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Collection-and-Services Data Tell a Story

Out of the 570,000 print titles in our collection, about 60,000 circulated to Villanova patrons last year. This doesn’t include the journals, group study rooms or laptops. Many print materials are also used in-house without being checked out to patrons.

It’s perhaps not surprising that the main stacks titles with the heaviest circulation in the Falvey collection are a mix of fiction and non-fiction, including business, history and literature titles that can be associated with actively taught courses. Looking at the top five titles below, I’m going to have to say that Catching Fire is probably evidence that patrons still want to read for enjoyment and not just for assignments.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. (10 loans)

AchebePragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty by Colin Koopman. (10 loans)

Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark. (10 loans)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. (9 loans)

Business of Sports: edited by Brad R. Humphreys and Dennis R. Howard.  (7 loans)

While the most popular books borrowed in 2013 weren’t necessarily predictable, they showed us what students and faculty were interested in last year. By comparing this internal data with the external data below, we also see where gaps may exist in our collections.

between menBehavioural ecology (7 requests), Programming the World Wide Web (5 requests) and Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (4 requests) were the top three requested titles through Interlibrary Loan, spanning the humanities and sciences. The two books borrowed most through E-ZBorrow were Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (4 requests) and Introduction to Software Testing (4 requests), also representing the arts and sciences equally.

Moving on from monographs (print books), we have statistics showing the number of articles requested through Interlibrary Loan from other libraries’ journal holdings and through Document Delivery services from our own journal collection.

What is Document Delivery, you may ask? It’s a service rendered only to Villanova students, staff and faculty who need a scanned (digitized) copy of a print journal article from our collection.

It’s interesting to note the fifteen most requested journal titles through Interlibrary Loan are a mix of many disciplines, but most predominantly philosophy, theology, nursing and engineering, as evidenced by the top five titles from that list.

Critical care medicine (43)

Water Science and Technology (20)

Theology and Science (19)

The Leibniz review (17)

American family physician (17)

As you can see, journal data from the Document Delivery system shows that faculty and patrons are making good use of this service, although theology, nursing and engineering emerge as the frontrunners.

Journal of Ecumenical Studies (74 requests)

Tetrahedron Letters (35 requests)

JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association (22 requests)

National Catholic Register (20 requests)

Journal of Heat Transfer (19 requests)

Falvey librarians use all available data to make purchasing decisions in consultation with individual academic departments. We also strive to improve patron access to our immediate collection and to offer services that extend the collection beyond our walls.


Article by Luisa Cywinski, editorial blog coordinator, Communication & Service Promotion team; team leader, Access Services.

 

Critical care medicine

Water Science and Technology

Theology and Science

The Leibniz review

American family physician

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Last Modified: February 27, 2014

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