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Measuring demand for academic library books

Posted By Charles Benjamin, 20 March 2023
I work at Queen Margaret University library as a Helpdesk Adviser. One of my duties involves running a daily report for High Demand Holds. If there are 4 or more holds, I then take the student details, course details, book details and after searching our suppliers website, submit a purchase request to the appropriate subject librarian. I wondered, however, if there are other more effective ways to measure the demand: supply ratio for library stock? One problem is that students will sometimes decline to place a hold on a book if they need the book urgently.

Tags:  stock; demand; university library 

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Comments on this post...

Marette Hickford says...
Posted 21 March 2023
I suggest a rating asking students to indicate how urgently they need the copy. Maybe they could provide a date when they would be able to finish using the book for. You can prioritise the holds if necessary. If there are quite a few, you may want to consider asking students to consider using the book in the library instead of taking the book out to reduce the time it takes to make a book available again. The other option is to provide earlier editions (that if, they haven't been taken already).
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Charles Benjamin says...
Posted 23 March 2023
Hi Marette, thanks for the suggestion. I like the idea of students being able to indicate how urgently they need the book. At QMU, if there are copies available on the shelves (including reference only copies) it's not possible for students to put a hold on that title. 
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