A focus on Psychology Research at the University of Houston USING SCOPUS TO STUDY CITING BEHAVIOR FOR COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT Irene Ke, MLS, MS Psychology & Social Work Librarian University of Houston

Psychology Research at UH  A university in transition: Tier One initiative  Psychology publication trend (University of Houston) Data source: SCOPUS

Project Goal: Gather evidence for collection decisions Objectives: To learn  How psychology researchers use information  Whether the library collection meets campus research needs

Essential questions  How psychology researchers use information What journals were cited and how often? Time range (age) of sources cited (Do old materials matter?) Types of materials cited (Do books matter?)  Whether the library collection meets campus research needs Does the library subscribe to the journals that researchers cited? Do researchers use the journals provided by the library?

Methodology  Data Collection: Citation data: SCOPUSSCOPUS Strengths Limitations Usage data: COUNTER, Serials Solutions (Focus on journals only) Download times  Papers included in the study: Published by a UH researcher between 2000 to 2013 Papers were classified to “psychology” as a subject in SCOPUS

Preliminary Finding I The peak time of an article being cited is between 1 to 8 years after its publication. Time range (age) of sources cited (Do old materials matter?): “The year the cited source was published” minus “the year the citing paper was published” Note: all source types are included in this analysis. It covers 6 years’ data: 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2012, years

Preliminary Finding II  A wide range of journals were cited: 543 journal titles were cited from 2002 to 2013  Only a small portion of journals get cited often: 33 titles were cited more than 100 times (about 6% of all cited journals) 368 titles were cited equal to or less than 20 times (about 68% of all cited journals)  Most frequently cited journal: Journal of Applied Psychology (567 times) How do campus researchers cite journals?

Preliminary Finding III  The library has a great coverage of the journals that were cited often: Do we subscribe to the journals that got cited? Journals were cited≥ 21 times Journals were cited ≥ 100 times Number of titles17533 Number of titles that Library subscribes to (full access) % 92%100%

Preliminary Finding IV Citation (from Scopus) and usage data (from 360 Counter, Serials Solutions) comparison Number of times a title was cited in 2012 Number of times a title was downloaded in 2012 Does citation data aligns with usage (download) data? N=69 titles

Preliminary thoughts For collection development  Decisions on old materials  Build the “core”  Multidisciplinary approach  Citation data only tells a part of the story, other types of data are needed For outreach  Data proves our support to campus research (no apology anymore!)  Data helps us to communicate with faculty members What are the implications?

Work still in progress  Type of materials cited  Subject areas cited Questions?