dinkins 46������������������������������ ������������ Circulation as Assessment: Collection Development Policies Evaluated in Terms of Circulation at a Small Academic Library Debbi Dinkins At the root of all library acquisition decisions is the goal to add to the collection those materials that meet users’ needs. Compiling circulation statistics is one way of assessing users’ needs. This project seeks to assess the current collection development practices at Stetson Univer­ sity with respect to the circulation of books purchased in support of se­ lected departmental curricula. Circulation statistics for books selected by five academic departments over a five-year period are compared with those of librarian selections in corresponding subject areas. he process of allocating depart­ ment and program funding for library materials is a compli­ cated and time­consuming en­ deavor for acquisitions and collection development librarians in small academic libraries. Although many academic librar­ ies have been able to increase their mate­ rials budgets in recent years, these in­ creases have often failed to keep pace with the rising cost of materials. This de­ crease in buying power impacts libraries' ability to support the research needs of their users. At the root of all library acquisition decisions is the goal to add to the collec­ tion those materials that will meet users' needs; compiling usage statistics is an ef­ fective way of assessing previous deci­ sions and allows extrapolation for the future. Studies have been conducted to track the use, over time, of a sampling of circulating books. Larry Hardesty con­ ducted two studies at DePauw University and at Eckerd College in the 1980s. At DePauw, Hardesty tracked all circulating books purchased over a six­month period (2,031 books) and found that "80% of the . circulation was accounted for by 30% of the books."l At Eckerd College, he tracked purchased circulating books ac­ quired during one budget year (1,398 books) and found that 34 percent of the books studied accounted for 80 percent of the total circulation.2 At Stetson University's main campus in DeLand, Florida, assigning materials budget amounts for university depart­ ments and programs is a highly refined process involving an allocation formula based on variables such as number of stu­ dent majors and number of faculty in a department. There also is a general fund from which librarians make selections. Debbi Dinkins is Head of Technical Services and Associate Professor at Stetson University; e-mail: ddinkins@stetson.edu. 46 mailto:ddinkins@stetson.edu ��� � ��� ��� ���������� �� �������������� Stetson University, primarily an under­ graduate institution with a few master's programs, has a College of Arts & Sci­ ences, a School of Business Administra­ tion, and a School of Music. Stetson pro­ vides a microcosm in which to study the effectiveness of materials' selection by li­ brarians and classroom faculty.3 Academic Library Collection Development Practices In a literature survey on collection devel­ opment policies, many articles confirmed that classroom faculty determine most of the selections made in small academic li­ braries. A survey cited in Library Journal in 1998 claimed that "virtually every li­ brary LJ surveyed relied on faculty when making purchasing decisions, and half of them ranked faculty as the number­one source."4 An earlier survey in 1997 stated that "the two most important reasons for selecting a title are relevance to curricu­ lum, and requests by faculty."s Teaching faculty's allegiance to their particular dis­ cipline or specialty, as well as to the re­ search needs of their students, impacts T��� ��p�t������ �f�t���� �t�d�� t��t �������t����p�����t����� �f������ �����t�d� d�p��t���t���f����t� w���� t���� �������t��� p�����t����� �f� ������ �����t�d� �������� ������t� ������ their selection decisions. "By definition and by tradition, the faculty are research specialists. Their primary loyalty is often to a profession rather than to the institu­ tion. The library, however, must assemble collections that serve narrow subdisci­ plines as well as the multidisciplinary needs of the community as a whole. Thus, the scope of faculty interests does not necessarily match those of the library."6 Stetson’s Collection Development Policy Academic departments are allocated funds based on a formula, taking into ac­ count number of majors, student contact hours, number of faculty, cost of materi­ �������t���� A��������t� 47 als in the field, and library use/research intensity of the field at Stetson. Participa­ tion of faculty in the development of the collection is highly encouraged.? Each academic department designates a liaison responsible for coordinating, surveying, and collecting library material requests from other faculty in the department. These departmental requests come to the acquisitions librarian, who then approves the requests for ordering. Faculty requests almost always receive