RE: Data on circulation of books

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> It's sort of an irrelevant question.  Libraries exist precisely
> for those books that don't circulate and, otherwise, would be
> quickly remaindered and pulped. I realize that people are
> starting to have concern about non-circulation of books, but,
> really, aren't we, to some extent, buying books for the person in
> twenty years or fifty or 100 who will need the book ?

This is absolutely true for those libraries that have infinite 
budgets, infinitely expansive missions, and infinite space.  The 
rest of us, unfortunately, have to make hard decisions about how 
to spend our limited materials budgets, how to support our local 
curricula, and how to allocate tight shelf space.  For those of 
us in that group, usage statistics can be very helpful in making 
those difficult decisions.

Now, maybe that's not entirely fair -- you did qualify your 
question by saying "to some extent."  So really, the answer is 
that it depends.  There are libraries for which the kind of 
collection you describe is central to their mission -- but those 
libraries are unusual.  They're wonderful and they're absolutely 
necessary, but they're the exception rather than the rule.  Most 
libraries simply can't collect that way; they don't have the 
mandate, the space or the funding.

---
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
Univ. of Nevada, Reno Libraries
rickand@unr.edu