GEOSCIENCE MONOGRAPH SERIES -- ARE THEY WORTH THE COST OR ARE THEY A GREAT VALUE FOR LIBRARIES?

Earth Sciences Libraries abound with monograph series published by societies, research institutes, universities, and government agencies. Some of those published by the societies, for example, the Geological Society of America’s Special Paper series, the Mineralogical Society of America’s Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry series, or the American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ AAPG Memoir series, may take up a lot of shelf space and are unpredictable in publication schedule and/or cost per volume.

This study focused on a selected number of series, all of which were non-commercially published, broad in geographic scope, and established monographic series. Several of the university-published series are actually publishing venues for theses. Some, published by government agencies, are acquired on deposit, as gifts, or at very low cost. Others, such as the Geological Society’s Special Publication series, have a more expensive price tag. Cost per year, use of the volumes (as determined by circulation and in-house use records) and citation rates were examined. Stanford University Libraries figures were supplemented by data from MIT Libraries. The information collected for the selected series was also contrasted with comparable data for commercially published books purchased individually.

This examination of the cost and use data for the society monographic series volumes and the other selected series indicates that, by and large, they are well used, and worth the shelf space and purchase price. Purchase of the same volumes on an as needed basis could be more expensive.