Levine-Clark, Michael, “Analyzing and Describing Collection Use to Inform Storage Decisions at the University of Denver,” Statistics & Reports: Data Driven Decision Making Pre Conference, ALCTS Acquisitions Section. Invited. American Library Association, Las Vegas, June 27, 2014.

1. ANALYZING AND DESCRIBING
COLLECTION USE TO INFORM
STORAGE DECISIONS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF DENVER
Statistics & Reports: Data Driven Decision
Making Pre-Conference
Las Vegas
June 27, 2014
Michael Levine-Clark

2. Timeline
• Penrose Library, 1972
• Planning for new library, 2002-2008
• Authorization for project, 2010
• Smaller collection footprint
• ALL collections to high-density storage during project
• Permanent storage = size-sorted
• Temporary storage = call number sorted
• Break ground, July 2011

3. Timeline
• Penrose Library, 1972
• Planning for new library, 2002-2008
• Authorization for project, 2010
• Planning for collections, 2010
• New vision – smaller collection footprint,
spring 2011
• New collection plan by library
• Faculty committee charged with recommending a
third collection plan

4. Timeline
• Penrose Library, 1972
• Planning for new library, 2002-2008
• Authorization for project, 2010
• Planning for collections, 2010
• New vision – smaller collection footprint, spring
2011
• Break ground – July 2011
• Project completion – March 2013

5. Collection Locations Pre-Renovation
• Penrose Library
• Built in 1972
• PASCAL
• Shared storage facility with University of Colorado System
• Campus storage (Mary Reed Building)
• Music Library
• Law Library

6. Collection Size – Linear Feet
Penrose,
108,502
Mary Reed,
3,187
PASCAL,
27,397

7. Collection Locations Post-Renovation
• Anderson Academic Commons
• (The renovated, renamed Penrose Library)
• Hampden Center
• High-density storage
• 10 miles from campus
• 3-hour delivery

8. The Initial Plan (until Spring 2011)
• Renovated library
• 75% of monographs
• Excluding monographs with 0 circulations (post-1997) published before
• 1950 (humanities)
• 1980-2000 (social sciences, science, technology)
• 10% of serials (mostly image-heavy)
• New storage facility
• 25% of monographs
• 90% of serials
• 100% of government documents
• 100% of microforms
• 95% of boxed archival collections

9. The Big Picture (original plan)
Upper level
• 25000 sf of books
• Perimeter seating
Main level
• All services and seating
• Staff areas
Lower level
• 25000 sf of books
• Some seating
Upper level
• Seating and staff areas
Main level
• Seating and service points
Lower level
• 15K – 20K sf of Collections
• Seating
Pre-renovation After completion

11. The Big Picture
Upper level
• 25000 sf of books
• Perimeter seating
Main level
• All services and seating
• Staff areas
Lower level
• 25000 sf of books
• Some seating
Upper level
• Seating and staff areas
Main level
• Seating and service points
Lower level
• 15K – 20K sf of Collections
• Seating
Pre-renovation After completion

12. The Library Plan, or
How Do You Plan for 20%
•Assumptions:
• Need recognizable rules
• Provide collections for all disciplines
• Take usage into account
• Require minimal maintenance

13. Library Recommendation (20%)
•Core collection:
• Imprint date of 2003 and later in most disciplines
• Except those available as e-books.
• Five or more circulations since 1997, any imprint
date
• 2900 LF of the art and art history books and
journals
• Total: 19,900 LF

14. A Faculty Committee
Charge: to make a data-driven decision
about the right mix of seating and collections
on the lower level of the renovated library.
Representatives from (mostly) humanities
and social sciences.

15. The questions:
• What is the purpose of an on-campus collection?
• What criteria should be used to shape an on-
campus collection?
• (Why) should it be larger than 20% of the
monographs proposed by the Chancellor and the
Board?
• Which data should be considered in supporting
recommendations?

