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During the Fall 2017 semester, staff at the Hudson County Community College (HCCC), Library began to notice that many books listed as available in the catalog were often not being found on the shelves when patrons attempted to retrieve them. This situation puzzled library leadership because HCCC had recently conducted an inventory and removed all missing items from its holdings. To determine the cause of this discrepancy, HCCC staff decided to sample the library's collection to determine if books were available at the expected locations. From this, the library found that a high percentage of its books were not present where they were expected to be. In response, library staff implemented a variety of changes to HCCC's shelving and access services operations.

The authors investigated quantitative methods of collection use analysis employing library data that are available in ILS and ILL systems to better understand library collection use and user needs. For the purpose of the study, the authors extracted circulation and ILL records from the library's systems using data-mining techniques. By comparing these data to records of books acquired in a four-year period, the study reveals generally good collection use as well as some unmet collection needs. The study also offers a method of compiling and sharing these multiple types of usage data among work groups to create feedback mechanisms to inform the work of selectors and suggest modifications to collection development practices.