approval, with the rare question occurring about availabil­ ity or cost. Faculty requests are purchased with departmental library materials bud­ gets. The formula for departmental bud­ get allocation is reevaluated periodically by the Library Administrative Team and by the University Library Committee.8 Purpose and Hypothesis This project seeks to assess the current collection development practices of Stetson University's duPont­Ball Library with respect to circulation of books pur­ chased in support of selected departmen­ tal curricula. Using the circulation data of books ordered, the study compares the circulation percentages of books selected by departmental faculty to those of books selected by librarians in the correspond­ ing subject areas. Five­year data sets (1997-2001) of acquisitions data and cir­ culation data were used to conduct the study. The hypothesis of this study is that circulation percentages of books selected by departmental faculty will be higher than circulation percentages of books se­ lected by librarians in similar subject ar­ eas. If project results reject this hypoth­ esis, the results will be used to help the selected departments' faculty to optimize library materials budgets and enhance selection techniques. Methodology Choosing Departments to Study Departments were selected for this study based on the percentage of the departmen­ tal budget spent on circulating mono­ graphs in fiscal years 1999-2000 and 2000- 2001. Stetson is somewhat unusual in that ����������������������������� ������������ 48� allocations to departments TABLE 1 cover their journal sub­ Departmental Monograph Expenditure Percentage scriptions as well as mono­ graph purchases, with jour­ Department 2000-2001 1999-2000 nal subscription costs % of Total Budget % of Total Budget continuing every year. The on Cire. Monographs on Cire. Monographs study included depart­ Art 82% 82%ments with more than 50 English 66% 67% percent of their budgets History 59% 58% spent on circulating mono­ Music 66% 50% graphs. Based on this crite­ Political science 64% 65% rion, all natural science de­ partments were excluded. After consideration of all qualifying de­ partments, the departments of art, English, history, music, and political science were chosen for study, based on their mono­ graphic selection percentages and on the ease of matching librarian selections to the subject matter.9 (See table 1.) Generating Departmental Selection Data Acquisitions records kept in the library's automated computer system (Sirsi Uni­ corn®) generated lists of circulating mono­ graphs ordered by each department us­ ing its departmental library materials budget for five fiscal years. Each list was converted to a spreadsheet, with columns for order number, order line number (if applicable), fiscal year, author, title, OCLC number, number of charges (times circulated), and comments. (See table 2 for an excerpt from one of the spreadsheets.) After the selection spreadsheets were constructed for each department for the fiscal years between 1996-1997 and 2000- 2001, each monograph title was checked in the Sirsi system for the number of times the title had circulated since 1997. Titles in the spreadsheet were matched to titles in the Sirsi system by comparing factors such as title, author, OCLC number, pub­ lication date, and acquisition date. Refer­ ence collection titles and missing titles were deleted from the spreadsheet. Each volume of multivolume sets that circu­ lated more than once was entered sepa­ rately, with notes in the Comments col­ umn about which volume was being rep­ resented. If an entire multivolume set had not circulated at least once, one line in the spreadsheet represented the whole set with a note in the Comments column. With all titles in the spreadsheet matched to circulation data, the spread­ sheet was sorted to display the titles in descending order, based on circulation. From the spreadsheet data, the percent­ ages of titles checked out at least once and more than once were calculated. (See the TABLE 2 Section of English Department Spreadsheet Order # Line # FY Author Title # Charges 99-006 54 9899 Albright, Daniel Quantum poetics 25 98-269 49 9798 Peterson, Nancy J. Toni Morrison: critical and theoretical approaches 11 98-055 35 9798 Furman, Jan. Toni Morrison's fiction 9 98-371 10 9798 Petry, Alice Hall, 1951- Critical essays on Kate Chopin I 9 98-269 13 9798 Kaplan, Carla The erotics of talk: women's writing and feminist paradigm 9 ��� ��������t���� A��������t� 49 TABLE 3 LC Classification for Department/ Subject Area Department/ LC Subjeet Area Classifieation Art N English P-PA, PR-PS, PZ History C, D, E, F Music M Political Science J, K Results section for these percentages.) The same process was followed for each of the five selected departments. Generating Librarian Selection Data Acquisitions data were examined from the library's general fund, which is used to order items selected by librarians. For the five fiscal years