16. COLLECTIONS DATA

17. Collection Size – Volumes/Items
Books,
1,186,211
Journals,
252,512
Spec Coll
Books, 35,407
Gov Docs,
604,702
Microforms,
1,367,533

18. Penrose Collection – Linear Feet
78,919
17,591
2,163
2,251 3,883 3,695
Books
Journals
Gov Docs
Spec Coll Books
Spec Coll Boxes
Microforms

19. Digital Collection Size
eBooks,
1,060,043
eJournals
(titles), 95,570
Gov Docs,
594,431
Other
eResources,
30,189

20. Collections Budget, FY 2010
Expense Type Expenditure Percentage
Databases/Journal Packages $1,965,042.00
eJournals $842,737.00
Print/Electronic Journals $130,043.00
Total Electronic
Subscriptions
$2,937,822.00 89.2%
Total Subscriptions $3,294,652.00
One-Time Electronic
Purchases
$721,896.00
Total Electronic Spending $3,659,718.00 67.3%
Print Monographs $883,167.00
Special Collections $343,013.00
Videos $59,626.00
Total Collections Budget $5,439,134.00

21. Volumes Added
FY 06 FY 07 FY 08 FY 09 FY 10
Volumes
Added
27,442 29,240 26,406 24,804 21,356
Vols
Withdrawn
11,035 9,201 1,915 988 1,327
Net Increase 16,407 20,039 24,491 23,816 20,029

22. Types of Use, FY 2010
• Circulation 125,886
• ILL Borrowing 4,094
• Prospector Borrowing 14,675
• Total Checkouts to DU 144,655
• ILL Lending 4,015
• Prospector Lending 26,339
• Total Resource Sharing 30,354
• Reshelving 15,758

23. Circulation of Monographs
• Circulation of entire collection, 1997-present
• % Circulated 44.8%
• Avg Circ/Title 1.22
• % Circulated FY 10, FY 11 2.6%

24. Circulation, Books Cataloged 2000-2004
(n=126,953)
0 Circ, 40%
1 Circ, 21%
2 Circ, 13%
3 Circ, 8%
4+ Circ, 19%

25. Circulation, Books Published
1950(n=4,036)
0 Circ, 71%
1 Circ, 19%
2 Circ, 6%
3 Circ, 2% 4+ Circ, 3%

26. Highest Circulation by LC Class (1997-Present)
LC Class Items %
Circulated
Avg
Circ/Title
% Circ FY10,
FY11
R (Medicine) 25,565 59.6% 2.17 2.8%
B (Philos, Psych,
Religion)
65,275 55.3% 1.65 3.9%
N (Fine Arts) 35,103 54.7% 1.48 3.2%
L (Education) 28,487 52.8% 1.48 3.1%
K (Law) 7,254 52.3% 1.64 2.7%
E (History -
Americas)
32,734 50.6% 1.34 2.6%
G (Geog, Anthro,
Rec)
26,035 50.5% 1.50 4.0%
S (Agriculture) 4,309 49.8% 1.18 3.6%
U (Military Science) 6,715 48.5% 1.20 3.3%
H (Social Sciences) 161,244 47.9% 1.50 2.6%
F (History –
Americas)
21,130 45.1% 1.09 2.7%

27. Lowest Circulation by LC Class (1997-Present)
LC Class Items %
Circulated
Avg
Circ/Title
% Circ FY10,
FY11
A (General Works) 15,538 12.4% 0.30 0.7%
Z (Bibliography, Lib &
Info Sci, Info
Resources)
21,978 26.0% 0.76 1.1%
M (Music) 912 32.2% 0.74 0.9%
V (Naval Sciences) 1,058 37.0% 0.66 1.3%
Q (Science) 80,876 37.0% 0.81 1.7%
C (Aux Sciences of
Hist)
6,311 39.6% 1.06 2.9%
P (Lang & Lit) 206,636 40.9% 0.97 2.1%
T (Technology) 40,321 43.0% 1.01 2.5%
D (History – World) 80,024 43.7% 1.08 2.5%
J (Political Science) 38,681 43.9% 1.32 3.3%

28. 70,054 titles lent in 2010, by publication
date
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%

29. 70,054 titles lent in 2010, by publication
date
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%

30. 70,054 titles lent in 2010, by publication
date
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%

31. On-Site Collection Goals?
• A starting point for undergraduate research papers
• Serendipitous discovery (browsing) that will result in
some material
• Immediate access for people who can’t wait to get
something
• Something for everyone across all disciplines,
supporting teaching
• Something for heaviest users: AHSS
• Material to support research when only browsing
works

32. THE SURVEY

33. Faculty: why do you visit the print collection?
• Two dominant browsing patterns for faculty:
• A known item search, then find additional material on the
shelf
• Go directly to “your” shelf location to browse for materials
• In addition, it is common (48%) for faculty members
to visit in order to look up something specific in a
specific title.

