ReCAP Data Part 5: Request Rate Zack Lane ReCAP Coordinator July 2011 ReCAP Columbia University

Request Rate Request rate is a measure of collection usage It is the percentage of ReCAP collections requested during a twelve-month period Provides staff one way to gauge overall use of offsite collections Request rate is one factor used to structure ReCAP facility staffing model Patron access to offsite collections is excellent: dynamic with few failures ReCAP Columbia University

Request Rate CUL target request rate is 2.00% per year This figure was based on data from other, comparable institutions Initial purpose of ReCAP was to shelve low- use collections Remember: the terms request and retrieval are used interchangeably in most ReCAP documentation ReCAP tracks retrievals; CUL tracks requests ReCAP Columbia University

What is the CUL Request Rate? 2.10% as of July 2011 Does not include some staff or Google Book Project retrievals Does not include Columbia Law Library ReCAP Columbia University

Request Rate Data Request rate can calculated for each department Data can be further divided by collections within a department (CLIO location) Current rates at left ReCAP Columbia University

Request Rate by Publication Date Calculated for monographs with known publication dates between 1850 and 2010 Volume of pre-1850 holdings is small in comparison and considered outliers Average rate 1850-1990 : 1.74% Average rate 1991-2011 : 6.73% Increased rate attributed to policy of sending new acquisitions directly to ReCAP ReCAP Columbia University

ReCAP Columbia University

ReCAP Columbia University

Request Rate Comments Initially intended for “low-use” collections Shelving model and space needs have changed over time Depends of successful access model Patron access to ReCAP collections is excellent: dynamic with few failures ReCAP has overcome initial skepticism from patrons and staff Orders of magnitude Cost: billing model based on activity units ReCAP Columbia University

More Data Available More information about data sets can be found on the ReCAP Data Center website Primary data categories include: accession, retrieval, delivery and circulation Tailored data sets and analysis will be provided to staff via the ReCAP Coordinator Please see the main ReCAP website for general information about CUL procedures and systems ReCAP Columbia Univeristy