The study employs descriptive methodology in analyzing the changes in collecting patterns between 1985 and 1989 in the collective resources base of seventy-two ARL libraries. Data for the study were extracted from the 1991 edition of the OCLC/AMIGOS Collection Analysis CD which contains a database of non-serial imprints for the ten year period 1979-1989. Two broad hypotheses were formulated: (1) that significant declines occurred in the number of non-serial imprints acquired by academic research libraries in the United States and (2) that significant shifts occurred in collecting patterns by subject and language groupings between 1985 and 1989. Rate of change was measured according to 108 Library of Congress classification categories by three broad subject groupings, humanities, social sciences, and sciences and by seven language groupings. Shifts in collecting patterns were measured by the change in the percentage of total imprints, percentage of unique titles to total, and the difference in the mean number of holding libraries per title between 1985 and 1989 by broad subject and language groupings. / The overall finding was that there was a decline of 27.76 percent in the rate of acquisitions from 1985 to 1989. The humanities declined at the highest rate, the social sciences at a lesser rate, with the sciences experiencing the lowest rate of decline. Foreign language imprints experienced a much greater decline than English language imprints. The ratio for English/non-English was 50/50 in 1985, changing to 60/40 in 1989. The five foreign language groups in the study all experienced steep declines, but the three western languages of French, German, and Spanish declined less than Russian and the Asian languages (CJK) which had the highest rate of decline. The only measure which showed little overall change was the mean number of holding libraries per title. The measure for percentage of unique titles showed that there was an increase in homogeneity in the acquisitions of the group of seventy-two ARL libraries in 1989 as compared to 1985. The study establishes that there was a steep decline in foreign language acquisitions, a decrease in the percentage of unique titles in many subject areas, and an increased concentration on core materials resulting in less diversity and more homogeneity in the collections of the seventy-two ARL libraries. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-04, Section: A, page: 0783. / Director: John N. DePew. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77143 |
| Contributors | Perrault, Anna Hemer., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 334 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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