For immediate release:
December 15, 2008

For more information, contact:
Kristina Justh
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
kristina@arl.org

ARL Statistics “Counting Serial Titles” Webcast Archive Now Available

Washington DC—The ARL Statistics December 10th webcast to member libraries, “Counting Serial Titles,” is now available on the ARL Statistics Web site http://www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/arlstats/08statmail.shtml. The presentation’s PowerPoint slides may also be downloaded separately from the site.

The webcast reported on the findings of the ARL Ad Hoc Task Force on Best Practices for Counting Serial Titles and the way the work of the group has informed changes in the ARL Statistics 2007–08 survey. Martha Kyrillidou (Director, ARL Statistics and Service Quality Programs) and Julia Blixrud (Assistant Executive Director, External Relations) provided background on the work of the task force and how the revised definitions are working for libraries. Joyce McDonough (Director, Continuing and Electronic Resources Management, Columbia University), a member of the task force, discussed her engagement with the task force and how her library implemented new counting procedures for serials.

More than 150 representatives from ARL member libraries participated in the event. The ARL Statistics team encourages all ARL libraries’ survey coordinators to view the webcast in order to better understand the method of calculating the serials collections.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.