Research question: What size of display circulates the most books in a week?
Previous research
- "When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?" by Sheena S. Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 79, No. 6, 2000, pp. 995-1006. [Summary] [Original article]
- "Buying behavior as a function of parametric variation of number of choices" by AM Shah and G. Wolford in Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 369-70, 2007. [Summary by Cognitive Daily]
Instructions for conducting the experiment
- Set up card table between the front door and circulation desk. (Other spots are acceptable.)
- Use boxes to build display pyramid on the table. Cover boxes and table with a sheet.
- On Monday morning of Week #1, place one book on the display. Use books from the bottom shelves near the back of the library.
- Do not add any book(s) during the day. Even if all books are taken one-hour after opening, do not add any books until the next morning.
- Each morning for the rest of the week, in the table at the bottom of the experimental instructions, write the number of books circulated from previous day’s display, i.e., size of display minus the number of books still on display = yesterday's circulation.
- After writing down the number of books circulated the day before, replace the remaining books with different books.
- On Monday morning of each, replace any books from the previous wee with difference books of the number required for the coming week. Repeat steps 4 through 7 above.
- At the end of each week, add up the cells in the row and write the total under “Weekly Total.”
- When the “Weekly Total” circulation is falls below a peak for three weeks in a row or after 12 weeks, the experiment is over.
- While the experiment is going on, the experimental table is an experiment collecting data for an accurate measurement. To protect the validity of the data collection, you must obey the following rules. Violating any of the rules below will invalidate the experiment and the library will not earn any money.
- Books selected for use in this experiment must be randomly selected from the lower back shelves of the library. Books must have covers and be wiped down to remove dirt. New books are absolutely not allowed on this display.
- The librarian, library staff and trustees are not allowed to talk to anyone about the experiment, not even spouses.
- Books should be added to the display only when the library is closed. Never at any other time.
- If someone requests a book on the experimental table, library staff can remove the book and check it out. Other than this instance, the librarian and library staff should never discuss the contents of the experimental table when the library is open.
- After the experiment, Chris Rippel will supply a news release describing the experiment and its results. This may be distributed to anyone.
- For credit, submit a photograph of the display and the filled out the table on the experimental instructions.
- Doing the Excel spreadsheet, Tab "Exp1DisplaySize" is optional.
What a successful experiment looks like on the Excel spreadsheet.
What a failed experiment looks like on the Excel spreadsheet.
