Using a Database Management Program As a Decision Support System for Cancellation of Business Perioidcals and Serials

Periodicals and serials have been inflating at double-digit rates for years. As no library can shoulder inflation rates over many years, these escalating serial prices lead inevitably to the question, which periodicals to cancel and which is keep. This is not an easy question to answer; evaluating the collection is a complicated and often subjective process. At Purdue we have had to face serial cancellations less frequently than some other research libraries, but in 1996/97 we faced the second one in less than five years. This prompted a search for a more objective method of deselecting. This article is about the Decision Support System that was developed for a serial cancellation project in 1997 by the Management and Economics Library at Purdue University