College and Research Libraries


T. SARACEVIC, W. M. SHAW, JR., 

and P. B. KANTOR 

Causes and Dynamics of User Frustration 

in an Academic Library 

Traditionally library effectiveness has been considered in relation to 
"Public Knowledge" and the associated literature. More recently it 
has been considered in relation to a given set of users~ to use~ and 
availability. A number of studies dealing with user satisfaction and 
frustration in obtaining books from a library are reviewed. Observa-
tions on the causes of user frustration at Sears Library~ Case Western 
Reserve University (CWRU)~ were done on two occasions: In 1972~ 
during the time when a "sem.ester loan" policy was in effect and in 
1974 when the loan period was changed to a "four week" policy. A 
method of analysis was developed that allows for .the calculation of 
four independent probabilities indicating measures of perfo_rmance of 
acquisitions policy~ circulation policy~ library operations~ and users. 
It is argued that the branching analysis for the combination of effects 
and the particular measures derived are universally applicable for 
studying these aspects of library performance. 

" ... a well-stocked, well supported, 
and allegedly well balanced library 
can routinely thwart its patrons on 
nearly half of their quests "1 

IN THE LATE 1960s a new type of li-
brary study emerged, oriented toward 
~ibrary effectiveness and involving mod-
els and measures of · performance 
found in operations research, systems 
engineering, and related fields. Consid-
ered by some to be of only academic in-
terest, such studies are nevertheless root-
ed in real .and practical library problems 

T. Saracevic is professor of library sci-
ence, W. M. Shaw, ]r.~ is research and sys-
tems librarian and assistant professor of li-
brary science, and P. B. Kantor is associate 
professor of library science and operat-ions 
research at Case Western Reserve Univer- ' 
sity, Cleveland, Ohio. 

exemplified by the quotation above. A 
number of studies have found that 
about 40 to 50 percent of the patrons 
trying to obtain a book in a library 
eventually leave without having ob-
tained satisfaction. There .are too many 
such findings to be ignored or dismissed 
as statistical variation. 

Since it is also known that on the av-
erage the libraries have acquired about 
90 percent of the materials sought, it 
seems imperative to analyze and disen-
tangle the factors contributing to the 
observed user frustration. Can anything 
more be done, or is the present situation 
in some peculiar sense a natural or "op-
timal" one? Can we better the situation 
by improving library procedures? To 
what extent are the users causing their 
own frustration, and can anything be 

"'done about it? 
·Our study seeks answers to these ques-

I 7 



8 I College & Research Librarie$ • January 1977 

tions by means of library effectiveness 
studies. In particular, we seek to mea-
sure the performance of the library and 
the user separately, but in ways which 
can be sensibly combined to provide a 
single overall measure. 

The pressures to undertake such a 
study result from a variety of adminis-
trative and societal forces calling for 
increased effectiveness, .accountability, 
and broader bases and services, all with-
in relatively static budgetary constraints. 

Numerous solutions have been pro-
posed and/ or attempted in order to in-
crease effectiveness. For instance, the no-
tion that information systems should be 
organized and regarded as utilities re-
flects user orientation: increased effec-
tiveness, increased availability, broaden-
ing of the population served, easier ac-
cess, etc. 

Studies of library performance are 
rooted in .and related to both present 
and anticipated problems. The studies 
by themselves do not provide solutions. 
They do, however, provide background 
information and a basis for rational de-
cision and policy and thus for better li-
brary performance. 

LIBRARY PERFORMANCE 

The performance of any system can 
be very roughly divided into "effective-
ness" (how well it does what it is in-
tended to) and "efficiency" (how much 
it costs in time or money per unit of 
performance). A complete examination 
of effectiveness includes: 

1. Specification of a purpose or goal 
of the system and of the parts 
studied. 

2. Selection of a measure or measures 
reflecting this purpose and specifi-
cation of the units of measure. 

3. Specification or construction of 
measuring instruments .and the im-
plementation of a measuring meth-
od. 

In general, the assessment of effective-
ness is a complex problem. In particu-

lar, for social systems (and to a certain 
extent libraries are social systems ) the 
difficulty is heightened because there .are 
unresolved problems at each of the 
three steps. 

As yet, there are no universally ac-
cepted measures, measuring units, or 
methods for the study of library ef-
fectiveness. In part, this is because there 
is little agreement as to what is to be 
measured. Which of the purposes of a 
library should the measures reflect? 

