by Elizabeth Mueller
The Library Quarterly
Vol. 35, #3, July 1965, pp. 166-172.
Hypothesis accepted:
Experiment supporting hypothesis
Location: Six libraries in the Chicago suburbs
- Library I: 43,700 volumes with new book shelf
- Library II: 19,800 volumes with new book shelf
- Library III: 18,500 volumes with no new book shelf
- Library IV: 18,500 volumes with new book shelf
- Library V: 8,700 volumes with no new book shelf
- Library VI: 11,3oo volumes with no new book shelf
- Libraries with new book shelves
- Libraries with no new book shelves
- Collection of statistics about the six libraries for one year period between January 1, 1961 to May 31, 1963.
- Total circulation of fiction and non-fiction by Dewey classification.
- Total number of old titles, i.e., owned before survey, in fiction and non-fiction Dewey classifications.
- List of new titles, i.e., added to collection during survey, in fiction and non-fiction Dewey classifications.
- Circulation of new titles by fiction and non-fiction Dewey classification.
- Analysis of statistics looking for the reason new non-fiction circulates better than old non-fiction.
In libraries without new book shelves, new non-fiction circulates only 16% to 33% better than old non-fiction.
In libraries with new book shelves, new non-fiction circulates 75% to 274% more than old non-fiction.
In library IV, the process for transferring books from the new book shelf to the regular shelves happened to preserve the effect of circulation of the new book.
Elizabeth Mueller writes, "Frequently a new title which had circulated at least four times before appearing in the card catalog (not being cataloged was one of the criteria for being placed in the new non-fiction special collection) had not circulated once since its transfer to the regular shelves."
"A similar process appears to have taken place in Libraries I and II. When new books were immediately merged with older books in the collection they were "lost," so to speak. Without the heightened visibility and accessibility that special shelving provides, new books are no more likely than old ones to attract a reader. Although this result is not too surprising, it strongly reinforces the general belief in the power of accessibility."