much replaced as just down sized and gotten rid of all
our books except a very small collection of nursing, leadership and videos.

We have been incorporated into another department Quality Resource Center
and are not really a "library" anymore.

   _____

We are totally electronic  -- with a lot of old journals in the garage

   _____

we've replaced almost all of our print journals with electronic (only 31
print title and a few of these are duplicated electronically).  The only
ones left are those with free electronic access with print and a couple of
title (Elsevier) whose expense in electronic format we simply can't justify
but still need.  We have only about 25 electronic books.

   _____

Our library is going towards virtual, but it is more cost effective to make
it a gradual process. As new books, journals become easier to get online,w e
are purchasing the online versions..  In 2007, 69% of the resources were
from online sources; in 2006 it was 54%. We keep the minimum number of hard
copy journals to meet docline ILL standards, although more of our  journals
are available online(ILL can be written in to the license agreements). Staff
still  come in to read current issues of  journals. And not all books are
available online. We keep some older texts on the shelf, with a note to
check online for the most recent editions. We also have a  hard copy
collection of atlases,  guidelines, books about complications and emergency
treatments and basic texts (in case the power fails).

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DISCLAIMER: The information in this message is confidential and may be
legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee.  Access to this
message by anyone else is unauthorised.  If you are not the intended
recipient, any disclosure, copying, or distribution of the message, or any
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unlawful.  Please immediately contact the sender if you have received this
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