UC Libraries Forum 2021: Leading with Innovation, Stronger through Collaboration

Assessment of monographic resources is a critical prerequisite for the development of user centric and sustainable monograph collections in academic libraries. A novel way of a holistic assessment is to examine the relationship between acquisitions methods and its impact on monograph usage, which this research intends to investigate in a comparative style. It is designed to include cataloging, acquisitions, and usage data at UC Berkeley and UCLA Libraries for print monographs acquired between 2005-2019 fiscal years. The dataset includes various acquisitions methods, bibliographic data, and multiple categories of usage statistics of monograph collections that allow us to assess various acquisitions methods - blanket, approval, firm, demand-driven acquisitions-DDA – which helps determining user-centricity of various acquisitions for print monographs at both libraries.

Both English and non-English monographic collections have been built through various acquisitions methods. There is a thought-provoking variance across both libraries’ methods of collection development that make the comparative study more intriguing. For instance, international and area studies collections at both libraries have been built through major approval plans and, to a lesser extent, firm orders. While approval plans and other acquisitions methods have been used for UCLA, UC Berkeley library has solely relied on firm ordering of English monographs during the same period. This research intends to contribute to the filling of the gap in the assessment literature of monographic collections in academic libraries. In addition to its comparative approach to the two largest collections of UC system libraries, it outlines assessment techniques that can be replicated in academic and large research library settings. Lastly, its original contribution is the analysis of acquisitions methods and their implications for the usage of monographic resources in research library settings.