Good question!
The Library regularly collects statistics about its activities. For example, we know how many items are checked out every year from the Legal Resource Centre - click the image below to see a larger version of the graph.
Another example: we know that in the week ending 4 August 2006 library staff received 197 telephone enquiries, of which 55 per cent were about loans or other library-related topics.
See more circulation statistics (intranet web page — UniMelb access only).
Some statistics are difficult to collect. We know how many people come into our 19 library branches each year. It’s harder to estimate how many of those people are students or staff of this University, and how many are either from other institutions or have no connection with the University of Melbourne (except that they wanted to use our library :-)
Because we want to make well-informed decisions, the Information Futures Commission will be looking for more evidence of this type — the more the merrier! We’ll also be looking for data about staff and student use of IT for scholarly activities.
So… over to you. What specific questions should we be trying to answer with statistical evidence?
One Comment
In September 2006, I compiled a report on usage of the Biomedical library based on all items from Biomedical library collections out on loan on a single day. This was a data set of 5275 borrowed items. It could in some ways be representative of usage across the library system as a whole.
Who are the Biomedical library collection users?
There were 1773 individual borrowers incorporating a diverse range of users.
- 83% University of Melbourne students
(41% MDHS ; 21% Science ; 5.5% ILFR ; 5% Arts ; 5% Engineering ; 1% Law ; 1% Architecture ; 1% Economics ; 2% Other).
- 58% Undergraduate students.
- 16% Masters or PhD students
- 4% Honours students.
- 4% Postgraduate certificate or diploma students.
- 7% University of Melbourne staff
(6% academic ; 1% non-academic)
- 6% CAVAL students
(1.3% La Trobe ; 1.1% Monash ; 1.1% Vic Uni ; 1% RMIT ; 0.6% Deakin ; 0.5% other institutions ; 0.2% CAVAL staff)
- 4% Community users
(1.1% Inter Library Loans ; 0.9% Trinity borrowers ; 1.2% paid memberships ; 0.4% non-Victorian University students ; 0.2% visiting scholars ; 0.2% affiliates ; 0.2% deferred postgraduates)
Do the users make heavy or low use of the collections?
The user cohort was analyzed in terms of their total borrowing frequency (total number of checkouts from all libraries for all time). Most library users make frequent use of the collections.
- 8% 1-5 items (new borrowers)
- 7% 6-10 items
- 32% 10-50 items
- 18% 50-100 items
- 31% 100-500 items (heavy library users)
- 4% over 500 items (very heavy library users)
Which Biomedical collections were the items that were on loan at the time borrowed from?
Collections in easily browsable areas received most usage. Collections in compactus storage were used lightly.
- 87% main book collection
- 8% high use book collections
- 2% compactus book collection (ST)
- 1.5% history of medicine collection
- 1% CDROM
- 0.5% 7 day loan periodical
- 0.1% videos
Do users only use recently purchased materials. What is the publication date of borrowed items?
Users do make most heavy use of recent collections but there is steady usage of older items. The Biomedical library would probably have a higher reliance on recent items than some other library collections where historical study is of greater relevance.
- 33% 2000 onwards
- 23% 1995-1999
- 17% 1990-1994
- 18% 1980s
- 5% 1970s
- 2% 1960s
- 0.4% 1950s
- 1.6% pre-1950 or no date recorded on item record
Do items circulate regularly? For the items out on loan, how often have they been borrowed before in the previous ten years.
Over 20% of borrowed items are borrowed rarely (less than once every two years).
- 5.5% 1 loan in ten years
- 17.5% 2-5 loans
- 15.5% 6-10 loans
- 21% 11-20 loans
- 25% 21-50 loans
- 16% over 50 loans
This gives an indication of the usage we experience in one of our library branch collections.
Regards
Patrick Condron
Biomedical Librarian