AASL Column, January 2012

Column written by Martha Walker, Architecture Librarian and Coordinator of Collections

Fine Arts Library,  Cornell University.

 If we encounter a man of great intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well, in a sense we did!  Sometimes it is necessary to move a library – its collections, services and staff. Since the summer of 2010, the Fine Arts Library (FAL) at Cornell University has been on the move. Along the way, we learned some interesting  things about our collections and their use.

For a number of very good reasons, the collection (of roughly 140,000 volumes) and the library’s service points and staff have moved to an adjacent facility, Rand Hall. For more information about the move and plans for the FAL, please refer to the September 2010 issue AAP news (online at:  http://aap.cornell.edu/news/newsitem.cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=420927 )

In order to fit into our temporary location, it was necessary to shift 78,000 volumes to Cornell’s Library Annex (which ships user- selected items back to the central campus on a daily basis). Choosing which 78,000 volumes to shift was made easier by the availability of computer generated use reports. That is, we ran a query on the FAL’s circulation data to determine which titles were lower use, with the hope that these items would be those least missed by most users. We quickly learned that we were able to further refine our search by subject classification — in our case, the art, architecture and planning sections of the collection. Eventually, staff curiosity led to a query on the most frequently circulated titles in architecture (the “NA” section of the collection).

It did not take long for news of this query to attract interest, and by November of 2010, a (heavily securitized) exhibit of our most frequently circulated titles was mounted in AAP’s Hartell Gallery. The success of the exhibit, and the interest it generated, was a surprise to all library staff. I shared this experience with my AASL colleagues in Montreal last spring, and was encouraged to publish our list of the most frequently circulated NA titles. A few caveats, the list I’ve included below is limited to 2005 – 2010 data, and it does not include “browse” statistics (titles looked at but not charged from the library). Finally, some titles have duplicate holdings. Therefore one title, i.e. Delirious, New York may show up lower or twice on the list; or, in the case of Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, our reserve copy simply fell to pieces. Its replacement received a new item record and a non-cumulative count. Therefore, here are our top twenty circulating titles (with consideration for these and perhaps other data anomalies) and their number of historical charges between 2005 and 2010:

Library moves are never easy,, but I am fortunate to be surrounded  by beautiful books at an institution that values information in all its many formats. What makes the job even more rewarding is knowing, and having proof, that our collections are also so very much appreciated by our patrons.