Longevity of print book use at a small public university: a 30-year longitudinal study

Abstract

This research uses the circulation history of print books in the University of Prince Edward Island’s (UPEI) collection to measure the longevity of usage using three different categories: Becher-Biglan (BB), major subject and academic department. Two sets of data provide for longitudinal analysis up to 30 years. About 10,000 books met the criteria for part 1, which had an average ten-year circulation longevity. About 14% had only one year of use and about 24% had less than five years’ longevity. There was little variation by BB, and the only major subjects that were noticeably different from the median were business and education, which were about 20% shorter. Part 2 included about 4,000 more recent books. 37% circulated for just one year and 64% circulated for at most a four-year range. There was very little variation in these results when broken down by BB, major subjects and academic departments. The one exception is business, which had a notably higher portion used only in one year. The circulation longevity of print books has significantly shortened over the last three decades at UPEI.

Keywords

• books
• print books
• circulation
• academic libraries
• acquisitions
• collection development