ALA Members

Hi everyone,

We are working on creating workflows for renewing our physical and electronic journal subscriptions. We can pull use statistics for our electronic journals, but cannot do the equivalent for our physical journals.

Our physical journals are not individually barcoded, and cannot leave the library space, so we have no way of pulling circulation stats from our ILS. Prior to the pandemic, we ran a "use survey" which consisted of us collecting periodicals that were returned to the circulation desk or not re-shelved and tallying them in a spreadsheet.

What have others done to track use stats for physical journals? Do you find physical use stats helpful around renewal season? Do you keep track at all?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

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Ashley Bryan
Head Librarian for Access Services & Archivist
Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons
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At the Alaska State Library we use the "In House Use" feature of our SIRSI Workflows module to track use of physical journals. We don't individually barcode our issues either, but we have a barcode in the holdings record. To mark a periodical as used, we use the "search by title" function to find the right barcode to mark. We only have a handful of journals each day so our method may not be scalable to busier institutions.  Our method also depends on patrons not reshelving periodicals.

We do find our "In House Use" statistics useful at renewal times, though we've had many rounds of cuts. Generally speaking, we'll cut an active periodical if we cannot demonstrate that SOMEONE looked at it in the past year. And occasionally we are surprised by what does get used. Don't have an immediate example to share.

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Daniel Cornwall
Continuing Resources Librarian
Alaska State Library
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Original Message:
Sent: Sep 21, 2022 09:54 AM
From: Ashley Bryan
Subject: How does your library track use of physical journals?

Hi everyone,

We are working on creating workflows for renewing our physical and electronic journal subscriptions. We can pull use statistics for our electronic journals, but cannot do the equivalent for our physical journals.

Our physical journals are not individually barcoded, and cannot leave the library space, so we have no way of pulling circulation stats from our ILS. Prior to the pandemic, we ran a "use survey" which consisted of us collecting periodicals that were returned to the circulation desk or not re-shelved and tallying them in a spreadsheet.

What have others done to track use stats for physical journals? Do you find physical use stats helpful around renewal season? Do you keep track at all?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

------------------------------
Ashley Bryan
Head Librarian for Access Services & Archivist
Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons
------------------------------

We would have the users not reshelve  them but put them on a book cart. We would then have the pages put colored dots on the spines and at the end of the survey period it was easy to scan the shelves for those which had been used and how many times.

David Ockene
NYPL retiree

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David Ockene
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Original Message:
Sent: Sep 21, 2022 09:54 AM
From: Ashley Bryan
Subject: How does your library track use of physical journals?

Hi everyone,

We are working on creating workflows for renewing our physical and electronic journal subscriptions. We can pull use statistics for our electronic journals, but cannot do the equivalent for our physical journals.

Our physical journals are not individually barcoded, and cannot leave the library space, so we have no way of pulling circulation stats from our ILS. Prior to the pandemic, we ran a "use survey" which consisted of us collecting periodicals that were returned to the circulation desk or not re-shelved and tallying them in a spreadsheet.

What have others done to track use stats for physical journals? Do you find physical use stats helpful around renewal season? Do you keep track at all?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

------------------------------
Ashley Bryan
Head Librarian for Access Services & Archivist
Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/21/2022 10:55:00 AM
From: Ashley Bryan
Subject: How does your library track use of physical journals?

Hi everyone,

We are working on creating workflows for renewing our physical and electronic journal subscriptions. We can pull use statistics for our electronic journals, but cannot do the equivalent for our physical journals.

Our physical journals are not individually barcoded, and cannot leave the library space, so we have no way of pulling circulation stats from our ILS. Prior to the pandemic, we ran a "use survey" which consisted of us collecting periodicals that were returned to the circulation desk or not re-shelved and tallying them in a spreadsheet.

What have others done to track use stats for physical journals? Do you find physical use stats helpful around renewal season? Do you keep track at all?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

------------------------------
Ashley Bryan
Head Librarian for Access Services & Archivist
Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 9/21/2022 10:55:00 AM
From: Ashley Bryan
Subject: How does your library track use of physical journals?

Hi everyone,

We are working on creating workflows for renewing our physical and electronic journal subscriptions. We can pull use statistics for our electronic journals, but cannot do the equivalent for our physical journals.

Our physical journals are not individually barcoded, and cannot leave the library space, so we have no way of pulling circulation stats from our ILS. Prior to the pandemic, we ran a "use survey" which consisted of us collecting periodicals that were returned to the circulation desk or not re-shelved and tallying them in a spreadsheet.

What have others done to track use stats for physical journals? Do you find physical use stats helpful around renewal season? Do you keep track at all?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

------------------------------
Ashley Bryan
Head Librarian for Access Services & Archivist
Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons
------------------------------