College and Research Libraries RICHARD M. DOUGHERTY The Evaluation of Campus Library Document Delivery Service A campus delivery service is one way to increase accessibility of li- brary materials. This report provides an overview of such a service, evaluates its performance, notes the economic implications, and con- cludes that the service can solve some of the problems of decentral- ized collections. How EFFECTIVE ARE ACADEMIC LI- BRARIES as service agencies? It is a ques- tion for which there are no. pat answers. Many factors can affect service: the geo- graphical organization of a campus, the organization of the library system, the attitudes of the teaching faculty, li- brary faculty and the administration, the size of the collection. However, it is probably safe to assume that most university libraries are under-utilized. Although the library is often labeled the heart of a university, it is more like- ly to function as an instructional ap- pendage. Do researchers turn to the library when they need information? It is well known that many researchers have de- veloped alternate communication chan- nels which for them are more respon- sive. In general, researchers secure in- formation from the sources most con- venient to them. In 1963 Slater found that the distance from a researcher's of- fice to his technical library influenced his use of that library.1 Allen and Ros- enberg found that information chan- nels are selected on the basis of ease of use and accessibility rather than on the . Richard · M. Dougherty is university li- brarian, University of California, Berkeley. amount of information those channels are expected to generate.2 Robert Tay- lor has stated that a system which pro- vides easier access, specifically physical convenience, will be more effective than a system which is concerned only with the quality of the scheme of subject or- ganization.3 C. Walter Stone suggested that in the long run it may prove more effective and efficient to move informa- tion to people rather than move people to information.4 If ease and conve- nience are such potent influences on a user's behavior, then why not develop mechanisms to improve the ease to which a library's rich resources can be accessed? A campus delivery service is one way to increase the accessibility of docu- ments. A delivery service could enable a faculty member to telephone from his office for a specific item. The library could respond by retrieving the item from the stacks, checking it out, and de- livering it either to the requestor's de- partmental office or directly to his office. This paper analyzes a document delivery service introduced at the University of Colorado; who used it, why it was used, the level of performance achieved, and the attitudes of users toward this inno- vative service. I 29 30 I College & Research Libraries • January 1973 OVERVIEW OF THE FACULTY DocuMENT DELIVERY SERVICE On January 22, 1969 the library an- nounced that commencing February 1, a library document delivery service for faculty, academic support staff and ad- ministrators would be inaugurated. Fac- ulty members were informed that the experimental service was being tried in an effort to counter the difficulties of using the university's decentralized li- brary system. The faculty document de- livery service ( FDDS) would be an at- tempt to reduce the frustrations experi- enced by researchers in locating materi- als. One day service was to be the ob- jective.5 The announcement further described the system: To obtain an item from the library, a requestor merely telephones the Circulation Department, using a special number, and provides the library assistant with whatever bibliographical information he or she has. The library staff member fills out all the necessary forms and delivers the item to the re- questor's own office or departmental of- fice, whichever location is specified. A special form is used to notify requestors when delivery of an item is delayed or undeliverable. A telephone recording device was available to accept requests when the office was not manned. After six weeks, the director of li- braries circulated a second memoran- dum reporting the initial user reaction to FDDS. 6 Ninety-four different faculty members had requested 502 items of which 380 were delivered, representing a 76 percent success. Of the 122 items not delivered, 19 were noncirculating ti- tles, 21 were in circulation at the time the request was received, 34 items were not owned, and 22 requests were for items currently on order. Only 26 items could not be accounted for, which rep- resented only 5.2 percent of the total re- quests processed. Although FDDS proved to be an im- mediate success, the success was based on a great deal of careful preliminary planning. When the service was first pro- posed, staff reactions were generally favorable. However, there were fears that the service might prove to be an embarrassment because the library was not staffed to handle a large volume of requests. A contingency plan was formu- lated (although never used) so that ad- ditional staff could be assigned if the demand warranted. Some staff members expressed reserva- tions with the staffing patterns proposed by the administration. The FDDS was to be administered by a nonprofessional assisted by a clerk and student assistant. They felt that the FD·DS would require ' professional expertise to decipher, com- TABLE 1 UsERS OF THE FDDS: ANALYSIS BY RANK AND/OR STATUS WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY Total Respondents N onrespondents Rank/Status No. % No. % No. % Professor 95 25 62 30 33 20 Associate Professor 60 16 45 22 15 9 Assistant Professor 97 26 62 30 35 21 Instructor 35 9 14 7 21 12 Librarians 3 1 2 1 1 1 Teaching Assistants } Research Assistants 22 6 7 3 15 9 Graduate Assistants Students 7 2 5 2 2 1 Administration & Support Staff 30 8 10 4 20 12 Visiting Faculty 17 4 1 5 16 9 No Answer 11 3 11 6 Totals 377 100 208 100 169 100 J j 1 plete, or correct inaccurate bibliograph- ical citations. But without actual experi- ence one could only speculate on the question. (Experience proved that very few submitted citations were garbled.) A few key university administrators opined that the proposed service was tantamount to intellectual spoonfeed- ing. "Aren't faculty and students sup- posed to be able to use the library them- selves?" is how they expressed the tradi- tional view. The expenditure of funds to retrieve and deliver materials did not TABLE 2 USERS OF THE FAcULTY DocuMENT DELIVERY SERVICE Category Frequency Percent Myself 113 54 Secretary 36 17 Myself & Secretary 45 22 Graduate Assistant Other ( not specified ) 6 3 No Answer 8 4 Total 208 100 carry a very high priority. Fortunately two administrators perceived the FDDS as a possible strategy to lessen frustra- tions associated with using a decentral- ized library system. The latter view pre- vailed and it was decided to offer · the service on an experimental basis. Users of the FDDS were broadly rep- resentative of the university communi- ty. A breakdown of ranks and universi- ty status is summarized in Table 1. Teaching faculty comprised 79 percent of the total user population. During the first eighteen months over 33 percent of the faculty requested materials at least once. Researchers from the humanistic and social science disciplines comprised 46 percent of the users. This was signifi- cant since some had doubted that the FDDS would be attractive to humanists due to a supposed preference for brows- ing. Researchers appointed to interdis- ciplinary institutes comprised 13 percent of the users. One conclusion gleaned Document Delivery Service I 31 from the first year's experience was that a campus document delivery service will attract a broad base of support. Secretaries and other support staff of- ten serve as the researcher's library sur- rogate. Almost 40 percent of the faculty delegated all or part of their FDDS transactions to secretaries (Table 2). Some faculty assigned their FDDS busi- ness to graduate assistants; unfortunate- ly, the questionnaire erroneously listed "graduate assistant" as "graduate de- partment." Consequently use by gradu- ate assistants is not accurately reflected in the results. 7 Senior faculty are more likely to have assistants who can search and retrieve library materials. While not surprising, the pattern suggests that jun- ior faculty may be more conversant with the library and its problems. It would be wise if we librarians rec- ognized that the reputation of our li- braries rests largely with the successes and failures experienced by secretaries and assistants. The faculty as a group may comprise our most sophisticated users, but we know that many of them are not effective library users. One re- cently-completed study identified many faculty who were unaware of basic li- brary services such as reference and interlibrary loan; some did not under- stand the purpose of a union catalog; and others could not differentiate be- tween a card catalog and a computer produced book catalog.8 If the faculty become frustrated in their attempts to use a library, can we realistically expect their secretaries to fare better? The data indicates that some programs of li- brary orientation and instruction might usefully be directed at those secretaries and graduate assistants who must use the library. In the first year, 2,868 items were re- quested through the FDDS, while 3,600 items were picked up and returned to the library. Use summarized by month is presented in Table 3. The pattern of use approximates the academic calendar, 32 I College & Research Libraries • January 1973 TABLE 3 FACULTY DocuMENT DELIVERY TRANSACTIONs BY MoNTH FEBRUARY 1969-}ANUARY 1970 Number of Transactions 400~------------------------------------------------------------~ Feb. 350~------------------------------------------------------------71 0 with the line increasing gradually throughout the fall, and the low point occurring during the months of July and August. During the first half of the second year, 1,622 items were requested, a 95 percent increase over the first six months of the initial year, averaging 324 items compared to 166 items per month. Al- though 324 items comprised only a miniscule proportion of the total li- brary circulation, the impact of the FDDS could not be judged solely on the volume of use. Another measure of utility is the pro- portion of repeat users. Of the 377 users, 52 percent were repeaters. Fur- thermore, 54 poccent of those who re- sponded to an attitude questionnaire noted that the availability of the FDDS had altered their library use patterns. PERFORMANCE OF TilE FACULTY DELIVERY SERVICE At the outset it was not known how effectively and rapidly the FDDS could respond to specific requests for material. Pessimism was not unusual, for many on the staff had been conditioned by comments from users such as: "Oh, I can expect to locate only about half the items rm