College and Research Libraries


Letters 
To the Editor: 

We read with interest the account by Bustion and Treadwell of the periodicals use study 
conducted at Texas A&M (C&RL, March 1990). As mentioned in the article, Texas A&M 
investigated only current periodical usage for sample selections of journals. At the Meriam 
Library at California State University, Chico, we monitored periodical usage of the entire 
collection (some 5,000 titles) at all points of access, over-the-counter check-out, 
behind-the-counter browsing, and in the bound volume area, for over a year. Thus, we 
have the information to answer one of the questions posed by the authors of the article, at 
least for our library. ''If one-third of the user population goes to the current periodicals 
area, but the level of use among periodicals is seemingly low, why are the users there?" 

We found over 40 percent of the use of our journal collection came from over-the-counter 
borrowing, with popular titles being checked out many hundreds of times. Microform 
usage was about 26 percent and bound usage about 30 percent of the overall use picture. 
Some journals showed high use only as bound volumes. Behind-counter browsing, 
permitted only to faculty and graduate students, accounted for only three percent of 
overall journal usage, with many specialized journals showing use only in the browsing 
area. A sample of titles rated ''essential'' by the faculty might draw from these relatively 
''low use'' titles. 

For review of our journal collection, we felt, overall usage by the student body needed to 
be considered along with faculty rankings of importance. As the Texas A&M study 
showed, the two populations do not necessarily agree on the most essential titles. 

META NISSLEY, Head, Acquisitions and Collection Management 
PHYLLIS GAAL, Assistant Librarian, Collection Management 
Meriam Library, California State University, Chico. 

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