Beyond the Kent Study

For those of us interested in print collection use, the Kent Study has long served as a touchstone. The book's actual title is Use of Library Materials: The University of Pittsburgh Study, by Allen Kent [WorldCat record]. Published in 1979 by Marcel Dekker, it focuses on the 36,892 books acquired by the University of Pittsburgh's Hillman Library in 1969. Of particular interest is Chapter II, "Circulation and In-House Use of Books", which follows those 36,892 books through 6 years of circulation and non-circulation. In a finding that has resonated for more than 30 years, the authors determined that nearly 40% of these books did not circulate within the first six years on the shelves, and predicted that the chances of them circulating after that were a mere 1 in 50.

Automation in the Kent Study era

The high rate of non-use occurred at a time when print was dominant, when ILL and even awareness of other library holdings was in its infancy; in short, during a best-case period for print use. Those are not today's conditions. While the Kent findings remain interesting, they are based on 40-year old data and 40-year old circumstances. Tectonic shifts in electronic availability, resource sharing, and user behavior have long cried out for a newer, broader circulation study. 

This month's release of the OhioLINK-OCLC Collection and Circulation Analysis Project 2011 [news release and links] provides that new study, along with the ability to interact with the massive data set on which it is based.

Authored by Ed O'Neill (OCLC), Julia Gammon (Univ of Akron), and the OhioLINK Collection Building Task Force, this is a major contribution to emerging conversations around shared print retention and cooperative collection development. Unlike Kent, which focused on a single library, this work encompasses 89 libraries and tracks collection overlap and circulation activity across 30 million items--nearly 100 times the scope of the earlier work. The circulation activity is drawn from the Spring of 2007 and 2008, and so reflects current user behavior. In short, this is a much more robust foundation on which to base decisions about the number of print copies needed, for older and newer titles alike.

The big headline is this one:

"The most fascinating result of the study was a test of the “80/20” rule. Librarians have long espoused the belief that 80% of a library’s circulation is driven by approximately 20% of the collection. The analysis of a year’s statewide circulation statistics would indicate that 80% of the circulation is driven by just 6% of the collection."

This is a pretty shocking number, even to someone who has been looking closely at circulation data for several years now. It suggests that there may be very few titles for which the community needs many copies. We'll drill deeper into the report and underlying data in subsequent posts.

In some respects, this OhioLINK-OCLC work can and should be seen as a companion piece to Constance Malpas's excellent Cloud-Sourcing Research Collections: Managing Print in the Mass-Digitized Library Environment.[pdf]  Her study, also conducted through the OCLC Office of Research, focuses on collections at NYU, Columbia, Princeton, and the ReCAP storage facility, and quantifies the degree of overlap and redundancy among print books that also reside in secure digital form in HathiTrust. That degree of overlap, when considered in conjunction with the usage data from this new report, speaks volumes (heh-heh) about the potential for carefully managed drawdown of print monographs. There is an enormous opportunity here to dramatically reduce overhead costs related to print collections--and to release space for other uses.

An under-reported finding from Malpas's work suggests the scale:

"...we estimate that the median space savings that could be achieved at an ARL library if a robust shared print offer were in place today to be approximately 36,000 linear feet or the equivalent of more than 45,000 ASF [assignable square feet]...

"In economic terms, the total annual cost avoidance -- assuming all of these books are currently managed on-site -- exceeds $2 million per library."

Certainly caveats and fine print exist. But even if we reduced these estimates by 50%, the case for deselection, shared print, and action is strong. Even as we librarians struggle to come to terms with this, our Provosts, academic Vice Presidents, and CFO's will not be blind to these possibilities. As a community, it behooves us to face--even embrace-- this situation, control the drawdown, and reap the benefits for our libraries and parent institutions. We have new data, robust data. Let's use it.