Libraries can be thought of, quite 
generally, as systems which acquire, or-
ganize, and store recorded knowledge 
for the purpose of communicating 
knowledge to their users. Libraries are 
imbedded in the larger process of com-
munication of "public knowledge," a 
term used by Ziman for the "rational 
consensus of ideas and information."2 

The input to the library is recorded 
knowledge, i.e., literature; on the output 
side we find the users. Libraries seek to 
enable and enhance the process by 
which the users receive the knowledge 
contained in the literature. 

Effectiveness might be measured at a 
number of points in the process. Tradi-
tionally, library effectiveness was consid-
ered in relation to "public knowledge" 
and the associated literature. Thus at-
tention was directed to completeness 
and balance of the collection (in rela-
tion to subject and subject literature), 
adequacy of material selection and .as-
sociated policies, flexibility of classifica-
tion schemes, adequacy of cataloging, 
etc. For each of these a set of more or 
less arbitrary standards can be and has 
been devised. 

More recently library effectiveness has 
been considered in relation to the other 
end of the knowledge communication 
process, the given set of users and po-
tential users. This directs our attention 
to types and proportions of satisfied re-
quests, proportion of frustrated users, 
effect of loan policies and duplication 
policies on this satisfaction, etc. Since 



the problem is a difficult one, most stud-
ies have isolated one or another factor 
of the problem and stayed away from 
considering the interplay between these 
factors. 

The study reported here is of the use 
type. It includes four factors which 
contribute to user satisfaction. We can 
easily see the w.ay in whi_ch they are com-
bined with each other. We also report 
on a successful modification of one of 
these factors, producing exactly the de-
gree of improvement to be expected, 
and showing that we have indeed re-
solved the basic performance measure 
into a set of independent components. 

PREvious WoRK 

Although there have been several . 
studies addressing similar problems our 
work was primarily inspired by the work 
of Morse and Buckland. 

Morse proposed several models involv-
ing probability distributions of tasks 
and users in a library, classes of users, 
arrivals, departures, circulation, queues, 
age dependence of demand, etc. For the 
MIT science library he inferred that at 
least 30 percent of the requests were un-
satisfied. The factors he considered in-
cluded loan period, book duplication, 
reserve collection, and reshelving. 3 

Buckland and his colleagues studied 
usage at the University of Lancaster li-
brary, concentrating on what they called 
the "pathology of library provision." 
They began with a "frustration survey," 
observing immediate availability of 
books and the factors that prevent it. 
The performance measure, called "sat-
isfaction level," was taken to be the 
fraction of requests which were 
promptly satisfied, and was found to be 
5.3 percent. 4 

The earliest frustration study of the 
present type that we have found was 
done by Meier in 1957. "Loan perfor-
mance" w.as studied from a closed stack 
library over a two~week period. Of the 
requests received 58 percent were de-

User Frustration I 9 

livered immediately. 5 

A number of other studies concen-
trated on the causes of readers' failure 
to find a book either at a catalog, on the 
shelves, or both. Tagliacozzo and Ko-
chen studied various .aspects of the be-
havior of catalog users in interviews at 
three libraries of the University of Michi-
gan and the Ann Arbor Public Library. 6 
Combining the failures at the catalog 
and at the shelves, they found that 50 
to 60 percent of the searches were un-
productive. 

Urquhart and Schofield conducted the 
largest survey to date on the causes of 
"failures of users to find a book on the 
shelf." Their work cannot be expressed 
as a satisfaction ratio, since successes 
were not recorded. 7 

Orr and his colleagues extended the 
concept of user frustration to include 
the delay associated with retrieving doc" 
uments from a library. Their studies 
were conducted in a series of biomedi-
cal libraries. The results of these studies 
are expressed in terms of a "capability 
index" -which has a maximal value of 
100 only if all documents .are found on 
the shel£.8 

Ben-Ami Lipetz studied the catalog 
use of the Yale University Library. He 
'found that 84 percent of documents 
sought were located by the users, and 
some 5 percent were not located by the 
users but found in the _ catalog later by 
research staff of the study. The library 
possessed approximately 90 percent of 
items requested by users. 9 

Not .all use-type ·studies of library ef-
fectiveness have concentrated on de-
mands, satisfaction, and ftustration. 
Other important measures have been 
suggested. Hamburg suggested that the 
overall measures of library performance 
should be based on document ex-
posure since the "exposure of individ-
uals to documents of recorded human 
existence ... is the most important as-
pect of all public and university library 
objectives." The suggested measures 



10 I College & Research Libraries~ January 1977 

were: exposure counts, item-use-days, 
and exposure time. (Hamburg's book 
also provides the most complete review 
and synthesis of studies on library per-
formance measures a'nd models con-
ducted up to 1972.) Hamburg recog-
nized that .alternative measures (such as 
Morse's and Buckland's) which concen-
trate on the proportion of user demands 
satisfied may be preferable to document 
exposure measures, although the con-
cepts of "demand" and "satisfaction" 
are not purely objective.l0 

