Evaluating Usage of Monographs: Is It Feasible and Worthwhile?.

Usage is an increasingly important factor in decisions about the funding of library resources. Data for electronic resources and print serials is more likely to be gathered and analyzed than monographic use data. This situation poses a threat to the appropriate funding for monographic acquisitions. A pilot project was designed at the Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries to develop and test a method of producing use reports for monographs purchased in recent years. Despite some unusual challenges, the pilot project proved that retrieval and analysis of data could be performed with readily available software. While the results from the analysis cannot be the sole or main foundation for changes in the collection development of monographs, the use reports provided new insights into the utilization of recent acquisitions and pinpointed weaknesses or strengths of acquisition patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]