Withdrawals and Deposits (2)

In the previous post we looked at provisional estimates of the sale value of withdrawn library books in Business and Education. For convenience, those tables are replicated here, with comments following:

Business Titles		% of Total
SCS Withdrawal Candidates	8,551	100.0%
Unmatchable: No ISBN	4,107	48.0%
SCS Withdrawal Candidates w/ ISBNs	4,444	51.9%
‘Culls’: no copies wanted	838	9.8%
Unknowns: bad matches	673	7.8%
Titles w/ possible list price $.01-$2.50	976	11.4%
Titles w/ possible list price of $10+	1,124	13.1%

Education Titles		% of Total
SCS Withdrawal Candidates	5,796
Unmatchable: No ISBN	3,026	52.2%
SCS Withdrawal Candidates w/ ISBNs	2,770	47.8%
‘Culls’: No copies wanted	584	10.0%
Unknowns: bad matches	314	5.4%
Titles w/ possible list price $.01-$2.50	804	13.8%
Titles w/ possible list price  $10+	579	10.0%

Consignment Selling 
Alibris, like many local book dealers, Better World Books, and other companies, offers a consignment program, through which titles can be sent in batch to its warehouse. Alibris lists the titles in its online database, manages sales transactions, and ships books to customers, sharing the proceeds with the library. Consignment is attractive because it allows the books to be moved immediately out of the library, and minimizes the amount of library staff time involved in the sale process. It also gives withdrawal candidates another chance at being purchased and used. And it may return some financial benefit to the library. 

Each vendor's plan probably works a little differently, and each will have its supporters. The key is that any book sale be handled in batch, with as much work occurring outside the library as possible. Many vendors can provide this service. For the sake of example, Alibris's plan works along these lines:

• $1/title fee to list in their database
• 70% of sale price is retained by the library/30% to Alibris
• Batches of titles can be shipped to the Alibris warehouse (library pays shipping)
• Minimum of 1,000 titles required

Costs and Benefits
These terms suggest that titles likely to sell for $2.50 or less are probably not worth pursuing, since it would cost as much to list and ship each volume as the library might realize in revenue--and of course not all titles would sell. At the higher end of the price spectrum, the situation looks a little more interesting. Titles that might sell for $10 would break down like this:

• Sale price: $10
• Alibris commission ($3)
• Listing fee ($1)
• Shipping/handling ($1)

That leaves a profit of roughly $5 per volume sold. In the combined Business and Education samples above, there are 1,703 such titles. If all of them sold for $10, the library would realize $8,500 in profit. If half of them sold for $10, the library would realize a profit of $4,250. [Please note that these are just convenient estimates. Some titles might sell for more, some for less. This is intended simply as a way to think through the possibilities.] From a financial standpoint, these 1,703 titles are the obvious sweet spot--the place where withdrawals would most likely yield deposits.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that any library's entire list of titles would ever be sold. Any sales dollars realized would have to be amortized across the cost of all units listed and shipped. In this example, the base problem is what to do with 14,347 withdrawn items. Listing and shipping 14,347 items would cost the library at least $20,000. Only 1,703 of these items are likely to sell for more than $10. Therefore, it does not make economic sense to list and ship all 14,000 items. Listing and shipping only the 7,214 items would cost closer to $10,000, and might help sell additional units, but probably at a lower overall margin per volume. Each library's strategy here must be based on whether the goals are primarily financial or primarily toward assuring another chance for as many titles as possible.

A Selective Approach
Clearly, this option is not appropriate for every library's situation, and probably not for all withdrawal candidates from any institution. Consignment sale makes most sense for the likely high-value items, where the library will realize a clear return after listing and shipping fees. In these examples, items with a likely sale price of $10 or more represent 10%-13% of the total number. The likely list price may make these candidates worth listing even if only 50% of them ultimately sell. Each library should analyze its situation carefully before proceeding.

Below the $10 threshold, the picture is much less clear. The likely lower-value books represent 87%-90% of the entire list. Those sold at $2.50 or less would represent a loss to the library, even if we don't consider their original purchase price or the library-based labor involved in preparing them for shipment. Titles without ISBNs or bad matches are of unknown value, but would still incur listing, shipping, and handling costs. Titles likely to sell in the range of $2.51-$9.99 would have some potential to produce revenue that exceeds costs. But the overall yield is likely to be relatively low, since all titles incur costs but not all titles will sell. From a purely financial standpoint, this range is marginal, but might look better if it were contracted to $5 or $7 at the low end.

