Re: Data on circulation of books

[nmedeiro@haverford.edu]

In 2002, the Tri-College Consortium (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, 
Swarthmore Colleges) undertook a collection assessment study as 
part of a Mellon-funded grant.  We found that 57% of the books in 
our collection hadn't circulated since 1991, when the circulation 
module of our ILS was brought online (though presumably many of 
these 700,000+ books had circulated at some point in their 
lifetime).  Thirty percent (30%) of circulating books acquired 
since 1990 hadn't circulated.  The report is available at 
<http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub115/contents.html>.

-Norm


On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:40:59 EST "Joseph J. Esposito" wrote:

> Perhaps the members of this mailgroup can help me with some
> questions about the circulation of books in academic libraries.
>
> A distinguished academic librarian told me that "most books never
> circulate."  Allowing for rhetorical exuberance, I was wondering
> what the facts are behind "most" and "never."  Is it that "many
> books circulate only rarely," or "some books never circulate, but
> a larger group circulates only rarely," or "almost all books
> circulate, but a sizable portion circulates rarely,"--or some
> other qualified formulation?

[SNIP]

> Joe Esposito