Re: CSU library finds 40% of collection hasn't circulated

I thought this was a stitch. And it makes a good point.

Frances McNamara

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Tim Spalding
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 8:38 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] CSU library finds 40% of collection hasn't circulated

> 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."

There was a related article in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week:

University Analyses Scholarly Work, Eliminates Areas of Study

A recent analysis by Colorado State University discovered that CSU
professors have not written scholarly article on fully 40% of topics
in the last 20 years. Topics not written about include the flora of
Sumatra, Flemish music and Bulgarian linguistics. The study also
discovered that not a single article had been written that touched
upon the states of Tennessee or Idaho.

As a consequence, CSU administrators have decided to save space by
eliminating all references to these and over 62,000 other topics.
Books on the topics will be removed from the library, articles will be
sliced out of journals and reference works, and the campus internet
will no longer serve up pages on them.

Though some scholars expressed reservations, university officials were
quick to defend the move. Reached at a fund-raising event in Idaho,
President Pickering Tomkins argued "If nobody's written about
something in 20 years, it's just not important!" Head Librarian Karen
Heminsdale added "We have to get past the idea of libraries as places
for 'storing' information, conducting 'research' or 'finding out
things you didn't already know.' All that space wasted on hundreds of
thousands of books on scholarly topics can more constructively be
deployed for what our community really needs." Heminsdale hinted that
space had been laid aside for a horseshoe-tossing ring, a beignet and
wafflecones bar, and a large open area that echoed impressively.