studied, circulating monographs ordered by librarians were drawn from the Sirsi system, and the data were entered into spreadsheets for each of the five department subject areas. The circulating monographs were matched to each subject area based on the LC classi­ fication associated with the monograph. Table 3 shows the LC classifications used for each studied subject area. As with the departmental selections, each librarian­selected title was checked in the Sirsi system for number of times cir­ culated since 1997. The spreadsheets for each subject area were sorted in descend­ ing order, based on the number of times circulated. Percentages of se­ books that circulated at least once. Over the last two years of the study, the art de­ partment spent an average of 82 percent of its library materials budget on the book format. Sixty­three percent of the total number of books selected during the five­ year period circulated at least once, and 36 percent circulated more than once. Li­ brarians also selected effectively in the art category, with 54 percent of the books cir­ culating at least once, and 36 percent cir­ culating more than once (table 5). The de­ partmental faculty's high circulation percentage is even more impressive con­ sidering that art department faculty or­ dered almost eight times as many circu­ lating art books during the same time period as the librarians did. English and Political Science In the subject areas of English and politi­ cal science, the departmental faculties and the librarians compare evenly in selection circulation percentages for books circu­ lating at least once. During the last two years of the study, the English department spent about 67 percent of its library ma­ terials budget on the book format, and the political Science department spent about 65 percent. During the five years studied, the English faculty selected nearly three times as many books as the librarians in that subject area. The political science fac­ ulty selected ten times as many books as the librarians during the same time pe­ riod. Interestingly, the circulation percent­ TABLE 4 lections that circulated at least once Number of Selections by Departmental and more than once were calculated Faculty and Librarians based on the spreadsheet data. Total Number Total Number Results of Seleetions of Seleetions Table 4 shows the approximate to­ by Departmental by Librarians tal number of circulating books se­ Faeulty in Subjeet Area lected by departmental faculty and English librarians in each subject area be­ Art tween 1997 and 2001.l0 English History Art Music Based on the data, the art department Political science faculty performed best in selecting 1,433 512 598 80 1,433 512 439 288 635 23 1,086 104 ����������������������������� ������������ ��� ��� 5�� TABLE S Circulation Percentages for Departmental Faculty and Librarian Selections Seleetions Cireulating At Least Onee Seleetions Cireulating More Than Onee DepartmentI Subject Area Departmental Librarians Faculty Departmental Librarians Faculty Art English History Music Political science 63% 54% 43% 46% 44% 58% 46% 70% 45% 48% 36% 36% 23% 22% 18% 28% 25% 48% 24% 31% ages for both groups' selections vary by seven percentage points or less. As shown in table 5, the largest variation occurs in a comparison of political science faculty selections and librarian selections that cir­ culated more than once, with 24 percent of the departmental faculty selections cir­ culating more than once and 31 percent of the librarians' selections circulating more than once. F��� �����t����� ��d�� ��t�d�p��t� ���t�f����t�y�8��p�����t��f�t�� �������t����w��� ������t�d�f��� �4 p�����t��f�t��� ������ �t�d��d History In history, the librarians' selections have circulated more frequently than the de­ partmental selections. History faculty se­ lected almost twice as many circulating books as librarians during the five­year time period. As shown in table 5, the li­ brarians' selections circulated at a higher percentage, with 58 percent circulating at least once and 28 percent circulating more than once, compared to the department faculty's 44 percent and 18 percent, re­ spectively. During the last two years of the study, the history department spent about 59 percent of its library materials budget on the book format. Music The music department's faculty spent an average of 58 percent of their general li­ brary materials budget on the book for­ mat during the last two years of the study. An additional library materials fund ex­ ists for the School of Music that is prima­ rily used for purchasing scores and re­ cordings and was not included in the study. At Stetson, a music librarian acts as liaison between the library and the School of Music faculty for selection of materials. The music faculty and the mu­ sic librarian selected about 1,500 more cir­ culating music books than did the other librarians. However, the librarians' selec­ tions circulated at a higher percentage rate than those of