The use of books within the library

Abstract

Most commentators have accepted the assertion that the in-library use of books mirrors their circulation. The present authors, after challenging the logic of this assumption, describe a study of both the circulation and in-house use of 13, 029 volumes (randomly chosen from a collection of 1.1 million volumes), both serials and monographs in all subject areas, over a period of 7 years. It was found that more than 30% of the monographs and 25% of the serial volumes had one kind of use but not the other, and that weeding based on lack of circulation alone would eliminate from a 1-million-volume library at least 112,000 volumes that had actually been used quite recently. Further findings are presented, all of which challenge the notion that internal use can be inferred from circulation figures. Added are a suggestion for another study and a comprehensive bibliography of the literature on the in-library use of books.