A library survey was conducted during February 1983 to ascertain the characteristics of the user population, user needs, and user satisfaction with library services in five science and technology libraries at the University of Texas at Austin, including the chemistry, engineering, geology, physics-mathematics-astronomy, and science libraries. A…

A mail survey of 1,682 graduate students and 758 faculty in the Colleges of Natural Science, Engineering, and Pharmacy, and in the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Austin was conducted during February 1983 to ascertain the characteristics of the science and technology libraries user population, the type and frequency of library use,…

The four papers in this collection consider the attitudes, concepts, and techniques involved in marketing for non-profit organizations, and explore how librarians in higher education can use these ideas to optimize the effectiveness of their service provision in a time of economic constraint. In "Marketing the Academic Library,"…

Describes the use of "snapshot inventories" to assess the availability of a library collection by measuring the presence/absence of a representative sample of library materials at a given moment. Explains the methods and results of an inventory conducted at Monterey Peninsula College in California. (DMM)

Based on the concept that library use measurement should have as its basic starting point the individual patron, a method of data collection and analysis has been developed that explores individual patterns of borrowing over time. The method accounts for the number of visits on which borrowing takes place, number of items borrowed per visit, and…

Describes a study conducted at Columbia-Greene Community College's library to determine whether a book's previous non-use is indicative of future non-use; whether books are progressively less likely to be used with time; the circulation costs of weeding previously unused books; and the circulation rates of old and new books. (DMM)

This collection of library documents, which illustrates current techniques for conducting user studies in order to facilitate specific public services planning and priority-setting efforts at the member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), contains excerpts from: (1) four general user studies conducted at the University of…

Serials collections are a costly but essential part of a library's periodicals holdings. Jacksonville State University Library's (JSUL) budgetary problems have forced librarians to examine their serials closely in terms of cost factors, indexing, expected usage, and curriculum and research support. The purpose of this project is to assess JSUL's…

A group of 40 elementary school librarians in the greater Phoenix area of Arizona were invited to participate in a study of the effects of an experimental school library motivational program on library use, library attitudes, and reading attitudes of elementary school students. Librarians at 13 schools participated, with 11 completing the study.…

A study conducted to determine if integrated shelving in a curriculum resources center made a difference to users in terms of finding more resources and using more audiovisual aids found that audiovisual and print materials use seemed to be influenced less by integrated shelving than by ease of access. (MBR)

Reports the results of a survey of 50 academic libraries that have Kurzweil Reading Machines and discusses librarians' responses to both factual and opinion questions about use of the machines. The questionnaire used in the survey is included. (Author/CLB)

Explores issues surrounding efforts to introduce online catalogs to users and presents relevant research results from Northwestern University's "Educating the Online Catalog User" project. Highlights include attitudes and preconceptions about online catalogs and instruction, research on online catalog use, suggestions for online catalog teaching,…

Describes a study that used the shelf availability research methodology to identify and quantify the causes of users' failures to identify and locate library materials. The factors resulting in unsuccessful searches are discussed, and recommendations for reducing these factors are made. (26 references) (CLB)

Provides statistics based on the 1996 National Households Education Survey (NHES) of 55,000 families, measuring library use by presence of children, race, and ethnicity. Provides tables reporting use of public libraries by presence of children, by any household member, and by any household member in the last month. (PEN)

This paper reports the results of a circulation study in the government documents departments of a public library and an academic library. Based on a systematic random sample of the records of materials returned in 1981, the study had two purposes: to seek evidence to support the assumption that current documents circulate more than older ones;…