Textbooks on Reserve in Academic Libraries

Library Philosophy and Practice, an online journal published by the University of Nebraska recently published an article of mine. It details a program we tried at our campus in 2010, in which the library purchased or obtained a copy of every required text, and put them on reserve.  Here is the abstract:

In the fall of 2010, a grant of $36,000 allowed Portland Community College Library to purchase and place on reserve a copy of every required text at one of its campuses. A smaller college “center” also placed all required texts on reserve. The program was very popular with students and parts of the reserve collection received heavy use. Compared to the previous fall term, overall use of reserves at the Cascade Campus library rose 35%, and the Southeast Center collection saw an increase of 110%. However, use of the collection was unevenly distributed, with 26% of the books having more than 11 uses that quarter, but a troubling number (37%) receiving no checkouts at all. An analysis of the data suggests several ways that books with 11 or more uses per quarter could be increased to over 70%. These are to purchase and process books in a timely manner, to adjust loan periods for some items, or to purchase texts only for courses with multiple sections. Use numbers compiled over the following 8 quarters show that textbooks purchased and placed on reserve will be used for several successive terms.

If you want to read the entire article, here is the link:

“All Textbooks in the library: An experiment with Library Reserves.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/838/

Tony Greiner


Ebook attitudes and Purchase on Demand

Last week I read a recent article in Collection Building on user attitudes towards ebooks at Colorado State Univ Library, as well as ebook use.

Merinda McLure, Amy Hoseth, (2012),”Patron-driven e-book use and users’ e-book perceptions: a snapshot”,
Collection Building, Vol. 31 Iss: 4 pp. 136 – 147

The study was done from May-Dec, 2010, and consisted of a survey of ebook user attitudes, and a check on ebook use.

The highlights:

Readers who used an ebook were divided between those who prefer ebooks, those who prefer print, and those who don’t care, 1/3 for each. Half of the users had never used an ebook before their borrowing of one from the Colorado State Library.

Most readers used an ebook for an assignment.

Because the library launched a ‘Purchase on Demand’ ebook program during the study, the number of ebook titles available rose from 4,475 to 7,942 during the 7 months of the study.

Of the entire ebook collection of, 11.6% were ‘browsed’ meaning looked at for less than five minutes, with 7.7% being used more than five minutes. (Totaling 1533 unique titles browsed or more over the 7 months.) Thus, 19.3% of the titles were used at least once in the 7 months, although the number really studied (if you call more than five minutes really studying) is not even 8%. There is the chance that relevant chapters were quickly printed and read on paper, but still, use was fairly low.

Although there wasn’t a report specifically on the use of titles used after launching the Purchase on Demand (Patron Driven Aquisitions) program, they acquired 3,467 titles via Purchase on Demand, and only 1533 ebooks received use, so it seems safe to say that ebooks purchased under Patron Driven Aquisitions are not necessarily being used! It makes me wonder why they were requested. I have a hand in the patron-driven acquisitions of print books at Portland Community College, and while we occasionally purchase books where the patron doesn’t bother to pick them up from the holds shelf, that is the exception rather than the rule. I wonder if the Colorado State patrons were given a choice between ebook or print book when they put in their request.

The citation:

Merinda McLure, Amy Hoseth, (2012),”Patron-driven e-book use and users’ e-book perceptions: a snapshot”,
Collection Building, Vol. 31 Iss: 4 pp. 136 – 147

Tony Greiner


Weeding, Part 2

The right way to weed: Stanley Slote’s “Shelf Time Method.”

Stanley Slote devoted much of his career to studying library weeding, and methods of doing so. His book Weeding Library Collections (the 4th edition came out in 1997) summarizes these nicely. Slote’s own research showed that the amount of time since an item was last used is the best indicator of whether it will ever be used again. I’ll say that another way: The longer it has been since an item was checked out, the more likely it is that it will never be checked out again.

Slote also discovered, in several studies, that after removing books that had not been used for awhile (he gives several ways of judging what that time period should be, depending on the space available on your shelves and other factors) circulation went up! This is the root of the truism that ‘Weeding will increase circulation.’ The full sentence should be: “Weeding by the shelf-time method will increase circulation.”

How to get a list of books that haven’t checked out in awhile. (We are talking circulating collections here.)

With the data in computerized Integrated Library Systems, it is usually easy to run a list of items that have been in the collection at least X years . I suggest starting with five, and have not circulated for the last Y years. I suggest starting with five again.

So, you ask your ILS:

Give me a list of books that have been in the collection at least FIVE years, and which have not circulated for at least FIVE years.

(So a book that was in the collection for seven years, but hasn’t been used after the first 2 will show up on the list. A book that has been in the collection for four years won’t.)

Get the title, call number, location and status of the items.

