Making Hard ChoicesUsing Data for Collections Decisions

Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries May 29, 2014

Istanbul, Turkey

Susan EdwardsUniversity of California, Berkeley

Questions:

How well do our collections meet needs of researchers?

Are related disciplines equally supported?

If we need to close or combine libraries, which make sense?

New research trends/formats that impact collections?

Have we sacrificed books for journals – and does it matter?

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

-25%

25%

75%

125%

175%

225%

275%

325%

375%

Expenditure Trends in ARL Libraries, 1986-2010

Source: ARL Statistics 2009-10 Association of Research Libraries, Washington, D.C.

% C

ha

ng

e S

ince

19

86

Serial Expendi-tures(+379%)

Library Materials (+289%)

OperatingExpenditures (+110%)

TOTAL Expenditures (+172%)Total Salaries (+158%)

CPI (+99%)

Monograph Ex-penditures (+73%)

Journal costs continue to

outpace library budgets

Journal & Books Cost Outpaces Budget Increases

We didn’t want to just make it up….

Who Uses the EdPsych Library?Lots of Education, Little Psychology

Who Uses the Social Welfare Library?Almost all Use Is by Social Welfare!

RLG Conspectus: Collection Levels

Research: A collection that includes the major published source materials required for dissertations

Comprehensive: A collection which, so far as is reasonably possible, includes all significant works of recorded knowledge

Methods

Citation analysis of dissertation bibliographies: Education (2009 -2010) Psychology (2009-2010)Social Welfare (2009-2011)

All citations hand entered and verified.

Systematic sample with a random start, confidence interval: 95% (+/-3)

Dissertations Total Citations Citations Entered

Education 57 6576 1340

Psychology 28 3899 644

Social Welfare 22 3719 741

Total 107 14,194 2725

Sample Size

Findings

What Are They Citing?

Journals Books Free Web

Education 46% 47% 7%Psychology 84% 15% <1%

Social Welfare 59% 33% 8%

Triangulation confirms finding: Psych uses few books, Ed uses many

How Much Do We Have? (Of what doctoral students cite)

Journals Books

Education 98% 88%

Psychology 99% 87%

Social Welfare 97% 73%

(+/-4%)(+/-4%)

Unexpected findings

Citing Older Material

Journals Books

Education 11 years 13 years

Psychology 8 years 14 years

Social Welfare 10 years 11 years

Oldest Citations

Books Journals

Education 1861 1935Psychology 1871 1877

Social Welfare 1937 1889

Education Psychology Social WelfareJournal of Personality and Social Psychology Neuroimage Child Development

Child Development Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Journal of Educational Psychology Journal of Neuroscience Children and Youth

Services Review

Developmental Psychology Nature (4th) American

Psychologist (4th)

Journal of Research in Science Teaching (5th) Neuropsychologia (4th) Development and

Psychopathology (4th)

Journal of the Learning Sciences (5th) Nature Neuroscience (5th) Future of Children (5th)

Reading Research Quarterly (5th) Neuron (5th) Child Abuse &

Neglect(5th)

Next Stage

All Dissertations from 2008-2012:

• Business• Economics• History• Political Science

What’s New

• LAUC Research Grant

• Citation Data from ProQuest (45,000)

• First Finding: 28% 15% 1.2% … 2!

Credits:

Phase One• Lynn Jones, co-author• Lyn Paleo, Evaluator• Jon Stiles, Statistics• Jeffery Loo, Graphics• Student Employees, data

entry

Phase Two• LAUC Research Grant• Hilary Schiraldi, Business• Jennifer Dorner, History• Jim Church, Economics• Jon Stiles, Statistics• Lynne Grigsby, Dark Archive• Austin McClean, ProQuest• Student Employees: data

entry for print, first pass.

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