Comparing characteristics of highly circulated titles for demand-driven collection development

Abstract

Collection practices in the current era of strict budgets are necessarily driven by the needs of the users. Use studies are therefore of increasing value to collection managers, but typically have provided only generalized statistical data. An alternative methodology is presented for analyzing the MARC records of highly circulating titles in order to document common characteristics that would be predictive of future use of additions to the collection. Items are evaluated for commonality of subject heading, author, language, and imprint date for selected Library of Congress classes.