Towards a Theory of Fiction Replacement in Public Libraries
By Ken St. Andre, Librarian I, Phoenix Public Library
I have a dilemma. I need to keep the library’s fiction collection strong, but I don’t have much money for buying replacements for all the books being lost. I need to prioritize and only buy those items that are most needed.
I don’t need to worry about new books. Those decisions are being made for me (and the rest of the system) by Collection Development. We automatically get copies of new releases from all the best American authors and the best American publishers.
We don’t worry about small press items—no matter how good they may be. They don’t have the distribution to really affect the country.
In a public library, I am not really worried about the intellectual quality of the books I hand out—especially not in fiction. What counts is whether people want to read them or not. I leave considerations of quality to academic librarians working in university libraries. In the event that I ever have a patron who wishes to read something not found in my public library, I have the interlibrary loan system to fall back on—books may be obtained for them from the academic libraries that do order for quality instead of popularity.
My problem for replacement then is to determine which of the fiction titles are likely to be most popular, that is, most in demand. Fortunately, the library has statistical methods of determining where the true demand lies. There are two methods of measuring demand. One is the percentage of copies currently circulating. The other is the number of holds on the title.
By combining these two items, I should be able to determine the urgency of re-ordering any particular title once it goes missing.
One thing that must be considered is that I want titles for my own branch of any item that is even moderately popular within the city. Even though the branch is part of the system, and copies can be sent to where they are needed, it is qualitatively better to have copies here at my branch than to always be getting them from elsewhere. Thus if something is generally in demand, then I want at least one copy here.
I want a simple mathematical formula where a higher value is better than a lower value. I want factors for local demand, system demand, and future demand. Local demand would be how many copies does the branch have (C1) and how many are circulating (CC) with local demand being the percentage CC/C1. The maximum value would be 100%; the minimum would be 0.
The same formula should work for system demand. System copies would be S1; System circulation would be SC. Total demand would be SC/S1. Future demand could follow the same pattern where the number of system holds (H) would be divided by the number of available copies (S1). Adding the three factors should give a total demand factor.
A problem arises when the number of copies in the branch equals zero. Division by zero is impossible and produces infinity. I need a fudge factor to do away with the denominator ever being zero. For simplicity’s sake, let’s set that fudge factor to 1. Make it a given—a public library branch should always have at least one copy of any book that is in demand.
Having established my three factors, let’s make some rules for using them.
If branch demand is 100% then we need more copies of the book.
If System demand is less than branch demand, then we’re ok, because we can fill branch demand with books from other branches.
If future demand is greater than system demand, then the whole system needs more copies.
If the combined demand number is less than 100%, then no replacement copies need purchasing.
If combined demand is between 100% and 200%, then any branch at the 100% mark should buy at least one extra copy.
If combined demand is greater than 200% then more copies should be bought everywhere, and a larger branch should buy at least two copies.
Well, it looks good on paper. I wonder if such a theory could be tested.
Note that this model takes no account of such library realities as limited budgets. It also assumes a snapshot in time. Let's say demand is tested once every three months. A quarter seems like a reasonable period--it allows time for items purchased because of the previous analysis to be received and entered into the system, changing the branch and the system numbers. It allows time for holds to be filled and new holds to be placed. If demand still remains greater than 100 or 200 percent after a three month period, then additional copies should, in my humble opinion, be purchased again.
With the complexity of today's automated circulation systems, it should be possible to derive my various numbers from the computer without having a human being actually take the time to tally these up by hand. C1 and S1, CC and SC, and Holds are known quantities in modern computerized circulaton systems. All it really takes is some kind of reporting mechanism to extract these numbers, do the simple calculations, and prepare a report for the ordering librarian to authorize the purchase of replacement copies.
Nothing this mathematically determined will ever happen, of course. There will never be that much science in library science.
End
Showing posts with label hyperlinked libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hyperlinked libraries. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Hyperlinked Library
The Hyperlinked Library
Report by Ken St. Andre
I spent the afternoon of March 10 at the Burton Barr Central Library listening to a talk by one Michael Stevens, a professor Library Science at Dominican University in Indiana. Mike is a young man, probably hasn’t seen 30 yet, long glossy black hair and beard, an excellent speaker, dynamic in every sense of the word. He has a blog worth reading called Tametheweb. The presentation was just a slide show and a talk—it wasn’t even Powerpoint, or if it was, it was the most basic Powerpoint presentation ever. However, his images were all well chosen, entertaining, and he kept them moving right along.
It was one of those feel-good talks—cool things that libraries are doing, and cool things that we could be doing also in our roles as librarians in the 21st century. Dozens of examples rolled out of him, and there’s no good trying to mention them all. He has promised that he will put the whole slide show up on his blog, and for anyone who wants to see it, then it should be available on the web in a few more days.
The big point of his talk was that the world is converging into one hyperlinked society where information is exchanged right now—not tomorrow, not next week, not next month or next year. Now! The web has changed everything, and applications like FaceBook (My Space seems to be losing it), Flicker, and especiallyl Twitter (www.twitter.com) are changing the way people live and communicate. These days it seems that businesses and organizations that don’t actively promote themselves with web services like FaceBook and Twitter are missing out, and will soon be irrelevant to the general digital population.