In another study Kantor has provided 
a synthesis of these two approaches in 
which exposure time is related to avail-
ability (satisfaction) by means of "av-
erage use times." These factors are sep-
arately measurable and are presently un-
der investigation. 11 

SETTING AND PRocEDURES 

The study was conducted at Case 
Western Reserve University ( CWR U ) , 
a private university with about 4,700 un-
dergraduate and 4,400 graduate and pro-
fessional students, 650 faculty ( exclud-
ing clinical faculty), and a staff of 
1,400. The university has two major li-
braries: 

1. Freiberger Library: Approximately 
1,000,000 volumes in humanities, 
arts, and social sciences. About 
50,000 volumes circulate annually. 

2. Sears Library: Approximately 
200,000 volumes in science, tech-
nology, and management. About 
30,000 volumes ·circulate annually. 

Four other libraries at CWRU are as-
sociated with professional schools: 
health, library science, law, and social 
science. There are also several smaller 
collections housed in individual depart-
ments. 

The data reported in this study were 
collected at the Sears Library only. We 
collected data on the requests for books 
of a specific title/ author ("known item 
searches") and on the reasons for frus-
tration of these requests, i.e., data were 

collected on satisfied and unsatisfied de-
mands for known books. Data were col-
lected at two different times: ( 1) For 
six days in April 1972 when 423 re-
quests from 183 users were analyzed, 
and ( 2) for nine days in November 
1974 when 437 requests from 189 users 
were analyzed. 

Loan policy had been changed during 
the intervening time, and thus we are 
able to isolate its effect on overall satis-
faction. 

In 1972 there was a "semester loan" 
policy: Books borrowed at any time dur-
ing the semester could be kept, without 
penalty, until the general recall date at 
the end of the semester. However, after 
two weeks from the original loan date 
a book could be recalled by any library 
user. Upon receipt of a recall notifica-
tion, the borrower had to return the 
book within five days in order to avoid 
paying a penalty. 

In 1973 a study was undertaken to 
evaluate the "semester loan" policy. Ex-
perimental data were gathered, a loan 
policy model was formulated and veri-
fied through experimental observation, 
and simulations were carried out in 
which the effect on book availability 
and recall delays of differing loan pol-
icies were studied. 12 

As a result of that evaluation a "four 
week loan" policy was instituted in 
1974. All books are due four weeks af-
ter the check out date. As in the "semes-
ter loan" policy, a book may be recalled 
by any library user two weeks after the 
original loan date. Therefore, we are 
comparing in this study, the effects of 
the "semester loan" policy with the ef-
fects of the "four week" loan policy. 

Data were collected as follows: 
1. Research staff were stationed at the 

catalog. 
2. Users of the catalog were briefly 

interviewed and asked about par-
ticipation. 

3. A questionnaire was filled out, in-
cluding the list of books sought. 



4. Upon leaving the library, the user 
was reinterviewed as to satisfaction 
of requests. 

5. Research staff determined the rea-
sons for unsatisfied demands and, 
where necessary, extensively re-
checked the problematic items and 
verified the decisions. 

Users finding books in ways that did 
not include use of the catalog were not 
interviewed. 

OBSERVATIONS 

Table 1 presents the results of the 
survey of satisfied and dissatisfied ( frus-
trated) requests for ~books from Sears 
Library in 1972 (during the "semester 
loan" policy) and in 197 4 (during the 
"four week loan" policy). The notation 
is as follows: 

User Frustration I 11 

W = total number of requests 
S = number of ,immediately satisfied 

requests 
D = number of dissatisfied requests 
The dissatisfied requests were further 

classified into four general categories: 
Da = number of dissatisfied requests 

attributable to library Acquisitions-the 
title was not in the library collection. 

De = number of dissatisfied requests 
due to the book being in Circulation (on 
loan or in-house use). 

D1 = number of dissatisfied requests 
attributable to Library malfunction. 

Du = number of dissatisfied requests 
attributable to tJ ser error. 

Within some dissatisfaction categories 
the reasons for failures were further 
elaborated and enumerated. Explanations 
are given with Table 1. 

