An Old Horse Revived?: In-house Use of Print Books at Seton Hall University

With limited library budgets and declining circulation of print books, it is important to demonstrate library value to multiple stakeholders and to make informed collection development choices. The aim of this one-year study was to gain a complete picture of print book circulation by identifying titles that were used in the library (“in-house”) but not checked out. We found that almost 30% of circulation transactions were books that were used in-house. Medical and nursing books showed the highest rate of in-house use in both the reference and main (circulating) collection. A close examination of these subject areas indicated that 46% of potentially circulating medical books used in-house were checked out, and 19% of science books used in house were checked out. This suggests that libraries should not assume that titles used in-house are subsequently checked out, or that check out statistics represent the totality of book use. We recommend including in-house use statistics to obtain an accurate picture of total circulation and library value, and to inform collection development.