As a direct result of Mike’s talk, I signed up for Twitter this morning. I have sent my first three tweets. I have a couple of followers already. The competitive part of me wants to know how long it will take me to get 1000 followers. I’m guessing less than a year. I don’t have a cell phone yet, but perhaps that will be another major change in my life.
I have to admit that when he talked about all this change I felt like the oldest dinosaur in the room. I don’t have a cell phone. I didn’t twitter. I’m not on FaceBook, although 175 million people are. 175 million people—imagine the computing power it takes to keep up with that. And yet, such was the force of his personality and the excitement of his presentation, that I felt like changing, and I haven’t felt like changing for a long time.
And he also talked about the next big thing—Cloud computing. It is now possible to have companies like Google and Yahoo save all your files for you, and make them available to you anywhere in the world as long as you can connect to them in some fashion. Google provides a full suite of productivity software—word processing, spreadsheets, relational databases—free. No Microsoft licenses to pay for. No CDs to maintain. No stupid serial numbers to keep track of. Everything you need to do business is available for free. And you can store it for free in Google’s supercomputers. That’s Cloud Computing.
There are downsides to all this transparency and distributed processing of information. How much of your life are you willing to put into a metaphorical fishbowl for the world to stare at? What happens if Google ever goes down and takes all you information with it? Inconceivable. Not really. But these seem to be the kind of risks and problems that the 21st century will have to deal with.
We didn’t really talk about any downsides to this tech revolution of wireless connectivity all over the planet. We only looked at benefits. The benefits are considerable. These changes are affecting us all, whether we want them to or not. As librarians, and information professionals, we need to be aware of how things are changing.
In other news, Liz Danforth attended the afternoon session at the same time I did. She has big news. She’s the first ever official games blogger for Library Journal. How cool is that!
End
Report by Ken St. Andre
I spent the afternoon of March 10 at the Burton Barr Central Library listening to a talk by one Michael Stevens, a professor Library Science at Dominican University in Indiana. Mike is a young man, probably hasn’t seen 30 yet, long glossy black hair and beard, an excellent speaker, dynamic in every sense of the word. He has a blog worth reading called Tametheweb. The presentation was just a slide show and a talk—it wasn’t even Powerpoint, or if it was, it was the most basic Powerpoint presentation ever. However, his images were all well chosen, entertaining, and he kept them moving right along.
It was one of those feel-good talks—cool things that libraries are doing, and cool things that we could be doing also in our roles as librarians in the 21st century. Dozens of examples rolled out of him, and there’s no good trying to mention them all. He has promised that he will put the whole slide show up on his blog, and for anyone who wants to see it, then it should be available on the web in a few more days.
The big point of his talk was that the world is converging into one hyperlinked society where information is exchanged right now—not tomorrow, not next week, not next month or next year. Now! The web has changed everything, and applications like FaceBook (My Space seems to be losing it), Flicker, and especiallyl Twitter (www.twitter.com) are changing the way people live and communicate. These days it seems that businesses and organizations that don’t actively promote themselves with web services like FaceBook and Twitter are missing out, and will soon be irrelevant to the general digital population.
As a direct result of Mike’s talk, I signed up for Twitter this morning. I have sent my first three tweets. I have a couple of followers already. The competitive part of me wants to know how long it will take me to get 1000 followers. I’m guessing less than a year. I don’t have a cell phone yet, but perhaps that will be another major change in my life.
I have to admit that when he talked about all this change I felt like the oldest dinosaur in the room. I don’t have a cell phone. I didn’t twitter. I’m not on FaceBook, although 175 million people are. 175 million people—imagine the computing power it takes to keep up with that. And yet, such was the force of his personality and the excitement of his presentation, that I felt like changing, and I haven’t felt like changing for a long time.
And he also talked about the next big thing—Cloud computing. It is now possible to have companies like Google and Yahoo save all your files for you, and make them available to you anywhere in the world as long as you can connect to them in some fashion. Google provides a full suite of productivity software—word processing, spreadsheets, relational databases—free. No Microsoft licenses to pay for. No CDs to maintain. No stupid serial numbers to keep track of. Everything you need to do business is available for free. And you can store it for free in Google’s supercomputers. That’s Cloud Computing.
There are downsides to all this transparency and distributed processing of information. How much of your life are you willing to put into a metaphorical fishbowl for the world to stare at? What happens if Google ever goes down and takes all you information with it? Inconceivable. Not really. But these seem to be the kind of risks and problems that the 21st century will have to deal with.
We didn’t really talk about any downsides to this tech revolution of wireless connectivity all over the planet. We only looked at benefits. The benefits are considerable. These changes are affecting us all, whether we want them to or not. As librarians, and information professionals, we need to be aware of how things are changing.
In other news, Liz Danforth attended the afternoon session at the same time I did. She has big news. She’s the first ever official games blogger for Library Journal. How cool is that!
End
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