TABLE 1 

RESULTS OF THE _1972 AND 1974 SuRVEYS OF SATISFIED AND UNSATISFIED (FRUSTRATED) 
REQUESTs FOR BooKS AT SEARs LIBRARY, CASE WESTERN REsERVE UNIVERSITY 

Semester Loan Four Week Loan 
Policy,1972 Policy, 1974 Notation 

I. Total number of requests 423 437 w 
II. Number immediately satisfied 203 245 s 

III. Number not immediately satisfied 220 192 D 
IV. Distribution of unsatisfied requests 

A. Number of books not acquired by the library 52 38 Da 
B. Number circulating (on loan or in house use) 81 48 De 

1. circulating on loan 70 43 
2. located on the hold shelf• 3 
3. in use in the library 11 2 

c. Number of library malfunctions 29 45 Dt 
1. missing and known by the library 2 18 
2. missing and not known ·by the library 21 22 
3. misshelved 6 2 
4. located on the pre-shelving shelvest 2 
5. book repair area within the library 1 

D. Number of user errors 49 50 Du 
1. incorrect call number 18 3 
2. book properly shelved 12 23 
3. book on reserve 10 2 
4. book located elsewhere* 9 22 

E. Other§ 9 11 

o A book which has been recalled is held at the circulation desk "hold shelf" until checked out by the recaller. 
t Books which are picked up from the tables each day are brought to the preshelving area to be arranged by 

call number prior to being reshelved. 
t Books located in special areas of the library or in another campus library are identified by a location sym-

bol on the catalog card. · 
§"For the 1974 study, the "Other" category contains all .titles for which there are multiple copies. It can be 

assumed that the status of these copies is distributed over cases De, D 1, and Du identified above. For the purpose 
of later calculation of probabilities the titles in category "Other" for both studies a:re allocated to De, Dp Du 
in the approximate ratio of number of titles in De, Dp Du• Thus for the 1972 ( 1974) data the 9 ( 11) items in 
category ~'Other" are allocated as follows: 3 ( 4) to Du, 2 ( 3) to D 1, and 4 ( 4) to De.'' 



12 I College & Research Libraries • January 1977 

METHOD OF ANALYSIS 

The data were analyzed using tech-
niques13 developed by one of the authors 
as part of a larger program in a study of 
library effectiveness. The outcome of 
any specific request for a book can be 
placed in one of the following inde-
pendent categories already defined: 

In other words, the outcome can be re-
duced to these five independent com-
ponent effects. 

The five independent outcomes can be 
represented on a branching diagram that 
follows the particular order in which an 
outcome can occur. This is shown in 
Figure 1. 

The values for S, Du, D~, D e, and Da 
are given from the data collection as pre-
sented in Table 1. The values forT, U, V, 
and W are calculated as follows: 

T = S + Pu 
U = T + D1 
V = U + D e 
W = V + Da 
Of course, the value of W obtained in 

this way is equal to the total number of 
requests. Independent probabilities which 
describe this branching process can now 
be calculated according to the following 
formulas: 

Pu = S/T 
Pr T/U 
Pe = U/V 
Pa = V/W 
We can interpret these probabilities as 

follows: 

Pn is a measure of user performance. 
P1 is a measure of library performance. 
P e is a measure of circulation policy 

performance (including internal li-
brary use of the books ) . 

Pa is a measure of acquisition policy 
performance. 

s -
( Sa t il tied 

reques ts ) 

W • V + Da ( Tota l requests) 

Du • 

(Dissa t is fa c t ion 
d ue. to us er error) 

Fig. 1 
Branching Diagram of the Outcomes of Requests 

for Books from a Library 

The four probabilities allow us to iso-
late the various obstacles to satisfaction 
of requests and to explore effects of alter-
native "fixes" of given hindrances. Buck-
land's "satisfaction level," p 8 , is calculated 
as follows: 

Ps S/W, or in terms of the branch-
ing probabilities: 

Ps Pu · PI · Pe · Pa 

The particular sequence of branching 
can be understood in the following way: 

1. The first thing that matters in seek-
ing a given book from a given li-
brary is that the library has acquired 
it; if it has not, nothing else matters. 
The search must be moved to some 
other source. If it has acquired the 
book, still other barriers must be 
passed before one gets the book; 
therefore, Pa comes first. It repre-
sents the fraction of sought books 
which have been acquired. 

2. If a library has a book, the second 
thing that matters is that the book 
is not in circulation or in some other 
use; if it's "in," still other hindrances 



remain; thus, Pe follows Pa· 
3. If the book is "in," the third thing 

that matters is that the book is in its 
proper place (not stolen, not mis-
shelved, not at the bindery, etc.), 
i.e., if the library functions properly, 
the book should be in a known 
place. If it isn't, nothing else mat-
ters. If it is, still another barrier re-
mains; thus, p 1 follows Pe· It repre-
sents the fraction of "in" books 
which are in proper locations. 

4. If a book is "acquired," "in," and in 
its "proper place," then the book is 
available, but that does not neces-
sarily mean that the user will get it. 
The user has to perform without 
error in catalog or shelf lookup, etc. 

