Graduate Student Use of Journals

A 17% reduction in the library materials budget and faculty resistance to journal cancellations necessitated a demonstration of journal usage in a large academic library. Analysis of journal citations from theses revealed quantifiable data that differed from the 80/20 rule. Graduate students cited journals almost twice as frequently as do professional psychologists, and 91.9% of journal citations in theses were from locally-owned journals. One-quarter of the library's "psychology" journals were cited not at all, providing a large list of candidates for cancellation consideration. Thesis bibliographies tended to be longer after acquisition of PsycLIT.