Page 102 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Xincai WANG, Haining WANG / Empirical study on journal literature guarantee of academic library: A case study of Wuhan University 101

cited references of the sample citations while leaving certain cited references uncovered. This
situation will be discussed in the next section.

Table 1. Available cited references, source journals, and the ACF of available journals
No. of cited Percentage of available No. of source Percentage of available ACF of available
Resource
references sample citations (%) journals source journals (%) journals
E 50 626 75.60 4 439 63.69 11.40
P 34 972 52.22 2 224 31.91 15.72
OA 9 732 14.53 740 10.62 13.15
E∪P∪OA 58 915 87.97 5 112 73.34 11.52

In the OA environment, the joint literature guarantee rate of sample citations is 87.97% in view
of all the three resources. As the “best size” described by Steele (1978), this finding corresponds to
the steady-state theory by and large. Merely considering the electronic and print journal resources,
the joint literature guarantee rate of sample citations is 87.24%. Results infer that electronic
and print journal collections remain the foremost knowledge sources suitable for the academic
information needs of patrons from Wuhan University.
The electronic collection, which provides 75.60% of the sample citations and 63.69% of the source
journals performs an outstanding guarantee rate. However, the ACF of electronic journals is the
lowest among the three resources. As for this circumstance, we cannot exclude the possibility that
some journals seldom used by patrons were included in the “big deal”. In comparison, the source
journals guaranteed by the print collection are as half of the number of the electronic collection, while
the print collection’s guarantee rate of sample citations is 69.08% of the counterpart of the electronic
collection. Besides, the ACF of print collection reaches up to 15.72 times, making print collection
the most popular resource. This indicates a remarkable achievement in print journal acquisition
and reselection of the library. 14.53% of the sample citations and 10.62% of the source journals are
guaranteed by the OA resources. It’s worth mentioning that the ACF of OA journals is higher than
that of the electronic journals. Over 10 years has witnessed the development of OA journals. With a
reputation for high quality, now OA journals play an important role in the field of literature supply.
Thus, OA resources should not be ignored in the collection development in academic libraries.
As for the cited references which were published before 1997, the print collection has a higher
guarantee rate than that of the other two (see Figure 2). This finding suggests that the print journal
collection cannot be overemphasized in back issues supply. Yet, due to the cancellations of print
subscriptions and the co-building mode of branch and main libraries in the Wuhan University,
the guarantee rate of print collection declined from its peak in 1980. Along with wide swings,
the electronic collection’s guarantee rate of backfile before 1990 is below 51.88%. This finding
thus supports that the electronic collection is not a reliable and ideal resource to maintain
long-term access to the back issues. Furthermore, acquiring multiple full-text databases which
contain the same journal to increase the stability of literature guarantee is not advisable. The