Journals / Electronic Journals / Periodicals

Scholarly Journals

Journal subscriptions represent ongoing commitments, and many key scholarly journal subscriptions also represent significant budget expenditures. Therefore, annual usage statistics, faculty desire for the Library to maintain the journal subscription, and continuing need for the journal are evaluated, especially prior to annual renewal.  

Before a potential subscription is added, the following criteria are considered:

  • Availability of funds in periodicals budget
  • Faculty requests informed by teaching and/or research needs
  • Recent interlibrary loan requests for articles in the journal/eJournal
  • Potential number of users and/or potential cost per use
  • Availability of journal as an eJournal subscription, with:
    • Multiple,  simultaneous user access and IP authentication and EZ-Proxy supported
    • Whenever possible, RMU Library chooses eJournal format for scholarly journal  subscriptions
  • Journal indexed in databases to which RMU Library subscribes
  • Perpetual access rights during the years subscribed
  • Ability to share via Interlibrary Loan

General Periodicals

A number of national and local newspapers, popular periodicals, and trade journals are subscribed to in print format; some trade periodicals are subscribed to in electronic or print plus online format. Popular periodicals are subscribed to, as the Library budget allows, for maximum readability and browse-ability. Many of these same publications are also available electronically through other multi-disciplinary database subscriptions.