The selective approach also leaves the question of what to do with the remaining books -- those that fall below the likely $10 threshold. In this instance, 12,644 books are in this category. Some libraries may find selling these unused books at a loss more tolerable than throwing them out. Some may prefer to dial the range back to $7 or $5. Some may prefer any chance at a sale, regardless of price. But that should be a conscious choice.

Withdrawals and Deposits

By Stephanie Judge, UW-Madison

.One practical (and sometimes emotional) concern with removing unused books from library shelves is what will happen to them. As individual libraries begin to withdraw tens of thousands of volumes—and assuming that sufficient copies are retained to protect and serve the needs of researchers—what is to be done with them? As discussed in an earlier post on ‘Disposition Options’, there are several alternatives worth considering, including donation or sale. Today let’s focus on the costs and benefits of selling withdrawn items. 

It is with some misgiving that I raise this option, as the value of this material is already questionable. Library users have weighed in by not using these titles, despite as much as a decade of opportunity. Book sales are labor-intensive. In her excellent 2005 article ‘Library Book Sales: A Cost-Benefit Analysis’, Audrey Fenner concludes that none of the prevailing sale methods (annual, ongoing, or online) is cost-effective. Storing uncirculated inventory for sale also requires space, a resource that is likely in short supply in any library engaged in significant weeding. Staff time, another scarce resource, is required to manage both physical items and transactions with buyers.

Given these inauspicious conditions, it seems obvious that selling withdrawn items will not always (or even often) make sense. If books are to be sold by the library, maximum efficiency must be the byword. This involves working in batches, relying on third-party support, and minimal fussing over individual items. If the withdrawal criteria have been set carefully, candidate titles will be those with the least demonstrated value to users. The question is whether these withdrawal candidates may have value elsewhere—and whether that value is sufficient to warrant the effort of offering them to others.

During ALA in New Orleans, SCS consulted with Shelly Stuard, Director of Library Services at Alibris, a major seller of used and out-of-print books. We wondered if Alibris could help us estimate the potential market value of a list of library withdrawal candidates.  It turned out that the company already had a method for doing so, basically matching library-supplied ISBNs against an internal ‘saleability’ database. This database uses historical information to identify ‘keeps’ (where additional copies are needed) and ‘culls’ (where sufficient copies already exist in the Alibris network). The match also captures the range of historical sale prices for each title.

There are strong caveats to be borne in mind. Any such data is inherently dynamic. As with mutual funds, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Suggested prices and ‘keep/cull’ status can change at any time. As more copies withdrawn from libraries enter the market, overall prices are likely to decline. But as an overall indicator of value on the used book market, this provides a useful window, and may be as good as any data available.Here are the results from two lists, one in Business, the other in Education.

Business Titles		% of Total
SCS Withdrawal Candidates	8,551	100.0%
Unmatchable: No ISBN	4,107	48.0%
SCS Withdrawal Candidates w/ ISBNs	4,444	51.9%
‘Culls’: no copies wanted	838	9.8%
Unknowns: bad matches	673	7.8%
Titles w/ possible list price $.01-$2.50	976	11.4%
Titles w/ possible list price of $10+	1,124	13.1%

Education Titles		% of Total
SCS Withdrawal Candidates	5,796
Unmatchable: No ISBN	3,026	52.2%
SCS Withdrawal Candidates w/ ISBNs	2,770	47.8%
‘Culls’: No copies wanted	584	10.0%
Unknowns: bad matches	314	5.4%
Titles w/ possible list price $.01-$2.50	804	13.8%
Titles w/ possible list price  $10+	579	10.0%

Clearly there is some potential revenue here, but there also associated cost. We'll analyze these results more fully in the next post.