[Original posting on this topic appeared in COLLDV-L no. 1872 and was
reproduced with Response #1 in COLLDV-L no. 1886.]
(2) From: Nan Butkovich <njb_at_psulias.psu.edu>
You might want to take a look at the Pittsburgh Survey from the late
1970's. It's been a couple of years since I read the report, and I don't
recall if they addressed this question in their conclusions or not.
However, it was a big longitudinal study of monographs which lasted seven
years. It was published as
Kent, Allen, et. al. 1979. Use of library materials: the University of
Pittsburgh study. New York: Marcel Dekker.)
As I recall, the study generated quite a bit of controversy in the library
literature of the time.
I don't think that I could justify using this method with my collection,
because monographs are such a small portion of the collection in this
library. Instead, I prefer to use reshelving data augmented by local
citation data to measure journal use. I find that I get a lot fewer
complaints from the library users when I use this combination. I've
described what I do below.
To get journal use data, I have the shelvers record the year and call
numbers of bound volumes that are to be reshelved. This information is
then entered into an EXCEL file. I can then create a spreadsheet with year
date of volume used on the x-axis and call number and year used on the
y-axis. The software automatically gives me total use by year of use,
total use by volume year, and total use by call number. It's pretty simple
and reasonably fast.
A couple of years ago, I did a detailed study of the entire journal
collection as far back as we had holdings at this location, and ran the
study for 15 months. That gave me a baseline. (Those were the
pre-electronic journal days.) We are now in the eighth month of a new
study which is just focusing on the volumes published since 1985. (The
older volumes that aren't used have long since gone to remote storage.)
I also get the raw use data for the main subject areas in my collection
from the remote storage facilities and run them through a similar EXCEL
program. This helps me verify that there aren't any changes in use in the
material that I'm sending to storage.
I also like to look at Science Citation Index each year. By limiting the
search to the local zip code, I can get a ranked list of journal titles
arranged alphabetically by title and including the rank and the number of
citations. It's not clean data; I have to watch out for variations in the
titles, but it's a good measure of local use.
Nan Butkovich
Head, Physical Sciences Library Tel.: 814/865-3716
230 Davey Laboratory Fax.: 814/865-2565
Penn State University E-mail: njb_at_psulias.psu.edu or
University Park, PA 16802-6301 njb2_at_psu.edu
Received on Mon Nov 16 1998 - 09:48:06 EST