The lucky orbit: one subscription agent’s approach to collection management reports

Librarians lack in-house tools for analyzing serials collections and have, for many years, relied on their subscription agents to provide collection-level data for this function. The Faxon Company has recently developed new reports that enhance libraries’ capabilities to determine serials collection strengths and weaknesses by subject, country of origin, language of publication, and other data elements. Agents have offered collection management reports for some time; however, advances in computer data storage and processing have allowed Faxon to derive information about the universe of serials titles for comparison against individual library collections. This new capability gives librarians new and better tools for coping with the challenges of managing serials.