, If the user commits an error, then 
even though the book is available 
the request is not satisfied; Pu fol-
lows other probabilities and is 
placed at the last fork of the branch-
ing diagram. 

The branching diagram represents the 
process of "staying on the right track" to 
achieve immediate satisfaction in a search 
for a known title. The branches must be 
arranged in this order because the im-
plied conjunctions ("not circulating and 
in its proper place") make sense. If we 
arranged them so that library perfor-
mance came first, we would have a fork 
in which we should ask: "How many of 
the books which are in their proper place 
are not in the library after all?" This pa-
rameter (if it has any meaning at all) 
was surely not measured in this survey. 

We believe that it is reasonable to as-
sume that the causes of the four kinds of 
branching act independently. Thus, if a 
book is returned from circulation, we 
assume that the probability that it will 
be correctly placed on the shelves is the 
same as the probability p 1 observed for 
those books in the library at the time of 
the study. It is this independence which 
makes these four probabilities important 
analytical tools. 

User Frustration I 13 

ANALYSIS OF OBSERVATIONS 

"Satisfaction level," p 8 , for: 

203 
1972 was 

423 
== .48 and for 

245 
197 4 was 

437 
== .56 

Figure 2 presents the branching dia-
gram for the 1972 observations during 
the "semester loan" policy and Figure 3 
for the 197 4 observations during the 
"four week" loan policy. The data are 
taken from Table 1. (As explained in 
the notes to Table 1, the dissatisfied re-
quests from category "Other" are dis-
tributed to the appropriate three cate-
gories in the same ratio as the . number 
of items in each of the three categories; 
thus the nine items in category "Other" 
in the 1972 study were allocated as fol-
lows: 3 to Du, 2 to Db and 4 to De. The 
eleven items in this category in the 1974 
study were allocated in this way: 4 to Du, 
3 to D~, and 4 to De.) 

Table 2 presents the probabilities, i.e., 
measures of performance for Sears Li-
brary for both 1972 and 197 4 surveys 
calculated from the appropriate values 
from Figure 2 and Figure 3. The per-
formance measures are presented sepa-
rately from the branching diagrams in 
order to provide for easier comparison 
between the two surveys. 

Each of the performance measures is 
calculated from a sample and is, there-
fore, subject to statistical errors. These 
errors may be estimated in terms of the 
standard deviation, assuming that the 
sample events represent Bernoulli trials. 
The formula expressing the standard 
deviation, CT, in terms of the performance 
measure p, and the size of the sample, N, 
is: 

u == v'p(1-p)/N 

For all the branching points in our 
analysis this error is less than ± 3 per-
cent. The standard deviation for each 
probability is given in Table 2. 



14 I College & Research Libraries • January 1977 

TABLE 2 

MEAsuREs OF PERFORMANCE FOR THE SEARS LIBRARY, FRoM THE OuTCOMES 
OF REQUESTS FOR BooKs DuRING THE SURVEYS IN 1972 .AND 1974 

1972 1974 Standard 
"Semester Loan" "Four Week Deviation, <1 

Policy 

Acquisition: Pa = V/W 88% 
Circulation: pc = U/V 77% 
Library: PI = T/U 89% 
Users: Pu = SIT 80% 
Satisfaction Level Ps = S/W 48% 

DISCUSSION 

Satisfaction level 

The 1972 observation found a satis-
faction level Ps of 48 percent, and the 
1974 observation found one of' 56 per-
cent. Comparison of performance mea-
sures for individual factors, as discussed 
below, isolates the cause of the increase 
of 8 percent in satisfaction level be-
tween the two observations. The satis-
faction levels found in this study are 
comparable to those found in the other 
studies reviewed. These obversations 
suggest that satisfaction levels of 40 to 
60 percent are to be found commonly 
in academic libraries. Similarity of or-
ganization and procedures may explain 
the apparent universality of these satis-

w - 423 

s - 203 ·Du • 49+3 

Fig. 2 
Branching Diagram of the Outcomes of Requests 

for Books from Sears Library 
from the 1972 Survey During the 

"Semester Loan" Policy 

Loan'' Policy 1972 1974 

91% 1.6% 1.4% 
87% 2.2% 1.7% 
86% 1.8% 1.9% 
82% 2.5% 2.2% 
56% 2.4% 2.4% 

faction levels. This range is somewhat 
higher than Gore's estimate but still 
does not seem to us to be a high level of 
satisfaction for a service , 

Acquisition 

The performance measure reflecting 
acquisitions, Pa for 1972 was 88 percent 
and for 197 4 91 percent, a slight in-
crease, but since it is about two ·standard 
deviations it is possibly not significant. 
The library has acquired some 90 per-
cent of books requested by users. 

