I’m currently a year and a half of the way through my two-year master’s degree in software engineering. For my project, I’ve chosen to design a system for quantitatively analyzing the variance between acquisitions and circulation with regard to subject classification.
It would be really helpful if I could get some real-life statistics as to what topic areas are circulating, preferably in an academic library setting. Since this would mean that the LC system would be in use, I would like to have something like the following: over a given period, say a week, how many items were checked out from the H’s, or from the Q’s? If I could get data on the second letters where present–e.g. HV or QA, that would be even better. I would like the same thing with regard to acquisitions. I would like to have this so that, for the purposes of my project, I can choose and abstract an appropriately sized sample from each subject area.
I asked some people at the UCLA library, that being the one I’m most familiar with, but they said they probably wouldn’t be able to help.
I don’t know whether the library I work at would have this info (or provide it - I’ve not been there anywhere near long enough to really know), but there may be others who could help you at the UCLA library.
I’d suggest either contacting the Administrative offices or taking a look at their Org chart(PDF) - my first contact would probably be in the Library Information Technology person OR the Cataloging & Metadata center (this is just based on position title - I don’t know who has what specific duties there).
The only other alternative at UCLA might be contacting someone in their library program - they might know someone you can contact, or another library that might be able to help you.
Hmmm…the only other option I can think of off the top of my head is maybe sending your request to one of the listservs - while LibRef mainly focuses on reference, they might be able to help you - or at least point you in a better direction.
I don’t know that any of this will be specifically helpful, though.
I’m not a librarian, but I gave your question to my librarian-with-benefits. He wasn’t entirely encouraging, but he did have a lot to say, some of it constructive:
I hate to be discouraging, but…
The short answer:
The questioner would have to be very good friends with a library systems person to have a hope of getting access to this data, and that’s only if the institution’s privacy policy would even allow its release.
The long answer:
That’s actually a huge & fairly complex set of reports Spectre’s asking for. When a book is charged out, the record shows it’s been charged, so one can trap call number information for currently circulating items. However, once a book is discharged, depending on the library management software used, it may immediately revert to “not charged”. Once a book has been discharged, you have to have pretty deep system access to find out when it was charged.
Since what’s needed here is a time series, as well as a particular subject range, the report would probably have to be generated concurrently with the charging out of the books (i.e. what’s needed is a report of what books were charged out today, tomorrow, the next day, etc., as the charges are made), but in a way that excludes all data regarding the patron. Also, if it’s charged to another library department (for binding, etc.), it will look exactly like circulation to an individual patron. To protect privacy, any links to patron info are broken when an item is discharged. So, once a piece has been discharged, it’s difficult to tell if the item was charged to an interested patron or just sent out for processing (for example, every new piece that gets cataloged here is charged out for marking before it ever makes it to the shelf). A that point, a history of circulation might just mean that the piece was acquired by the library. Which brings me to the second half of the request…
Depending on the vagaries of the local system, new items may not be fully cataloged for a while. They may sit for a while (a few days to many years) with no call number. They may even circulate without being classified (e.g, if the institution gets a rush requests for something that’s still being processed). If an item is published in the U.S., it will have a classification assigned through the cataloging-in-print mechanism, but a library doesn’t have to use that classification. For instance, a specialty library may use a modified LoC classification system to go with its narrow subject area.
Furthermore, while it would be interesting to track circulation statistics in relation to acquisitions, academic library collection development is not, IME, primarily circulation-driven. Instead, collection development is done on the basis of analysis of faculty focus and research needs as well as university-wide academic program development. Journals may not be classified at all, they generally don’t circulate, and increasingly they’re delivered electronically. As a consequence there’d be little or no representation of that entire part of the collection in the circulation statistics. If they’re not classed, they won’t be in the acquisitions statistics either.
Finally, don’t assume that all academic libraries use LoC classification. My institution, for instance, uses Dewey. Some have older Dewey collections and newer LoC collections. They’ll never re-class the Dewey books to LoC because it’s way too expensive. Even if they could automate the process, each book would have to be re-marked manually. At some point, all the books in the library would have to be re-shelved according to the new system.
Remember, that’s my friend the librarian talking, not me.
I just started working in a public library and we tend to “weed” more often than academic or private libraries do. With the computer systems we have to use, we can charge and discharge a book (check out/check in) and also mark a book as used in-house. There aren’t any records kept on who’s checked out what books after they’ve been discharged; however, we still keep track of how many times the book has been checked out. The ones that get the least use get weeded from the collection, and the ones that are damaged are mostly replaced, as we don’t have the capacity to make repairs on books in most circumstances.
You might have better luck dealing with what’s not popular in public libraries.