Re: How do you measure Serials Usage at your Library? Rienne Johnson 07 Dec 2004 20:34 UTC
We've actually designed a barcode driven system that tracks usage with in-house circulation statistics. Our method is slightly cumbersome, but it does work. Each of our bound titles has a barcode, and we recycled our lovely Kardex cards and placed barcodes on the back of them for our current issues, microfiche, microfilm, and newspapers. Some of these extra barcodes are shadowed so patrons do not see the tracking item when searching the catalog. When the items are used, our student assistants scan the barcodes to enter the item as used in-house before returning the volume to the shelf. We run a report each month and enter the tallies in an Excel spreadsheet, compiling numbers every three months. As Carol said, we also have signs up for patrons not to reshelve, but it happens. What's important to us is the general idea of how things are used, supplemented by external factors (i.e. layers of dust on volumes) ;) Rienne Johnson Library Associate - Serials/Processing Reinert/Alumni Memorial Library 2500 California Plaza Omaha, NE 68178 -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Carol Morse Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 11:55 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] How do you measure Serials Usage at your Library? We use the low-tech way of putting slashes in a 3-ring binder notebook printout of our titles, and count them at the end of the quarter. It's less complicated than using a barcode solution. We are a medium-sized institution with less than 2000 fte. I doubt if that would work for a large university. The info is invaluable. We put signs up for patrons not to reshelve, but of course some do. I t give an idea anyway. Carol Morse ******************************************** Address: Walla Walla College Library Periodicals Dept. 104 S. College Ave. College Place, WA 99324-1159 Carol Morse Serials Librarian morsca@wwc.edu 509) 527-2684; fax 509) 527-2001 ********************************************* >>> ipsilion@MAC.COM 12/6/2004 12:18:02 PM >>> Hello All, I'm the Evening/Serials Assistant at Bennington College, and a student at Simmons College (where I'm getting my MLIS). As part of my coursework at Simmons, and because it's of interest considering my position at Bennington, I've been studying Serials Usage studies. Currently I'm working on a Research Proposal on this topic - which I'm hoping to implement at Bennington if possible, as we currently do not have a method of measuring Serials Use. As you can imagine, I've done quite a lot of research on the topic - but I'd be interested to hear if/how other libraries address the issue of measuring Serials Use - particularly in libraries that have a non-circulating collection. Thanks for your input! Best Regards, Christina J. Jedziniak Evening Serials Assistant Bennington College