Similar levels of acquisition were 
found when we applied our analysis to 
the other studies reviewed. 14 Even those 
libraries that have considerably larger 
collections, such as Yale with some 
3,000,000 volumes in comparison to 

w - 437 

s ~ 245 D u • 50 + 4 

Fig. 3 
Branching Diagram of the Outcomes of Requests 

for Books from Sears Library 
from the 1974 Survey During the 

"Four Week" Loan Policy 



Sears with 200,000 volumes, have ac-
quired some 90 percent of books re-
quested by their users. Therefore, ac-
quisition policies and procedures work 
very well; evidently they have been de-
veloped to a high art in academic li-
braries of various sizes. As a result, the 
size of academic libraries was eliminat-
ed as a significant factor that affects sat-
isfaction, at least in the libraries stud-
ied. 

Theoretically, interlibrary loans are 
designed to supplement an acquired li-
brary collection. A corollary finding of 
acquisition performance is that the the-
oretical upper limit of demands that in-
terlibrary loan could satisfy (if used 
for supplemental purposes) is some 10 
percent of total demands on those aca-
demic libraries. In reality this is lower: 
Interlibrary loans satisfy less than 5 per-
cent of demands in academic libraries. 

One might be concerned that users of 
the Sears Library are conditioned to 
seek fewer titles than users of the larger 
Yale Library. However, we simply note 
that acquisition has a generally high 
performance measure and should not 
command our attention at present. 

Circulation 

The performance measure of circula-
tion policy, Pc, for 1972 when a "semes-
ter loan" policy was in effect was 77 per-
cent and for 197 4 when a "four week" 
loan policy was in effect was 87 percent. 
In other words, of those books that were 
requested by the users and had been ac-
quired by the library 23 percent in 1972 
and 13 percent in 197 4 were out on loan 
or in use in the library. Therefore, a 
change in loan policy improved the cir-
culation policy performance some 10 
percent, a factor which has to be con-
sidered quite significant. This shows the 
power of alteration of loan policies. 
However, such alteration cannot be con-
sidered only in terms of days a book is 
allowed to be out. If so, the "no loan" 
policy would be most effective. The time 

User Frustration I 15 

requirements for effective use of a book 
by a user have to be taken into account 
as well. Therefore, the length of a loan 
policy should be determined as a com-
bination of time factors involving vari-
ous effectiveness aspects: effectiveness of 
the library to a number of users and ef-
fectiveness of the book to individual 
users. This can be best discussed in 
terms of the mean usage time associated 
with a borrowing. As Pc approaches 100 
percent, mean usage time goes to zero. 
The quantity of interest is the product 
of the two. 15 

The problem of ioan policy is compli-
cated by the demand distribution. A few 
books are requested quite often, while 
demand for others falls off rapidly. De-
mands for books from libraries approx-
imately follow .a Bradford law. The 
"bunching" effect (effect of the Brad-
ford "nucleus") can be alleviated by 
use of demand dependent loan periods, 
book duplication, and recall requests. 
Models of Morse, Buckland, and Shaw 
incorporating these features are rele-
vant to the analysis of Pc· 

The in-house use of books was consid-
ered in this study together with books 
on-loan because both represent a form 
of circulation. The data in Table 1 pre-
sent on-loan and in-house use separately, 
but a separate measure for each type of 
circulation although possible is not nec-
essary. 

The interesting question to be asked 
is: What is the ratio between the in-
house use of books in a library and the 
external on-loan use of books as mea-
sured by exposure time? Obviously, loan 
policy affects both, the in-house .and on-
loan circulation. In gathering data for 
the simulation of loan policies, it was 
found that 44 percent of books used at 
Sears Library in the fall of 197 4 were 
through loan and 56 percent were used 
in-house. For every book borrowed, an-
other was used in the library. Only 7 
percent of books circulated were re-
called.16 Therefore, loan policies affect 



16 I College & Research Libraries • January 1977 

considerably more than just the on-loan 
circulation. The option of recall is rela-
tively unused. Many users are not aware 
of it or do not understand its meaning. 