34. Students: Why do you go to the stacks?
• 14% do not use the print collection
• 6% always use Request It
• 67% browse for a course assignment
• 44% browse for creative inspiration
• 74% are going after a specific book
• 41% need to look up a fact or passage in a book
• 13% described other reasons
• Look for one book and find a lot of others
• Reading for pleasure
• Personal reading
• Practicing language skills
• To relax

35. Faculty: collection use for research
• 65% say books are primary research resources.
• 68% use books to find specific information
• 66% use books to update or refresh knowledge
and 80% use books to expand knowledge
• Comments illustrate very high levels of concern about
these modes of inquiry becoming so inconvenient that
inquiry itself will be disrupted, reduced, or
even impossible.

36. How many Linear Feet for assignments?
• Clearly, all books in each call number would not be needed,
but that’s how we counted.
• We did not include responses such as “all collections” or “all
literature.”
• We added up linear feet for topics specified by respondents.
• All areas of the collection are used in teaching.
73,000 LF

37. Faculty: What (specifically) should be
returned to the new library?
70,041 LF
• Responses range from “everything” to “all literary
criticism” to works by a specific author.
• Many responses show the extent to which teaching and
research is interdisciplinary: gender studies, race studies,
multicultural therapy, history of literacy, or
church/art/social history.
• We excluded responses such as “all collections” or “all
literature.”

38. Faculty: when is a 3-hour delivery OK (i.e.
what can be stored?)
• Some respondents said there is nothing for which a 3
hour delivery time is OK; it diminishes browsing.
• 49% said we could store anything that had never been
checked out.
• 49% said low use books were OK to store.
• 60% approve storing the paper version of an e-book.
• 34% thought we could store the book if the catalog
record includes a table of contents online.

39. Key concepts from comments
• For some students and faculty little concern about
storing collections.
HOWEVER
• The vast majority of respondents, both students
and faculty, very unhappy, worried, angry, upset,
or concerned about the decision to store most of
the book collections.
• Few worry about turnaround time; most regret
loss of browsing.

40. Key concepts
• Some collection uses CANNOT be done by requesting
known items. Examples from the survey are:
• Image/photo/illustration searching within books (hence our
recommendation that we return the art books)
• Assessment of degree of difficulty of non-English Language fiction
• Choosing older volumes on the basis of presentation (font, format)

41. THE DISCUSSION

42. What would a subject collection
look like?
Discipline Titles Linear Feet
Arts & Humanities 439,466 37,290
Cookbooks 7,432 531
Business 36,340 3,028
General 14,873 963
Mathematics 23,497 2,937
Education 50,465 3,509
Natural Sciences 89,738 7,474
Engineering, Computer Science 29,850 2,723
Social Sciences 214,376 17,446
Totals 906,037 75,901
% of Collection
49.1%
0.7%
4.0%
1.3%
3.9%
4.6%
9.8%
3.6%
23.0%

43. 50% Scenario
• Would accommodate 39,500 LF
• Subtracting the core collection of 19,900 leaves
19,600 for flexible collections.
• Seating loss (compared to the 30% scenario) of
about 120 seats.
• Which 19,600 LF?
What data support this scenario?

44. Data Points
• 80% of circulation = books published in last 30 years
• 40% of recent books will circulate 2 or more times
• Users of visually-heavy material (especially art
history) browse in ways that other disciplines don’t

45. Recommendation
• Books published since 1983, excluding e-books,
duplicates, older editions
32,000 LF
• Books published before 1983, checked out 2 or more
times
4,419 LF
• Heavily-illustrated materials, excluding the above two
categories
3,000 LF
• Total size of on-site collection 39,419 LF
• Percentage 50%

46. 1972 2013

47. • Finite space,
tightly packed
• Code records for
storage based on
criteria
• Allows for
shifting when
needed
MANAGING A SMALLER
LOCAL COLLECTION

48. iCode Disposition Action
0 Needs evaluation Periodic review based on criteria
10 Storage Can be stored when needed
12 Academic Commons, but needs
review for ebook, edition (could
move to storage)
Check for ebook availability,
newer editions
20 Academic Commons Review on broad criteria (age,
circulation)
29 New Book Area Can move to 10, 12, 20
EVERY BOOK IN ITS PLACE

49. • Easy: When it’s time to shift,
search for iCode 10
• Fast: Allows staff to quickly meet
space needs
• Policy-Driven: Based on established
criteria
• Flexible: Code and note can be
revised based on faculty or selector
input
PRE-CODING ALLOWS FOR EFFICIENT
STACKS MANAGEMENT

50. THANK YOU
Michael Levine-Clark
Associate Dean for Scholarly Communication
and Collections Services
University of Denver Libraries
michael.levine-clark@du.edu