Library Collections of Accounting Periodicals at the College and University Level

Abstract

Appropriate library holdings as a key factor in maintaining credible academic degree programs has been examined in previous studies of accounting journals in library collections. This paper differentiates itself by using computerized data sources as opposed to the common survey methodology to document the accounting journal holdings of nearly three hundred institutions categorized by degree type and separate accounting accreditation (doctoral, nondoctoral accredited, and nondoctoral nonaccredited). The detailed results, which do not suffer from response bias and other problems associated with survey research, provide rankings of the sampled accounting journals based on library holdings for all schools in the aggregate and for schools classified by degree type and separate accounting accreditation. In general, doctoral institutions and institutions with separate accounting accreditation have larger total accounting journal collections with greater focus upon academic journals, while the nondoctoral schools without separate accounting accreditation place relatively greater emphasis on the practitioner-oriented journals. In addition, this study compares the most widely held journals to previous studies' findings of the most highly rated and cited accounting journals and the favored publication outlets of accounting faculty.