Electronic and traditional sources for a newly established branch library: product availability and user preferences

For libraries, the trend toward electronic publishing of journals holds out the promise of greater availability of these materials without regard to physical location either of the collection or the patron. The establishment of the Policy Sciences and Economics Library (PSEL), as a branch of the Sterling C. Evans Library at Texas A&M University, was an opportunity to test this hypothesis. In concert with faculty from the departments of political science, economics and the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, reference and collection development librarians developed a core collection for this facility. The librarians hoped to be able to rely primarily on electronic journals to satisfy initial faculty research needs. However, a review of journals requested by the faculty served at PSEL revealed that not enough of these titles were available electronically. Further, what was available electronically often did not include the full‐text, cover‐to‐cover completeness necessary. Faculty preference...