The Forest, The Trees, The Bark, The Pith: An Intensive Look at the Circulation Rates of Primary Texts in Ten Major Literature Areas at the University of Oregon Libraries

This poster looks at the circulation rate for literary primary texts, whichconstitute a unique area of collecting in academic libraries: while they do not in mostcases meet immediate research needs, it is assumed that libraries ought to acquire them,for reasons including future research needs, preservation of the cultural record, andthe ability of members of the intellectual community to stay current, those these remainprimarily tacit. The circulation trends of contemporary literary works in ten areas ofliterature (English, American, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin American,Chinese, Japanese, and Russian) over the past twenty years at the University of OregonKnight Library are presented and the circulation turnover rate (CTR), for each of thesesubject areas are presented. Sample graphs allow for the comparison of circulation ratesand numbers of books across time, and serve as examples of the utility of suchvisualizations of the numbers. The key question raised by the study is what makes a goodCTR for a particular region of the collection? The poster concludes by summarizing theconsiderations that bear on the interpretation of the CTR as an index of how thecollection is “working.”