Slote says to just send a circulation worker into the stacks, go get the items on this list and withdraw them. I’m not crazy about that, partially because of local authors and history, and other things that your library just should have.

Instead, send your lowest-paid COMPETENT circulation worker into the stacks to tip down the books on the list. (Like circulation workers in training do. They take a cart of books to shelf, and put them on the shelf tipped down on thefore-edge. The trainer then goes by and sees if the books were shelved correctly.) For books not where the catalog things they are, have the worker write ‘NOS’ (not on shelf) on the list. Technical Services can then change those to MISSING status, or just withdraw the item, whichever applies best.

In this case, the librarian in charge of the weeding (or that section of the collection) goes by with a cart, looking ONLY at the tipped books. If the book isn’t worth keeping, it goes on the cart. If it should be kept, it is just returned upright. If it REALLY should be kept, the librarian takes it to the circulation desk, checks it out and then checks it in again. That way the book is ‘safe’ for another five years.

Set aside a section of the shelf for the tipped books that should be repaired/reordered/moved to another part of the collection. But mostly, you just fill those carts. This goes FAST! And even if you miss a few books on condition, etc. you are still improving the collection, and doing it efficiently.

Naturally, academic libraries can use this method to place an item into storage, rather than weeding.

I think the ‘shelf time’ method is better than C.R.E.W. because it reflects how your patrons at your library use the collection, and it is faster. Certainly, if you spot a hopelessly out-of-date computer title, or one in filthy condition, weed it as well, but the ‘shelf time’ method eliminates the tedious title-by-title weeding process.

Tony Greiner


Weeding, Part 1

‘Weeding will increase circulation.’

Really? Any weeding at all? Of course, you need a method to weed properly. The problem is, too many of us were never taught the right method.

Probably the most common method is C.R.E.W. (Continuous Review Evaluation and Weeding) It was developed by the Texas State Library, and gives guidelines of how long to keep materials in various disciplines. Here is a link to a pdf, last updated in 2008:

https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew/index.html

There are worse ways to weed, but I’m not entirely happy with it. My gripes with CREW are two:

1. It relies on someone else’s idea of what your collection should be like- not what your library’s readers want.
2. There has never (to my knowledge) been any sort of study to show if weeding by the CREW method makes for a better, more responsive collection. It ‘sounds right’, but we don’t know if it is right.

There is a companion method to C.R.E.W., the acronym ‘MUSTIE’ Misleading, Ugly’ Superseded (new editions have come out); Trivial; Irrelevant; Elsewhere (may easily be obtained elsehwere.)

These are cute, but I’m uneasy about UGLY and ELSEWHERE. I see people reading all sorts of ugly books. I think ugly bothers librarians more than it does readers. I especially dislike weeding an item that continues to get use simply on condition. If the reader doesn’t mind condition, why should the librarian?

And Elsewhere? You gonna pitch your copies of “50 Shades of Grey” because it is readily available? What about LOCKSS? (Lots of copies keeps stuff safe.)

Next time: If CREW ain’t right, what is?


Community Analysis and Materials Use: Do ‘lifestyles’ result in differing use of public library materials?

According to a 1995 study I found  in my files yesterday, Hazel Davis and Ellen Altman studied public library circulation patterns in 10 different communities, with median household incomes ranging from $15,000 to $77,000. They also compared cities number of college graduates, how lively they were to spend money on pets, electronics, furniture, and sporting goods. Over 8 million circulation records were divided, subtracted, twisted and turned. In the end they found: No real difference.

Fiction and AV materials accounted for 2/3 of materials use.  Fiction is about 70% of circulation. Patterns of use for children were similar. Dewey range circulations? Similar!

The study, “The Relationship between Community Lifestyles and Circulation Patterns in Public Libraries” appeared in Public Libraries, January, February 1997. It confirms a similar study made in Indianapolis by Ottensmann, Gnat and Gleeson  “Similarities in Circulation Patterns among Public LIbrary Branches Servicing Diverse Populations.” (Library Quarterly, Jan 1995)

The authors point out that this doesn’t reflect on total use of the libraries, simply that, whatever demand is placed on a library’s collection, the proportion of materials checked out is astonishingly the same. Is this because libraries tend to buy the same stuff? Or that the public wants the same stuff? And what happens if a library starts changing its acquisitions to reflect those differences in demand that do exist?  Good questions all, but for the moment, it makes me question the value of ‘Community Analysis’ that I was taught in library school. And they found a line from John Cotton Dana, 1903:  ‘Like their elders, the children are fond of story books, and select them seventy-four times out of a hundred. Adults read seventy novels to thirty other books.’ The 70% fiction rule seems to be a standard. Is that true in your public library?

Tony Greiner

tony_greiner@hotmail.com