From Old to New: Changing the Way a Health Sciences Library Thinks About Popular Reading Collections

Abstract

Objective: The inclusion of popular reading titles among academic and health sciences libraries is heavily discussed in the library literature. A popular reading collection containing health sciences related leisure reading titles was created in July of 2011. Our health sciences library set out to determine how the new collection was utilized through the analysis of the books’ circulation statistics and a review of the collection’s cost-to-benefit ratio.

Methods: Circulation statistics will be analyzed in multiple areas to determine the role that this book type has within the overall collection. Areas of discussion will include the time of year for most frequent checkout of the books, the total number of checkouts of the books over the life of the collection, the total cost of the collection, and a review of the titles with the most checkouts and renewals to date.

Results/Conclusion: The analysis of this data will represent a quantitative and comprehensive look at the value of popular reading collection to the patrons of our health sciences library. Popular reading books are of high value to the patrons at our library and come at a low cost to our collections budget. The library looks to continue and expand upon this collection in order to continue to serve our patrons in this nontraditional way.