Let us consider the assumption that 
unsatisfied demands are only due to the 
fact that a book is in circulation, as 
used by Shaw.1 7 The level of satisfac-
tion. Ps', in this simplified case may be 
calculated from the branching diagram 
as follows: 

Ps' 

For 1972: Ps' 

s 
S +De 

203 
203 + 85 

245 
Ps' == ----

245 + 52 For 1974: 

.70 

.82 

These formulas allow for a direct 
comparison of loan policies in simula-
tion. · 

Library Operations 

The performance measure of library 
operations for 1972 was 89 percent and 
for 197 4 a slightly smaller 86 percent. 
In other words, of those books that were 
requested by users, and acquired by the 
library, and not in circulation some 11 
percent in 1972 and 14 percent in 1974 
could not be found because of some 
malfunction of library operations. In 
1972 this placed the library perfor-
mance first and best among four factors 
studied; in 197 4 it fell down to third 
place, a change of borderline statistical 
significance (about 1~ standard devia-
tions ) . There are a variety of causes of 
user frustration included in this ·cate-
gory, e.g., inadequate procedures, pol-
icies or directions, huma._n mistakes on 
the part of library operators, etc. 

More debatable is the inclusion of 
stolen books as a cause of frustration. 
Are they due to inadequate library se-
curity or due to efforts of thieves who 
overwhelm all economically feasible 
and legally allowable security measures? 

The majority of the library malfunc-

tions in both time periods studied fell 
in the category of "missing books." In 
the 1972 study approximately 8 percent 
of the books which were not in circula-
tion were missing, and in 197 4 the frac-
tion had risen to 12 percent. (The cor-
responding numbers of events can be 
found in Table 1.) The majority of 
these were not known to be missing by 
the library staff; that is, their absence 
was discovered during the frustration 
survey. This suggests a need for im-
provements in security, inventory 
checks, shelving procedures, and shelf 
reading. (Some missing books may have 
been misshelved by mistake and others 
purposely misshelved as a kind of "pri-
vate reserve" system.) 

If the number of missing books con-
tinues to climb, and is, in fact, related 
to pilferage, then security will eventual-
ly become a major practical issue, with 
important economic and psychological 
consequences. At present, missing books 
are on the way to becoming a major fac-
tor contributing to user frustration, and 
they have already become the over-
whelming factor in library .malfunc-
tions. It is customary to indicate the 
number of missing books in terms of 
a percent of the total collection or of 
.acquisitions for a given time period. As 
a measure of the effectiveness of a li-
brary this is grossly misleading, because 
it is the books in high demand that are 
missing most often. Thus a small num-
ber of missing books which are in high 
demand can · decrease library perfor-
mance quite significantly. 

User Performance 

The measure of user performance, 
Pu, for 1972 was 80 percent and for 
197 4 82 percent. In other words, of 
those books that were requested by 
users, and available (i.e., acquired and 
not in circulation and in their place) 20 
percent in 1972 ( 18 percent in 1974) 
were not found b~cause of some mis-



take by users. Of the four performance 
measures, user performance was third 
in 1972 and worst in 1974. Therefore, 
library user performance is a most ap-
propriate choice for attempts at im-
provement. 

Some causes of user ineffectiveness are 
due to normal human errors: copying 
incorrect call number, looking at the 
wrong place on the shelf, wrong spell-
ing, etc. Even these causes should be of 
library concern: Library catalogs, signs, 
shelving, etc., can be designed in a way 
to minimize common human errors. 
Highly visible signs that alert users to 
commonly committed errors and to 
users' own fallibility may minimize 
their errors. 

There were also "user errors" that 
could not be clearly .attributed to user 
errors and for which the library has to 
assume some responsibility. For instance, 
in the cases where the catalog card indi-
cates that a particular book is located in 
a special area of the library, it is not to 
be assumed that a user can follow that 
code and retrieve the book. For exam-
ple, "q" above a call number means that 
the book is located on oversize book 
shelves. How . many users will, in fact, 
detect the difference and look for over-
size shelves? "Geology" . above a call 
number means that the book is in the 
collection of the Geology Department 
and not that the book is on the subject 
of geology. If a book is placed on re-
serve and a user doesn't know that in ad-
vance, it is highly unlikely that he or 
she will ever find it. Nobody looks for 
books "on hold,'' "in process," etc. 

An appropriately designed orientation 
program for users might improve the 
overall library effectiveness, and there-
fore should receive a great deal of at-
tention. 

CoNCLUSIONS 

We have presented and applied a 

User Frustration I 11 

''branching" analysis of frustration sur-
vey data. The resulting performance 
measures are independently significant, 
and their product determines the overall 
satisfaction rate. 

The three measures not directly relat-
ed to circulation remained substantially 
constant during the time between the 
two parts of our study. This enhances 
our confidence that they .are not only 
easily measurable but also meaningful 
parameters. Of course, they provide a 
tremendously convenient way of sum-
marizing a great deal of data and of 
comparing the performance of differ-
ent libraries. 

