College and Research Libraries


Recorded Library Use in Small 
Four-Year Colleges, 1962-1963 

As A MEANS of getting a basis of compari-
son for an evaluation of student and fac-
ulty use of small college libraries, a 
questionnaire was circulated to 151 such 
libraries asking for relevant figures. In 
order to make the information useful, the 
colleges were limited to accredited, four-
year, liberal arts institutions with enroll-
ments ranging from four hundred to 
seven hundred, as reported in the United 
States Office of Education, Library Sta-
tistics of Colleges and Universities, 1962-
63. Since there is variation in the per-
centage of full-time students making up 
college enrollment figures , only the full-
time equivalent (FTE) enrollment figures 
were used for per capita computations. 
The questionnaires used were limited 
further to colleges having FTE enroll-

Reserve Circ. 
Enrollment Per Cap. 

High 669 72.0 
Low 325 1.6 
Median 521 11.8 
Mean 516 15.9 

ments of 3 25 to 699. There were 117 re-
sponses to the 151 questionnaires sent 
out (a few more came too late to be 
used). Seventeen of these were not usable 
because of incompleteness or unusual 
methods of keeping and reporting circu-
lation stati5tics, and a few were thrown 
out because enrollments had climbed over 
699 FTE. 

Only eight libraries reported having 
closed or partially closed stacks, which 
of course means that for ninety-two re-
maining libraries actual use goes beyond 

SEPTEMBER 1964 

BY R. VERNON RITTER 

Mr . Ritter is Librarian of Westmont Col-
lege, Santa Barbara, California. 

recorded use. Eight libraries indicated 
employing open reserves; in such cases 
their reserve circulation figures included 
only overnight circulation of reserves. Be-
cause this might materially alter the re-
sults these latter figures were not included 
in the statistics. 

Since the FTE number of faculty mem-
bers was not requested, no per capita 
faculty circulation figures are available. 
Usually the size of the faculty correlates 
very closely with the size of the student 
body; the total figures therefore may still 
have some value for comparison with the 
statistics from one's own campus. 

A summary of the statistics follows. 

General Circ. Total Circ. Faculty Circ. 
Per Cap. Per Cap. Total 

78.8 135.4 11,985 
10.2 16.3 50 
28.2 42.7 1,467 
29.4 46.1 1,872 

In view of the close correlation of the 
size of the faculty and the size of the stu-
dent body, one of the startling things was 
the lack of correlation between the size 
of the school and the faculty circulation. 
Other factors, such as intellectual alert-
ness and research interests, are evidently 
much more significant than numbers for 
producing high faculty 'circulation figures. 
Seven out of the eleven highest faculty 
circulation figures were from schools be-
low the median size of student body. 
Further, the average total faculty circu-

391 



lation for all schools with student bodies 
ranging from 521 (the median size) to 
699, was 1,961. This is only 171 (9.6 
per cent) more than for schools with stu-
dent bodies ranging from 325 to 521, 
which was 1,790, even though faculty 
size for this latter group must have been 
nearly double that of the first group. 

Another interesting development :ls the 
relationship of reserve and general cir-
culation. In 1940 Harvie Branscomb not-
ed that "the average student draws from 
the general collection of his college or 
university library about twelve books per 
year .... In addition ... this undergradu-
ate, on the average, seems to make from 
fifty to sixty withdrawals per year from 
the reserve book collection .... " 1 The 

1 Teaching With Books (Chicago: ALA, 1940), 
p. 27. 

present survey would indicate that aver-
age per capita loans from the general 
collection have more than doubled in the 
intervening years (and this despite more 
widespread use of open stacks) ; at the 
same time reserve circulation has been 
cut to about one-fourth of what it was at 
that time. This shift is no doubt accounted 
for by less extensive use of reserve shelves 
as a teaching aid, and more emphasis on 
a student's initiative in locating sources 
relevant to his courses. The greatly in-
creased general-collection loans result, 
therefore, from this shift and compensate 
for greatly reduced reserve use. In this 
survey only five libraries had per capita 
reserve circulation above fifty. Of these, 
three also had above-average general-col-
lection circulation. • • 

About Membership 
ALA MEMBERSHIP is for the calendar year, January to December. 
Personal dues are based on annual salary; institutional dues on the 
annual operating income of the library for the previous fiscal year. 
Every member receives two divisional memberships, a type-of -library 
division (\nd a type-of-activity division. Type-of-library division 
might be ACRL, type-of -activity division might be one from a choice 
of eight. Available back issues of membership publications will reach 
members who enroll after January. For further details, write: Mem-
bership Promotion, ALA Headquarters, 50 East Huron Street, Chi-
cago, 60611. · • • 

392 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES