Using Acquisitions, Circulation, and ILL Data to Enhance Library Collection Practices

1. Using Acquisitions, Circulation, and ILL Data to Study Collection Practices • Forrest Link • Acquisitions Librarian • TCNJ Library • linkf@tcnj.edu

2. Presentation Summary • Report of a library usage study examining recent library purchases and circulated and ILL titles to find out if and how library purchases met user needs • A look at the kinds of data that can be generated and some ways of interpreting that data to influence local of collection development practices

3. The College of New Jersey • The College • Public, primarily undergraduate with graduate programs in nursing and education • Approximately 6,100 undergraduates, 650 graduate students, 350 full time faculty • The Library • Holds over 600,000 volumes • Acquires approximately 4,100 books annually • Borrows approximately 1,400 unique books annually through ILL • Circulates approximately 15,000 unique titles annually *Images taken from TCNJ website, May 3, 2011.

4. How the Story Begins • Charleston Conference 2011 • RichardEntlich of Cornell presents on the capture and use of ILS data • June 2012 • TCNJ Library forms new committee to develop and implement collection development policy • July 2012 • TCNJ Library hires a new librarian for Access Services and ILL

5. Study Questions • What do ILL book requests and circulation data tell us about our collection use and patron needs? • How can data analysis inform our collection development practices to better serve our patrons?

6. Beginning Assumptions • Effective collection development can be measured by collection use • Collection use = meeting user needs • User needs represented by titles • owned and circulated • not owned but borrowed via ILL

7. Measuring Collection Use • Circulation statistics • Titles that library acquired and used • Can identify needs in various subject areas • Can identify user groups (student or faculty) • ILL book requests filled • Reflect user needs that the library doesn’t own • Can identify needs in various subject areas • Can identify user groups

8. Data and Methods

9. Data Collection • Data extracted for the study period (July 2008-June 2012) • List of books purchased during the study period • Circulation data for titles purchased for the General Collection • ILL data for books borrowed

10. Data Sources • Acquisitions data • Voyager data for the past four FY periods (July 2008 — June 2012) • Recent publications with 2007 imprints or later

11. Data Sources • Circulation data • Voyager data for the past four FY periods (July 2008 — December 2012) • General Collections (circulating)

12. Data Sources • ILL data • OCLC User Statistics for the past four FY periods (July 2008 – June 2012)

13. Data Scope • Included all faculty, graduate student and undergraduate transactions for books circulated and borrowed via ILL having imprint dates of 2007 onward • Eliminated LC classes A, C, S, U, V because of very low acquisition rate • End result represented 82% of purchased books and 30% of books borrowed on ILL

14. Measures • Total user needs in a library • Circulation of local library materials • ILL requests for library materials that are not locally available • Focus on recent acquisitions

15. Testing the Assumptions • What are we buying? • What are we circulating? • What are we borrowing on ILL? • How well have we done in collection building to meet user needs?

16. Initial Findings

17. Data Set

23. Another Way of Looking at the Data • If Lending = User needs met and • Lending = Circulation + ILL • Then (ILL / (Circulation + ILL)) = the part of lending that is ILL or the portion of user needs not met by our collection

27. ILL Subject Distribution by Borrower Type

30. Some Rethinking • Maybe we’re looking at this incorrectly • Maybe all borrowing (via ILL or our acquired collection) is not equal, not all “need” • Maybe we’re looking at “The Long Tail”

31. A Brief Digression • The Long Tail

32. The Light Bulb

38. Caution in Using ILL Data • Purpose of ILL service • To meet academic needs (e.g., multidisciplinary titles) • To meet user needs of general interest outside curriculum scope • For recreational purposes • Take above factors into consideration when considering user-initiated acquisitions

39. Early Conclusions • We have made some inaccurate assumptions • All need is not equal • The question is not “What should we buy?” but “Should we buy?” • We cannot judge the appropriateness of the purchase of a book without expert mediation • Findings can shed light on effectiveness of collection development practices

40. Post Study Questions • What constitutes a good academic collection? • Should ILL requests be seen as part of the long tail? • Or, if ILL needs represent more than just the long tail, should the library re-examine our collection development policy? • Can we devise ways to tell where on that continuum a request lies?

41. Thank You! Questions? • Forrest Link, linkf@tcnj.edu • With thanks to: • Yuji Tosaka, tosaka@tcnj.edu • Cathy Weng, weng@tcnj.edu