the faculty, with 48 per­ cent of the librarians' selections circulat­ ing more than once, compared to a 25 per­ cent circulation rate for the faculty selections (table 5). Because of the wide gap between the numbers of books se­ lected by the two groups, more study and attention should be given to music book selection before collection development conclusions can be drawn. Also, it should be noted that a portion of the music cir­ culating books, including all selected by the music librarian, were housed in a separate music library until 2001. With the relocation of those books to the main library, circulation rates may increase be­ cause the books are now more accessible to all library users. Comparison with Other Studies As stated earlier, Hardesty's study at DePauw University compared classroom faculty selections and librarian selections. His study divided the use of circulating books into the following four categories: heavy use (more than eleven circulations); ��� � � �������t���� A��������t� 51 TABLE 6 Percentages of Selections by Stetson Departmental Faculty and Librarians Accounting for 80% of Circulation Department Faeulty Librarians Dept.ISubject Area Percentage of Selections Percentage of Selections Accounting for 80% Accounting for 80% of Circulation of Circulation Art 34% English 25% History 29% Music 25% Political science 25% moderate use (six to ten circulations); light use (one to five circulations); and none. Twenty­six percent of the librarian­ selected books were either moderately or heavily used. Only 13 percent of the class­ room faculty­selected books were in these two categories.ll By comparison, the cir­ culation percentages of both librarian­se­ lected and classroom faculty­selected books at Stetson were much lower in the moderately and heavily used categories. Neither group had more than five percent of their selections circulate six or more times. Because DePauw and Stetson are comparably sized universities, the differ­ ence in use possibly can be attributed to longer checkout periods. Typically, at the time of Hardesty's study (1972-1978), the checkout period for students was two weeks. However, Stetson students have a one­month checkout period and books circulate to Stetson faculty for the entire semester. Hardesty's study at DePauw found that 80 percent of circulation was accounted for by 30 percent of the books studied.l2 In his replication study at Eckerd, Hardesty found that 80 percent of the circulation was accounted for by 34 percent of the books studied.l3 In this Stetson study, for selec­ tions made by art department faculty, 80 percent of the circulation was accounted for by 34 percent of the books studied (table 6). Other departmental faculty selections had lower percentages accounting for 80 percent of the circulation. Librarian selec­ tions in music had 39 percent of the books 29% 25% 33% 39% 28% selected accounting for 80 percent of the circulation. Lower percentages accounted for 80 percent of the circulation in other subject areas. These percentages are very similar to the percentages in both Hardesty studies. Recommendations Departmental Collection Development Changes No change is recommended in collection development practices for the art depart­ ment. Both departmental faculty and li­ brarians are selecting effectively in this area, with circulation percentages at or above 36 percent. Also, no change is rec­ ommended for collection development practices in the English subject area. Both departmental faculty and librarians are selecting materials with circulation per­ centages above 22 percent. In political science, there was a higher percentage of librarian selections circu­ lating more than once, with 31 percent for librarians and 24 percent for departmen­ tal faculty. In history, librarian selections circulating more than once also circulated more frequently than departmental fac­ ulty selections in the same category, with 28 percent for librarians and 18 percent for departmental faculty. Librarians should work more closely with political science and history faculty to enhance their selection choices. By exposing them to more diverse sources of book reviews (e.g., subject­specific journals) and by encouraging the faculty to select books http:studied.l3 http:studied.l2 http:categories.ll ����������������������������� ������������ 5�� more specific to the Stetson curriculum and class assignments, the departments should be able to select books that circu­ late more frequently. Course­specific, classroom­based surveys, as developed by Patricia Weaver, might offer depart­ mental faculty some insight into selection in their fields.l4 "Classroom­based sur­ veys of students and interviews with their instructors should be an ongoing collec­ tion­building tool for academic libraries, where space and budgetary restraints of­ ten limit the number of books that can be made available at any one time."ls More­ over, the librarians should offer to work with political science