looking for .... '' cci can never find anything I really need .... " ccN othing you ever want is properly shelved .... '' This mental set in part accounted for the initial trepidations cited earlier. For- tunately neither the skepticism nor the pessimism lingered long. Requests were satisfied at a level which far exceeded all expectations. During the first year, 69 percent ( 3,083 I 1 ~----------------------~---------------------------------------------------- Document Delivery Service I 33 TABLE 4 DISPOSITION oF FDDS REQUESTS WITHIN 2.3 HoURS OF RECEIPT Miscellaneous Noncirculating items) were delivered within one work- ing day; 12 percent were delivered later (Table 4). Five percent of the items which could not be delivered were non- circulating items, 8 percent were items not owned (they were requested later through interlibrary loan), 2 percent were items on order but not yet re- ceived. Only 4 percent of the items re- quested were listed in the card catalog but could not be located. In other words, four out of five items were re- trieved and delivered. Users were asked to rate the speed of the FDDS on a five-step scale from slow to fast. The results clearly reflected a general satisfaction. A chi-square test was employed to determine if the re- sponses deviated significantly from a distribution of random responses. The test revealed a significance X 2 = 199.97 ( df = 4) at a .005 level of significance (Table 5). Comments appended to several re- Delivered 69% turned questionnaires clearly revealed some of the users' views: "Expeditious." TABLE 5 UsER RATING OF THE SPEED OF THE FDDS FROM REQUEST TO DELIVERY Rating Frequency Percent 1 (slow) 4 2 2 3 1 3 19 9 4 104 50 5 (fast) 63 30 No Answer 15 _:]__ Total 208 99 ~'FDDS is so fast I don't know how you do it." '~The service was fast 90 percent of the time.', Or best of all: "The service is very fast ... but don,t get complacentr The effectiveness of follow-up pro- cedures designed to locate and deliver items which could not be delivered im- 34 I College & Research Libraries • January 1973 mediately was an important feature. Forty-two percent of the respondents in- dicated that the follow-up services were excellent and 31 percent reported that they were good (Table 6). Some respon- dents however did not understand the TABLE 6 RATING OF THE FDDS FoLLOW-UP PROCEDURES (CALL-INS, TRACES, NOTICES, ETC.) Category Frequency Percent Excellent 88 42 Good 64 31 Fair 13 6 Poor 1 1 Don't Know 42 20 Total 208 100 implications of the question; in fact 20 percent even admitted their ignorance. How many faculty know precisely what is meant by the terms «trace," (Ccall-in," ~~notice,>> etc.? The observed pattern of responses underscores the need for more intensive publicity to explain what is meant by a follow-up service. UsER AmTUDE SuRVEY In the fall of 1970 a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to all re- corded users of the FDDS. The survey was designed to elicit reactions to the service, its performance, and the priori- ty users might assign to the FDDS dur- ing a time of tight budgets. The survey also generated the data presented earlier in this paper. The questionnaire was brief, consisting of only nine closed-end questions. A little space was allotted for additional comments. The questionnaire was distributed by mail with no follow- ups. The response rate was 55 percent. Op- penheim has stated that a 40 to 60 per- cent response to a mail questionnaire is typical. 9 In order to minimize the pos- sibility of undetected biases, respon- dents and nonrespondents were com- pared in several ways to examine for possible differences between the two groups. Resident teaching faculty comprised 67 percent of all FDDS users, while 94 percent of the respondents were teach- ing faculty (see Table 1). Administra- tors and university support staff were much less responsive to the question- naire than their academic colleagues. Only one visiting faculty member out of seventeen responded. Also, very few teaching assistants and graduate assist- ants responded, partly because many were no longer on campus at the time the questionnaire was distributed. If ad- ministrators and visitors had been ex- cluded from the user population, the overall faculty response would have equaled 63 percent. Since teaching and research faculty comprised the principal target group, the rate was judged ade- quate. A comparison by broad discipline be- tween respondents and nonrespondents also shows considerable similarity. Son1e divergence for humanists and social sci- TABLE 7 UsERS OF THE FDDS: ANALYSIS BY BROAD SuBJECT DISciPLINEs Total Respondents Nonrespondents Discipline Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Humanities 89 23 41 20 48 28 Social Sciences 86 23 59 28 27 16 Pure Sciences 56 15 30 14 26 15 Applied Science 80 21 51 25 29 17 Interdisciplinary Institutes 50 13 25 12 25 15 Administrators 7 2 2 1 5 3 No Answer 9 2 9 5 Total 377 99 208 100 169 99 I I ..... 1 j entists is apparent. But even here the difference does not appear to be signifi- cant (Table 7).10 A comparison of the number of uses recorded for respondents and nonre- spondents showed no significant differ- ence. Respondents borrowed an average of 3.84 items, whereas nonrespondents borrowed 2.11 items. A test of the dif- ference of means showed no statistical significance between the two observed means. Based on the similarity in characteris- tics between respondents and nonre- spondents, it was concluded that the at- titudes of respondents could be inter- preted as reflecting those of the entire population. The evaluation of the FDDS was di- vided into three parts. The first con- centrated on an evaluation of overall performance, second, the impact on pat- terns of library use, and third, user's re- actions to funding a delivery service during a period of tight budgets. