[Wactclc-alma] Collection Analysis

[Guidry, Wade]

You can put the number of checkouts as the numerator, and the number of volumes as the denominator.

The result provides a kind of "velocity" measurement for the collection.

Say, for example, you had 200 circulations in a year, for a collection contains 100 volumes.

200 / 100 = 2.

So, on average, every volume was used twice in that year. For a collection 'velocity' of 2.

Or, if you and 50 circs across 100 volumes, every volume is used an average of 0.5 times.

Of course, that velocity measurement might be skewed by a few very popular volumes in a collection of otherwise uninteresting volumes. :)

A more complicated calculation would be to calculate the velocity for each individual volume, and then weight those individual results based on the number of volumes in the analysis.

For example, if the total volume count in the analysis is 100, then each volume is 1% of total, so multiple each individual result by 0.01, and then add them up to get a weighted number for the collection as a whole.








Wade Guidry
Library Consortium Services Manager, WACTCLC
wadeg at bigbend.edu<mailto:wadeg at bigbend.edu>
(509) 760-4474
http://www.wactclc.org


From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> On Behalf Of Thomas, Kirsti
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2019 11:54 AM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Collection Analysis

ATTENTION: This email contains links. Please follow best practices before clicking on links
There's a book called Analyzing Library Collection Use with Excel that's published by ALA. It's got a bunch of stuff that could be adapted for Alma Analytics

https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/analyzing-library-collection-use-excel%C2%AE

A few years back, a physics faculty member taught me a handy little trick for identifying high demand subject areas-divide the total number of items by the total number of check-outs (or possibly the reverse?). Higher numbers indicate areas that are seeing more use.

Hope this helps.


Kirsti S. Thomas
Library Technical Service Manager
Seattle Colleges
kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu<mailto:kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu>




From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Skirko, Tria
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 12:17
To: wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [Wactclc-alma] Collection Analysis

Hello All -

We're grappling with some things in collection analysis and I'm wondering if others have developed analysis or processes on this subject.  I'm also open to ideas, advice, etc. regarding what you are doing in collection analysis/circulation assessment/planning/whatever.  Especially how you are leveraging Analytics to find out some things like this:


  1.  Age of the collection +.  One thing we need is to be able to do a more sophisticated analysis where we can account for the fact that some areas simply will have older books. Conversely (sort of), it would be good to have data that would allow us to identify high demand areas that need some attention.
  2.  We want to be able to provide evidence to the accreditation visitors that some of our planning results in improvements in the collection. For instance, we have new four-year degrees and other programs and have been deliberate about collecting in those areas. Has the number of titles in a specific area increased, or is there a qualitative improvement in the area? Same thing (conversely sort of again) goes for areas that we have targeted for weeding.
  3.  For item 2 it would be nice to show a correlation to circulation, whichever direction it is.

So, it seems to come down to being able to target a range of call numbers, get an average age of pub dates (and perhaps a distribution, too), and then be able to get circ trends for that range for dates that include pre- and post-intervention (whether more purchasing, weeding, or both). You may (I hope) have other ways of thinking about this, and I'd love to hear them!


Tria Skirko | Electronic Services Librarian, Faculty
Wenatchee Valley College,  Omak Campus | www.wvc.edu<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wvc.edu%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6970c87f0b4f5fd60008d67b267e3d%7C02d8ff38d7114e31a9156cb5cff788df%7C0%7C0%7C636831802605016215&sdata=E1%2Fv%2Fk7EQs54TivylGQwHuKdGbcGlBuKztfuPnpVAWw%3D&reserved=0>
tskirko at wvc.edu<mailto:tskirko at wvc.edu> | 509.422.7832

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