E. Stewart Saunders

A Study of Circulation Statistics of Books on Demand: A Decade of Patron-Driven Collection Development, Part 3

The Purdue University Libraries was an early implementer of purchasing books requested through interlibrary loan rather than borrowing the requested books. The service, called Books on Demand, began in January 2000. An analysis of the requests at the end of the first two years of service indicated that these patron-selected books were more likely to have repeat circulations than the books acquired through normal collection development processes. When the program reached its tenth year, the authors analyzed and compared the books purchased through Books on Demand with all other purchased books during the same period. Findings indicate that books acquired through this user-initiated program have higher circulation rates than books acquired through the normal selection channels. The difference is quite large, a mean of 4.1 compared to a mean of 2.4, when the first interlibrary loan use is included as a circulation. Therefore, the authors recommend that libraries investigate a service of purchasing books requested via interlibrary loan as a complement to other collection development efforts.

Differentiating Information Skills and Computer Skills: A Factor Analytic Approach

A basic tenet of information literacy programs is that the skills needed to use computers and the skills needed to find and evaluate information are two separate sets of skills. Outside the library this is not always the view. The claim is sometimes made that information skills are acquired by learning computer skills. All that is needed is a computer lab and someone to teach computer skills. This study uses data from a survey of computer and information skills to determine whether or not these skills are separate entities. The survey was given to incoming freshmen at Purdue University in 1999 and 2000. A factor analysis of the data supports the assumption that the two skills are different. The factors are interpreted as the learning experiences that lead to the two sets of skills.

Cost Efficiency in ARL Academic Libraries

Examines 88 academic member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to determine their relative cost efficiency, using stochastic frontier regression and data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods. Both methods give average ARL cost efficiencies of around 80 percent. This places academic ARL libraries in the same range of efficiency as other institutions, including for‐profit and non‐profit institutions. Many libraries are above 80 percent efficiency. For those below, some speculation is given for the lower efficiency. The lack of an output measure for the use of electronic sources may contribute to lower efficiency for a few libraries. Large staff size and a large number of serial subscriptions do predict lower efficiency, but this is not a necessary consequence. The DEA model allows us to determine increasing, constant, or declining returns to scale for research libraries. From this, it appears research libraries with expenditures between

Meeting Academic Needs for Information: A Customer Service Approach

10,000,000 and

Drilling the LibQUAL+R Data for Strategic Planning

20,000,000 are operating at the most efficient scale. Since the methods used are outside the repertoire of most LIS research, a conceptual explanation is provided.

The Archives of the Academie des Sciences

Should academic libraries seek to improve general satisfaction with their services, or are some services more important than others? This article asserts that faculty and students mainly want information resources. The research analyzes LibQUAL+™ data to determine which other library resources contribute to information satisfaction among users. The conclusion is that access mechanisms are very important predictors of information resource satisfaction, but library facilities and library staff are negligible predictors. This is true across different groups of users.

Mission-Focused Collections: Rebirth of the 'Seminarbibliothek' as an E-Book Collection

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the development of reliable assessment data to support strategic planning among Purdue University Libraries.Design/methodology/approach – A LibQUAL+® survey was designed to enable the data gathered to be drilled down into by subgroup. Radar charts demonstrated both consistent themes as well as differences in use patterns between the different colleges, and between undergraduates, graduates and faculty. Detailed analysis of the resultant data was then used to support the strategic planning process.Findings – Subsequent enquiry among the Strategic Planning Group showed that the survey had had a major impact on the process, which led to scrapping of the first draft of the plan, and greatly informed the second draft.Originality/value – This paper shows the practical applicability of LibQUAL+® data to support strategic planning, replacing hunches and intuitive knowledge about patron opinion with hard facts.

The LibQUAL+ Phenomenon: Who Judges Quality?

Copyrighted 1978 by the Society for French Historical Studies. Current publisher is Duke University Press. The Archives of the Academie des Sciences in Paris grew out of the loose collection of manuscripts and letters which served the scientific needs of its members and the record-keeping function of the secretary. When Jean Richer asked the secretary of the Academie for the return of a treatise at the meeting of 18 January 1676, the members voted to keep the original and return a copy to Richer.

The Effect of Bibliographic Instruction on the Demand for Reference Services

ABSTRACT German universities built over the years highly specialized book collections for use by faculty and graduate students. The German term, seminarbibliothek, is often applied to these types of collections, although examples can be found in universities across Europe. The purpose of this article is to examine a similar type of collection using ebooks in veterinary science and to compare this collection to the standard subject classified ebook collections. Most collection development in college and university libraries focuses on academic subjects. The type of collection being described here focuses on a mission. A mission-focused collection increases the use of library holdings and greatly benefits the stakeholders within the institution. This study looks at how such a collection might be formed and defined and what possible effects this might have on the use of collections of this type.