Using Current Awareness Search Results to Measure A Journal Collection's Relevancy

This study describes a method for determining the usefulness and relevancy of a journal collection. Current awareness search results in the subject areas of physics and astronomy were compiled and reviewed to determine how many of the articles retrieved in these searches were available in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus libraries. The results of this checklist study method indicate that over 90% of the articles retrieved in the current awareness searches in 1997 could be located either at the Physics/Astronomy Library or elsewhere on campus. The findings compare favorably with previous journal-use studies that have identified the most frequently used titles in the collection. This study also identifies journals of potential interest to which the library has no active subscription and quantifies the impact of previously canceled titles.