and history faculty in developing research methods and strat­ egies for their students, using a broader spectrum of the library's circulating ma­ terials. Because of the low number of circulat­ ing books selected in the music subject area by librarians, no specific conclusions can be drawn on the effectiveness of mu­ sic collection development by non­music librarians. Based on local experience, the circulation percentages of musical scores and recordings selected by music depart­ ment faculty should be much higher than for music books. Further study should be conducted on music scores and record­ ings circulation to determine circulation percentages and to compare the figures with those of circulating music books. Conclusions The hypothesis of this study theorized that circulation percentages of books selected by departmental faculty would be higher than circulation percentages of books se­ lected by librarians in similar subject ar­ eas. Based on circulation percentages of selections circulating more than once (table 5), the hypothesis is rejected. The circula­ tion percentages for librarians' selections circulating more than once were equal to or higher than those of departmental fac­ ulty selections in all subject areas studied. The librarians and staff should open a dialogue with the history, political sci­ ence, and music faculty about the use of the books they are currently ordering for the library. As Hardesty concluded from the study at Eckerd College, "most class­ room faculty have received little or no formal education on how to select library materials that are appropriate for the un­ dergraduate student or on how to encour­ age undergraduate student use of these materials."l6 Better communication be­ tween the librarians and the faculty of all departments will enhance the selection accuracy of the departmental faculty and the librarians in those subject areas. The results of this project will be made avail­ able to all five departments. The data generated by this study may be of interest for future studies. The raw data could be used to gather more specific information about areas such as the fol­ lowing: librarian selections over the five­ year study period; circulation performance of large standing order and/or continua­ tion sets; general trends in selection among librarians and departmental faculty; com­ parison to Choice reviews (Choice card reviews are sent to all departments for use in the selection process). The study data will be useful in the future in making se­ lection and acquisition decisions for the library and will be used as a basis for fu­ ture studies or projects. Notes 1. Larry Hardesty, "Use of Library Materials at a Small Liberal Arts College," Library Re- search 3 (1981): 261-82. 2. ---, "Use of Library Materials at a Small Liberal Arts College: A Replication," Collec- tion Management 10 (1988): 61-80. 3. For many years, some departments had to cut back on their monographic library pur­ chases because of lack of funding and failure of budget growth to match inflation. New pro­ grams developed over the past few years have had no library budgets and been forced to rely on existing departmental budgets to fund their library needs for research and curricular support. 4. Barbara Hoffert, "Book Report, Part 2: What Academic Libraries Buy and How Much They Spend," Library Journal 123 (Sept. 1, 1998): 144-46. http:fields.l4 ��� � � �������t���� A��������t� 5 5. James H. Sweetland and Peter G. Christensen, "Developing Language and Literature Collections in Academic Libraries: A Survey," Journal of Academic Librarianship 23 (Mar. 1997): 119-25. 6. Lawrence Thomas, "Tradition and Expertise in Academic Library Collection Develop­ ment," College and Research Libraries 48 (Nov. 1987): 487-93. 7. Stetson University Library, "Acquisitions and Collection Development," Dec. 2001. Avail­ able online from http://www.stetson.edu/departments/library/colldev.html. 8. ---, "Collection Development and Organization Policies," Dec. 2001. Available online from http://www.stetson.edu/departments/library/TSManual.html. 9. It should be noted that in recent years, monographs ordered by political science faculty have gone unordered because of increasing journal subscription costs in this subject area. 10. Numbers are approximate because some multivolume sets with none of the volumes circulating are represented as one title with one line in the spreadsheet. 11. Hardesty, "Use of Library Materials at a Small Liberal Arts College," 275. 12. Ibid., 266-67. 13. Hardesty, "Use of Library Materials at a Small Liberal Arts College: A Replication," 67. 14. Patricia Weaver, "A Student­centered Classroom­based Approach to Collection Building," Journal of Academic Librarianship 25 (May 1999): 202-10. 15. Ibid., 208. 16. Hardesty, "Use of Library Materials at a Small Liberal Arts College: A Replication," 78. http://www.stetson.edu/departments/library/TSManual.html http://www.stetson.edu/departments/library/colldev.html