A Study of the Relationship Between Size of Monographic Collections and Internal Duplication in A Select Group of Libraries Using Lcs (Library Computer System)

Abstract

The rate of internal duplication in academic libraries was analyzed to determine if the rate of duplication increases as an academic library increases in collection size. To study this relationship, eight hundred monographic records were selected randomly from each of the databases of fifteen academic libraries using LCS (Library Computer System), a computer-based inventory control system, containing bibliographic records and holdings information. Fourteen of the institutions are located in Illinois and one in Ohio. Analyses of the holdings information for the monographic records indicated that there is a positive relationship between rate of internal duplication and collection size, which was equated, by definition, to the number of monographic records in an LCS database. Likewise, it was shown that as collection size increases, there tends to be a corresponding increase in the proportion of volumes duplicated at the rate of three or more copies.

Data gathered during on-site visits at the fifteen institutions suggest there may be additional factors closely related to a library's rate of internal duplication, namely, the arrangement of the reference function as a centralized department or dispersed in departmental or branch collections or in subject divisions within a single building, and as expected, a library's policy for acquiring multiple/added copies.