On 1 October 2010 00:56, Daniel CannCasciato
<Daniel.CannCasciato_at_cwu.edu> wrote:
>> Kind of interesting...Colorado State University analyzed its circulation
>> records and found that "some 40 percent of the library's 2.5 million volume
>> collection hasn't been checked out since librarians moved to an electronic
>> tracking system 20 years ago."
>
> "We're going to move out the books that are never checked out, the ones that are
> never used anymore,"
>
> Similar categories, but not a complete overlap of characteristics. I'd like to see
> some recognition that the two sets (never checked out and never used) are - -
> at least potentially - - different populations.
The article quotes two figures - 40% "unused", 25% "moving", which
suggests that only about 60% of the books identified as
"noncirculating" are going to be moved, rather than simply every book
not touched by the circulation system. That certainly leaves a lot of
room for the used-but-never-loaned stock to remain.
Making the distinction is an interesting problem, though. It's clearly
not something that can be done easily on an automatic basis, but it is
something that can be done relatively easily by an experienced human -
either experienced in the subject field, or simply experienced in
reshelving that section!
This nuance is pretty important, but as we see here it's not something
easily recognisable by an ILS. Short of an aggressive policy of
logging books found off the shelves, which I know some places are more
keen on than others, it's likely to remain so...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray_at_dunelm.org.uk
Received on Fri Oct 01 2010 - 08:33:33 EDT