A preservation census was conducted of selected Dewey ranges of the volumes located in the mezzanine area of the Social Science Department of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library main branch. This collection is housed in a non-circulating, semi-supervised stack area and includes approximately 500 volumes in the fields of bibliography and rare…

An important component of a library's collection management activities should be a measure of the effectiveness of the selection process. Effective selection should be a reflection of titles chosen compared to titles available as well as patron use of the material selected. To evaluate the collection development activities for the School of…

Discussion of library collection assessment highlights a collection analysis that was conducted in the Birmingham (Alabama) public school system during the 1990-91 school year to determine the age of the materials and whether the collection met the needs of the curriculum. Past efforts are reviewed, and the collection assessment survey and…

This report describes a study of the Jackson-George Regional Library (JGRL) System, which serves a 2-county area in Mississippi with a population of 131,918. The purpose of the study, which built on the planning and administration goals identified in "Planning for Progress: The Long Range Plan of the Jackson George Regional Library," was to…

This paper reports on a study in which data on audiobook borrowers' backgrounds, borrowing practices, and desires were collected, in order to assist library staff in making informed collection development decisions and being responsive to patron needs. Participants were patrons of the Salem Public Library (Ohio). An anonymous questionnaire was…

The 28 papers in this sourcebook relate to the evaluation of children's services in public libraries: (1) "Introduction to Evaluation" (Jane Robbins and Douglas Zweizig); (2) "Research and Measurement in Library Services to Children" (Adele Fasick); (3) "Evaluating Children's Services" (Diana Young); (4) "What Is…

The purpose of this study was: (1) to examine the opinions of a selected group of public and private high school students regarding their perceptions of the level of accessibility to their school libraries (accessibility defined as times when students think they were allowed to be in the library); (2) to determine whether or not students feel the…

Traditionally, libraries have had a role of providing equitable access for those who might not otherwise have access, and this role continues today in implementing access to electronic resources. However, there are special problems in applying this mission to prison libraries. A short history of automation in prison libraries is followed by a…

Describes a survey of 47 postsecondary educational institutions in three prairie provinces of Canada that examined the extent of pressures to remove, relocate, or reclassify library materials between 1980 and 1985, and the effectiveness of written selection policies in dealing with such pressures. Specific censorship incidents are reported in…

A survey was conducted in those academic and research libraries that are involved in the OhioLINK project to determine their use of approval plans and their budgetary patterns. Written questionnaires were used to collect data in order to examine approval plan use, approval plan and firm order budgeting, and vendor use. Analyses of the responses…

In this age of limited resources, municipal courts scrutinize their library budgets with a view to maintaining adequate legal information sources and services at the lowest possible cost. Some courts relying on the authority of the Ohio Revised Code Section 2303.201 assess additional court costs to fund the acquisition and maintenance of…

A study was conducted to examine library data and trends among a group of 42 liberal arts colleges known as the "Bowdoin List." Questionnaires were completed and returned by 35 of the colleges, and interviews were conducted with the library directors at 22 of the colleges. The first of 10 sections in this report presents the statistical…

This study was conducted to learn the extent to which member institutions of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) with Blackwell North America (B/NA) approval plans covering philosophy and political science are duplicating collections, and to determine what supplementary collection development practices are being used. Initial data were…

Library patron demands will exert increasing influence over the allocation of materials budgets. To determine the extent to which data produced by automated systems are used to guide collection development, a questionnaire was sent to the 108 university library members of the Association of Research Libraries. Responses (n=79) showed that such…

This SPEC (Systems and Procedures Exchange Center) Kit presents the results of a survey of Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries. The survey addressed the following questions about numeric data (i.e., any information resource, print or non-print, with considerable numeric content) in academic libraries: (1) What relationships…