At any time the overall satisfaction 
is most affected by whichever perfor-
mance factor is the lowest. At the time of 
the first study the circulation factor was 
lowest. (The analysis reported here was, 
in fact, conducted after the change in 
policy, so that we did not at the time 
know that that factor was in fact the 
most crucial one.) The substantial in-
crease in this factor is exactly in accord 
with the predictions of the simulation 
study which led to its adoption.18 

At present the lowest factor is user 
performance. It has remained fairly 
constant (within statistical errors) dur-
ing the two year period of the study. 
We have also performed "retrospective" 
analyses of data from earlier studies men-
tioned and find that user performance 
at the 80 percent level seems quite typi-
cal. This limiting factor is also found 
in our analysis of Meier's data showing 
that library personnel in a closed stack 
library are 81 percent effective in re-
trieving books. 

Both Morse and Buckland concentrat-
ed on loan policies, which are but one 
factor in frustration. In general, there 
were no attempts to combine into one 
model all or even most factors studied. 
The present paper represents a step in 
that direction. 



18 I College & Research Libraries • january 1977 

This research was supported by grants 
from the National Science Foundation 
(GN-36085) and from the Cleveland and 
Gund Foundations for the Complex Sys-
tems Institute of CWRU. The authors 
acknowledge the assistance of students 
in the <<Information Science Laboratory" 

course in the School of Library Science, 
CWR U, in the collection of data for the 
study, and the cooperation of Marcia L. 
Parsons, head librarian, Sears Library, 
the staff of the Sears Library, and ] ames 
V. ]ones, director of libraries, CWRU, 
in making this study possible. 

REFERENCES 

1. D. Gore, "Let Them Eat Cake While Read-
ing Catalog Cards: An Essay on the Avail-
ability Problem," Library Journal 100:93-
98 (Jan. 15, 1975). · 

2. J, M. Ziman, Public Knowledge: The Social 
Dimension of Science (London: Cam-
bridge Univ. Pr., 1968). 

3. P. M. Morse, Library Effectiveness: A Sys-
tems Approach (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT 
Press, 1968). 

4. M. K. Buckland, Book Availability and the 
Library User (New York: Pergamon Press, 
1975). 

5. R. L. Meier, "Information Input Overload: 
Features of Growth in Communications-
Oriented Institutions," Libri 13:1-44 
( 1963 ). 

6. R. Tagliacozzo · and M. Kochen, "Informa-
tion Seeking Behavior of Catalog Users," 
Information Storage and Retrieval 6:363-
81 (Dec. 1970). 

7. J. A. Urquhart and J. L. Schofield, "Mea-
suring Readers' Failure at the Shelf," Jour-
nal of Documentation 27:273-86 (Dec. 
1971). After the present manuscript was 
submitted for publication, a subsequent 
study by Schofield, Cooper, and Waters 
was issued ( "Evaluation of an Academic 
Library's Stock Effectiveness," Journal of 
Librarianship 7:207- 27 (July 1975) ). This 
study reported both successes and failures, 
and the failure rate for the case of the 
library's main collection was shown to be 
about 44 percent. 

8. J. H. Orr, V. M. Pinge, I. H. Pizer, E. E. 
Olson, and C. C. Spencer, "Development 

of Methodologic Tools for Planning and 
Managing Library Services. II. Measurin g 
a Library's Capability for Providing Doc-
uments," Bulletin of the Medical L-ibrary 
Association 56: 241-67 (July 1968 ) . 

9. Ben-Ami Lipetz, "Catalog Use in a Large 
Research Library,'' Library Quarterly 42: 
129-39 (Jan. 1972). 

10. M. Hamburg, R. Clelland, M. Bommer, 
L. Ramist, and R. Whitfield, Library Plan-
ning and Decision-Making Systems (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1974). 

11. P. B. Kantor, "The Library as an Informa-
tion Utility in the University Context : 
Evaluation and Measurement of Service," 
Journal of th e A merican Society for Infor-
mation Scie nce 27:100-112 (March-April 
1976). 

12. W. M. Shaw, Jr., "Library-User Interface: 
A Simulation of the Circulation Subsys-
tem," Information Processing & Manage-
ment 12:77-91 ( 1976). 

13. P. B. Kantor, "\ Vork Sheets for the Mea-
surement of Library Effectiveness" ( Cleve-
land: School of Library Science, Case West-
em Reserve University, 1975). 

14. Buckland, Book Availability; Meier, "Infor-
mation Input Overload"; P. B. Kantor, 
"Availability An alysis," Journal of the 
American Society for Information Science 
( forthcoming) . 

15. For further discussion see Kantor, "The Li-
brary as an Information Utility." 

16. Shaw, "Library-User Interface. " 
17. Ibid. 
18. Ibid.