1. Resources for College
Libraries : What do the
Numbers Mean?
Sue Beidler
Lycoming College
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

2. Agenda
 Overview of Lycoming’s Environment
 Overview of Resources for College Libraries
 What is BBAS (/Bowker’s Book Analysis
System)?
 How We Use RCLWeb
 How We Use BBAS
 Discussion
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

3. Overview of Lycoming’s Environment
 Lycoming College: private, 4-year, approx.1400
FTE
 Traditional Liberal Arts
 5 Librarians, 6 support staff
 An active collaborative instruction program that
teaches the responsible use of research sources,
building the skills to find, evaluate, and integrate
information is a key aspect of our mission.
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

4. Overview of Lycoming’s Environment
 Local ILS: TLC’s Library•Solution 4.2
 Collection of approx. 155,000 cataloged volumes
 Annual monograph/standing order budget of
approximately $120K
 2,300 new cataloged volumes added annually
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

5. Overview of Resources for College
Libraries
 Successor to Books for College Libraries (BCL3)
 Collaborative project between ACRL, CHOICE,
and R.R. Bowker
 Available in print and as an online tool
(RCLWeb)
 First released in 2006
 Online version is updated quarterly
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

6. Overview of BBAS
(Bowker’s Book Analysis System)
 Electronically compares local collection to the
RCL database
 Provides array of reports that can be customized
 Duplicate titles
 Invalid ISBNs
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

7. Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

8. Overview of BBAS
(Bowker’s Book Analysis System)
 Electronically compares local collection to the
RCL database
 Provides array of reports that can be customized
 Duplicate titles
 Invalid ISBNs
 Statistical reports by RCL Subjects, LC Classification or

Core titles in library

Core titles NOT in library

Total # of core titles

% of core titles held
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

9. Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

10. Lycoming’s Uses for RCLWeb
 Evaluating gift books for inclusion in our
collection
 Generally do a quick title search in RCLWeb for
possible keepers
 Are likely to keep the book if any edition is in RCL
 Sometimes will also search by author – if there are a
number of titles by the author we may keep if the title
is curriculum related
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

11. Lycoming’s Current Uses for RCL Book
Analysis results
 Retrospective Collection Development –
Photography Project
 Overview of Project
 Used “Don’t have” list to work from with faculty
 Improved from 27.74% coverage in 2007 to 51.82%
coverage in 2008 as a result of this project
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

12. Lycoming’s Current Uses for RCL Book
Analysis results
 Weeding/De-selection decisions
 Faculty from specific disciplines selected each year
 They’re set loose in the stacks with very general
guidelines
 Any items they think should be withdrawn are put on
a book truck
 I pull up the list of RCL titles we have in that call
number range – anything on the RCL list goes back to
the shelves immediately, but is marked that it is in
RCL
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

13. Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

14. Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

15. Lycoming’s Current Uses for RCL Book
Analysis results
 Assessment
 Meetings with academic departments regarding the
collection
 Sometimes used in preparation for the meeting – a gauge of
strength or weakness
 Sometimes used as follow-up – Mathematical Sciences –
even though there was no response from the faculty
 Track changes in our holdings from year to year, by
discipline
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

16. Lycoming’s Current Uses for RCL Book
Analysis results
 Challenges
 Analysis is always done against the current RCL
database
 Must save analyses at the time you run them
 Exported statistics cannot be manipulated
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

17. What do the numbers
mean?
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

18. What can the analysis tell us?
 RCLWeb
 Book Analysis System
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

19. How would/could we go about
developing comparisons with
similar size/type libraries?
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

20. How might we determine
comparison libraries?
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010

21. Contact Information
Sue Beidler
Snowden Library
Lycoming College
700 College Place
Williamsport, PA 17701
570-321-4084
beidler@lycoming.edu
Charleston Conference November 4, 2010