BIOSIS Citation Index is OTO: $26281

HathiTrust Membership is Base: $12591

Usage of print/physical information resources at the MSU Library is declining, while demand for and use of electronic resources continues to increase.  

A HathiTrust membership will keep us on-par with our peer institutions in providing access for our faculty, staff and students to e-books, e-journals, and other e-resources in a wide variety of disciplines and subject areas from anywhere with Internet access.  Current content includes:

• 10,585,321 total volumes
• 5,569,903 book titles
• 275,855 serial titles
• 3,704,862,350 pages

Many of HathiTrust’s member institutions (over 65 libraries and consortia) are Carnegie RU/VH level and having access to this database would help keep us competitive for the information resources our researchers expect.

The BIOSIS Citation Index is a partner resource to our existing Web of Knowledge citation databases, which are crucial in the sciences and social sciences.  Benefits include:

• Find the first mention of plants, organisms, chemicals, or lab techniques in various life sciences fields.

• Access high quality journal content as well as content from reports, reviews, and meetings
• Discover high-impact article and related records that are based on shared references
• Detect emerging trends that help pursue successful research and grant acquisition
• Follow the history or methodology of a topic
• See where top Life Sciences researchers are publishing and presenting findings
• Identify potential collaborators with significant publication records
• Ease searching, writing, and bibliography creation into one integrated process
• Produce high quality papers that reflect how past work forms the context for today’s life sciences discoveries.
• Get a comprehensive, yet focused, view of life sciences literature from a resource designed specifically for the biological community.  

Membership in HathiTrust would create a net gain of 5,569,903 book titles and 275,855 journal titles available from any networked computer or device. (from http://www.hathitrust.org/statistics_info).  In addition, there is the potential to free up space in the Library for duplicate items contained in HathiTrust, thus providing areas for more dynamic, interactive uses such those found in the current Library Commons.

BIOSIS Citation Index would create a net gain of the following items from 1926-present:

• 6000 Journals
• All Biological Abstracts and Biological Previews content including journals, books, proceedings, patents, etc.
• Over 22 million citations from life science journals, reports, books, meetings, conferences and patents
• Intellectually Assigned Coding & Indexing
• Cited Reference Searching         
• Citation Reports & Data
• Citation Maps
• Times Cited Reports

More details on both databases can be found via their Web sites:

• HathiTrust benefits: http://www.hathitrust.org/features_benefits
• BIOSIS Backfile benefits: http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/science_products/a-z/biosis_citation_index/

As soon as funding is approved, membership in HathiTrust and purchase of the BIOSIS Citation Index backfiles can occur.  These resources will be seamlessly accessible from MSU computers and off-campus via MSU credentialled-login. 

Usage statistics, including number of site-visits, articles accessed and downloaded, time spent on these web sites are all available as a part of the subscriptions/purchases. These statistics are good indicators of relavency for research. 

If usage statistics are low after the first and/or second year of usage for HathiTrust, then promotional/educational efforts will be ramped up in all colleges to raise awareness about this resource. If usage is still low at the end of the third year, then membership will be discontinued at the end of the contract year. BIOSIS Citation Index is a OTO cost, so we will have access to this resource regardless of usage. Still, if usage is low, we will work to promote this resource in the life-sciences areas.