Book Description

This study investigated the practices public and academic library administrators find useful and utilize in analyzing use of collections. The study also investigated administrators' satisfaction with their collection use analysis practices, and the impact they perceived automation to have upon collection use analysis practices. A survey developed for this study was sent to two stratified random samples of 495 academic libraries and 605 public libraries in the United States. Eight hundred and eighty-eight usable responses were received. Chi-square analyses of six null hypotheses were made and data analyzed computing totals, percentages and rankings. All six null hypotheses were rejected in specific instances. There were differences in the collection analysis practices nonautomated and automated libraries in the sample used found useful. There was a correlation between a library's satisfaction with its practices and its state of automation. In two of four instances there was a generalizable difference between the expectations of automated and nonautomated libraries regarding the utility of automated systems in gathering data for analyzing collection use. There was a difference in the practices used by the sample of automated and nonautomated libraries to analyze collection use. There was a difference in the collection analysis practices identified as useful by the sample of academic and public libraries. There was a difference in the practices used by the sample of academic and public libraries to analyze collection use.