Leveraging a Custom Python Script to Scrape Subject Headings for Journals

Abstract

In our current library fiscal climate with yearly inflationary cost increases of 2-6+% for many journals and journal package subscriptions, it is imperative that libraries strive to make our budgets go further to expand our suite of resources. As a result, most academic libraries annually undertake some form of electronic journal review, employing factors such as cost per use to inform budgetary decisions. In this paper we detail some tech savvy processes we created to leverage a Python script to automate journal subject heading generation within the OCLC’s WorldCat catalog, the MOBIUS (A Missouri Library Consortium) Catalog, and the VuFind Library Catalog, a now retired catalog for the CARLI (Consortium for Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois). We also describe the rationale for the inception of this project, the methodology we utilized, the current limitations, and details of our future work in automating our annual analysis of journal subject headings by use of an OCLC API.