A simple means of estimating patron use is described. Over a year's time about 100 observations were obtained which were extrapolated to produce estimates of library use by hour, day of week, month, and university term. (Author)

A discussion of library user and staff reaction to the microfilm program with special emphasis on Biological Abstracts." Space requirements for films, reader-printers and storage of supplies is included. (Author/NH)

The increasing availability and prominence of e-books has led to a perception in some quarters that the requirement for physical books is decreasing, as most, or all scholarly material is openly available in digital form. Some academic administrators and librarians have suggested that it may be possible or desirable to have a solely, or…

In 1973, the Technological Institute Library, along with the other science libraries of Northwestern University, began a study of reference use. For each reference request received in the libraries, the date, time, duration, mode, class of question, and user type were noted. These statistics were tabulated and analyzed by computer. It was…

In an effort to provide the National Archives and Records Service and other archives and research libraries with guidelines to assist them in the selection of microfilm readers suitable for use with microfilm copies of archival or manuscript materials, provide manufacturers with data to improve their product, and provide the Library Technology…

This study examines the holdings of ARL libraries for core reference titles to see if there is a trend towards canceling the print in favor of electronic, and discusses the implications of duplication of titles in both formats. It also looks at the issue within the context of several areas of study including general reference, arts and humanities,…

Introduction: Evidence-based practice is a process through which evidence in its various forms is sourced, appraised and applied in order to solve a problem, inform decision making, or improve practice. The purpose of this paper is to share findings from a qualitative research study that sought to identify evidence used by Australian special…

A study was conducted of periodical usage at the Education-Psychology Library, Ohio State University. The library's closed reserve system provided circulation data which were analyzed according to currency of usage and usage of specific titles. (Author)

A survey on the use of journals at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center Library was conducted to determine whether the allocation of the largest share of the total library budget to journal subscriptions is justified, and which journals are in low use and could thus be discontinued. The findings, including criteria developed for defining core…

To what extent is the print reference collection being used? Use of the print collection at a small private university was tracked for a four-month period. The results suggest that the reference collection is too big and underused.

The University of Michigan Library wanted to learn more about the kinds of searches its users were conducting through the "one search" search box on the Library Web site. Library staff conducted two investigations. A preliminary investigation in 2011 involved the manual review of the 100 most frequently occurring queries conducted…

When looking for ways to improve library services, we considered what data sources were readily available to us and how we could harvest and use this data. We investigated three years of chat reference statistics at Central Michigan University, a large research institution, to gain a better understanding of our patrons' chat behavior. We then…

The Library Impact Data Project was a six-month project funded by Jisc and managed by the University of Huddersfield to investigate this hypothesis: "There is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment." E-resources usage, library borrowing statistics, and…

This study uses three cohorts of first-time, full-time undergraduate students (N = 8,652) at a large, metropolitan, public research university to examine the impact of student use of three library resources (workstations, study rooms, and research clinics) on academic performance. To deal with self-selection bias and estimate this impact more…

The objective of this study was to determine how large research libraries perform the function of collection development. The paper describes collection development theory within the formal organizational structure of the library, identifies the actual decision points involved in selection of materials, and examines the staff and facilities…