Throw-It Thursday - Buy that Book! Usage Stats to Help Collection Development

Ashley Borman, Technical Services Librarian at the Clintonville (WI) Public Library, is back with another weeding tips - and collection development - column. 

Image by Jan from Pixabay

Have you ever used inter-library loan statistics to help your collection development? Items that you are continually borrowing from other libraries (whether they are a part of your system or you are using WISCAT to source them from around the state and surrounding states) are a good indicator of what genres/subjects your patrons are interested in. 

I like to take a look at the holds counter multiple times a week just to get an idea of what people are checking out. If there are a lot of similar titles for multiple people, I try to order some more similar titles if we don’t already have them.

I am also responsible for Inter-Library loans from outside of our library system. These requests are also great at helping me determine some popular items to get for patrons. 

Paying attention to what is being requested from other libraries can also help you find items in your collection that are outdated but got missed in prior weeding.