University of Arkansas Library Checkouts Fall as Books Go Elsewhere

From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Annual circulation for all UA libraries dropped about 49 percent in academic year 2016-17 compared with four years earlier, with 30,765 initial circulations in 2016-17, according to annual library statistics published by UA. The trend took place even as undergraduate student totals increased by about 2,200 over the same time period.

Since the transfer of materials from Mullins Library, totals for the five months ending 2018 showed about an 18 percent decrease in checkouts compared to those same months in 2017, according to what [Kathleen] Lehman [head of user services for UA libraries] described as “very rough numbers.”

The five-month totals, unlike the published annual totals, include the circulation of items held on reserve for specific classes and materials checked out by other librarians, among other differences, Lehman said.

But using the same counting method for identical five-month periods showed 25,152 checkouts for the last five months of 2018 compared to 30,750 in August through December of 2017 and 31,280 in August through December of 2016, according to data provided by Lehman.

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