A Comparative Assessment of Material Use in Three Medical Libraries in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Assessing the use of library materials justifies the extent the library fulfills its main objective of providing information to its users. Furthermore, assessing the use of library materials is considered as a method of measuring library performance. The objective of this study was to find the usage of library collections held by the medical libraries of University of Colombo, Kelaniya and Sri Jayewardenepura and to recommend measures that could be taken to enhance their collection use. Suitable indicators to assess collection use were selected from performance indicators developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and American Library Association (ALA). The collection use was assessed following the methodologies given for each indicator. Results showed that the Medical library of University of Kelaniya had the highest usage of the collection, followed by the Medical library of University of Colombo and the Medical library of University of Sri Jayawardenepura. The analysis of library services, loans and acquisitions policies of the three libraries showed that the quality and quantity of the library collection, library opening hours, loans policy and seating capacity within the library affect the use of the library’s collection. It can be recommended from this study that amending its loans policy to allow borrowing of two lending books at a time per user at the Medical library of University of Colombo and amending its collection development policy at Medical Library of University of Sri Jayewardenepura would result in higher use of library materials. The Medical libraries of Kelaniya and Sri Jayewardenepura should consider increasing opening hours. All three libraries assessed should adopt suitable weeding policies in order to maintain up to date collections. Key words: Collection use; Performance measurement; Medical libraries DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v15i1.3190Journal of the University Librarians’ Association of Sri Lanka, Vol.15, Issue 1, June 2011; 98-113