Relationship Between Classes of Books Circulated and Classes of Books Requested on Interlibrary Loan (Collection, Evaluation)
Aguilar, William
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/69482
Description
Title
Relationship Between Classes of Books Circulated and Classes of Books Requested on Interlibrary Loan (Collection, Evaluation)
Author(s)
Aguilar, William
Issue Date
1984
Department of Study
Library Science
Discipline
Library Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Library Science
Abstract
This study examined the hypothesis that libraries are most likely to borrow materials in overused classes and least likely to borrow materials in underused classes. An overused class is one in which the library's own holdings are used more than expected (in a probabilistic sense), relative to its proportional size within the collection. Such classes may be inadequate to support the needs of the library's users, forcing increased reliance on the interlibrary lending mechanism. An underused class was defined as the reverse of an overused class. In short, the study examined the use of subject classes via two criteria--relative use and interlibrary loan, and analyzed the relationship between both.
The study examined 1,883,692 relevant monographic circulation records of eighteen Illinois Library Computer System (LCS) libraries, for the period July 1980 through December 1981; of these, 85,729 were interlibrary loan transactions. The holdings of each participating library were divided into thirty-three subject categories; in all, 518 subject classes were examined.
Five statistical tests were used to analyze the relationship between relative use and interlibrary loan: (1) Kendall's Tau, (2) Spearman's rank correlation, (3) Pearson's product-moment correlation, (4) Chi-square, and (5) T-tests.
The fundamental conclusion of the study is that overused subject classes, as a whole, do place a greater demand on interlibrary loan than subject classes defined as underused, or subject classes defined as "normal use" classes. Conversely, subject classes which are underused, as a whole, place less demand on interlibrary loan than subject classes not defined as underused, or subject classes defined as "normal use" classes.
The significance of the findings is that the demand for additional or duplicate titles in overused subject classes has been verified by the demand for additional or duplicate materials via interlibrary loan. Correspondingly, the low demand for materials in underused subject classes has been verified by the low demand using interlibrary loan. From a library management perspective, the findings suggest that the local resources in overused subject classes are inadequate, and additional materials are needed; the purchase of materials in areas which are underused is questionable.
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