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents rated the FDDS as excellent and 23 per- cent rated the service as good (Table 8). TABLE 8 RATING OF THE FDDS SERVICE BY UsERs Ca tegory Frequency Percent Excellent 143 68 Good 49 23 ·Fair 2 1 Poor 2 1 No Answer 12 6 Total 208 99 Although the term «excellent" is subject to different interpretations, the validity of this positive rating was supported by a chi-square analysis which tested the null hypothesis that no. relationship ex- isted between those who rated the FDDS excellent and those who reported that the service had caused a change in their library use patterns from users who rated the service as good, fair, or poor and who reported that their library use patterns had not been altered. The chi- Document Delivery Service I 35 square analysis of independence was found to be X2 = 5.6 which is significant at a .95 level. The contingency coeffi- cient value was found to be .17. The comments appended to the ques- tionnaires also reflected a variety of in- teresting attitudes: FDDS is perhaps the most useful cam~ pus service to me as a faculty member. I have been very satisfied with the ser- vice since the beginning and I am de- sirous to see it continue and prosper. This is one of the best things to hap- pen to me and my students in the last ten years, now I spend time thinking (hopefully) and planning rather than doing routine searching. Please retain it. I've now left the university, but since this questionnaire was forwarded to me and I was very enthusiastic about the service, I wanted to respond. If I had the time I would fill the page with superlatives about the entire ap- proach of FDDS. The idea and its im- plementation are great. Shortly, I will be moving to another university and I pray that FDDS is a part of their li- brary services. This is the best damn service the li- brary has ever offered-keep it going. Only a few reservations were ex- pressed. One regular library user stated that the service was completely super- fluous to him because the library was his work place. Another respondent chastised the FDDS, noting that his first attempt had been a complete failure: the book could not be found by the FDDS staff, yet he had found it himself within a few minutes. Not surprisingly, he had not tried the service since. He did add that the service would be impor- tant if it could be made to work! The FDDS did affect the library use habits of many users. Fifty-four per- cent of the respondents revealed that the FDDS had altered their patterns of use. As previously noted, a chi-square test for independence suggested the ex- 36 I College & Research Libraries • January 1973 istence of a relationship between those who rated ·the service excellent and those who had changed their patterns of use (Table 9). TABLE 9 Dm FDDS CHANGE YoUR PATTERN oF LmRARY UsE? Answer Frequency Percent Yes 112 54 No 75 36 No Answer 21 10 Total 208 100 Over 90 respondents appended expla- nations as to why the FDDS had altered their use patterns. The most commonly cited reasons, with number of times cited were: 1. Saves time (Time was usually de- fined to include traveling, searching, and retrieving.) ( 23 times) 2. The library is now easier to use, consequently my usage has in- creased. ( 22 times) 3. The library is now more convenient to use. ( 6 times) 4. No longer have to return books to the library. ( 4 times) 5. Office is so far away from the branch that without the FDDS I would not bother to borrow mate- rials. ( 3 times) Most comments could be translated into savings in time, simplification in ac- cessing materials, and greater conve- nience. Explanations citing why the FDDS had not caused a change were also re- vealing. Five persons said that they were browsers who wished to retain direct contact with materials. Two who rated the service excellent candidly admitted that the service hadn't changed their use patterns because they could not shake their personal, long-standing habits. Three users noted that, since they had to use the library's card catalog anyway, they might as well pick up their own materials. The only FDDS-induced change which might be interpreted as negative is that some users now make fewer trips to the library. Several individuals observed . that they no longer personally returned books to the library. If library effective- ness is based on the number of users who enter the building, a document de- livery service could have negative impli- cations. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of the FDDS during a time of tight budgets: that is, did they rate the service as essential, important, con- venient, or a luxury to their personal li- brary needs. The replies can be judged only as tentative since the users were not confronted with the necessity of mak- ing a real choice among resources; never- theless, the pattern of responses is worth noting. Almost half judged the FDDS as be- ing convenient, only 9 percent labeled the FDDS as a budgetary luxury (Table 10). Forty-three percent assessed the service as being either important or es- sential to the achievement of their work. 11 TABLE 10 RATING OF THE FDDS IN A TIME OF TIGHT BUDGETS Category Frequency Percent Essential 52 25 Convenient 92 44 Luxury 19 9 Important 25 12 Essential & important 2 1 Convenient & important 8 4 Essential. convenient, & important 2 1 Essential & convenient 1 .5 No Answer 7 3 Total 208 99.5 The FDDS was also evaluated by an analysis of the frequency of use com- pared against individual ratings (Table 11). Clearly, as the frequency of use in- creases so does the perception of impor- tance. A chi-square test of independence supported the hypothesis that the dis- tributions are statistically independent. I J 1 TABLE 11 CoMPARisoN BETWEEN FREQUENCY oF UsE AND RATING OF THE FDDS Frequency of Use 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 9+ Rating Convenient Important, or Luxury Essential, or Both 73 35 27 19 5 8 1 8 4 20 ( X 2 = 30.4; df = 4, .95 level of signifi- cance, critical X 2 = 9.49). EcoNOMic IMPLICATIONs Cost studies of the FDDS were not conducted. The operating costs for the first year totaled $9,500. Included in the figure are personnel costs, rental of a de- livery truck, a telephone answering re- corder, and supplies and forms. The to- tal cost prorated on a per request basis yields a cost per transaction of $3.31. This gross costing method actually over- states the unit cost, since the person as- signed to operate the FDDS devoted only 60 to 70 percent of his time to FDDS related tasks. During the remain- der he supervised stack workers and per- formed other duties within the Circula- tion Department. If one considers the hourly salary of the average faculty member, and the time required to travel to the library to search, retrieve, check out, and return to his office, the operations of the FDDS are cost effective. For example, a faculty member earning $12,000 a year on a nine month contract earns almost nine dollars per hour. He would have to com- plete his library visit in 22 minutes to match the costs of the FDDS. However, even if unit costs could be reduced to as little as one dollar, or bet- ter yet to fifty cents per transaction, the impact would be obscured because some of the costs of retrieving library materi- als are hidden. Faculty members now fend for themselves. What the FDDS does is to conserve the time of the uni- Document Delivery Service I 37 versity' s most important resource-its faculty. On this point a physicist co- gently observed: One way economists judge the value of a cc good'' service is how much one would pay to have the service. On this basis, I would not consider it excessive to pay $50.00 per year from my re- search grant (if NSF would permit) or $10.00 per year from my own pocket. Budgeteers and legislators are condi- tioned to measure effectiveness primarily on costs saved. But how does one mea- sure quantitatively the value of library resources or of an education? A service might be more usefully judged on whether it increases utilization of the library. In economic terms we are com- paring a $9,500 expenditure as one means of encouraging greater use of a resource costing more than two million dollars per year to maintain. The potential scope and impact of a faculty document delivery service are clearly mirrored in the following reac- tions: Our institute library is very specialized. The delivery service helped compen- sate for these lacks. FDDS is essential since books are scat- tered around the several libraries, many books are missing or reserved. FDDS helps my teaching and research tre- mendously. I have recommended the system to many other universities. It is one of the few things I can be proud of concerning this university~s opera- tion. Without the FDDS this book would not have been published. (This state- ment appeared in the foreword of a book authored by a member of the faculty.) Please keep the service; it is essential to me for I have a broken foot. CONCLUSIONS The FDDS was able to deliver four- fifths of the items requested by mem- 38 I College & Research Libraries • January 1973 hers of the teaching and research facul- ty. We do. not know how this level of performance would compare with per- formances at other institutions, but it is probable that most research libraries can supply more materials than most users assume. 12 The FDDS was well received by the majority of its users. Over half of those who used the service reported that it had altered their library use patterns. Initially library staff members feared that the library would be swamped and overwhelmed by requests. The predicted high demand level did not materialize. One explanation can be found in the literature of innovation diffusion. Re- search in this field rationally explains the process by which people adopt new ideas. In short, a user will not automati- cally adopt a new library service even though it will "improve" his access to materials; he must first become aware of the service and be sufficiently inter- ested to give the idea a trial; the trial must then prove successful before the idea is finally adopted and the change in behavior is complete.13 An FDDS service can be operated on a cost-effective basis, particularly if cost effectiveness is translated into hours saved. It is our belief that the time saved for users should be considered as one measure of library effectiveness. Likewise the impact of a service on the intensity of library use should also be adopted as a measure of effectiveness. Cost figures in isolation provide a dis- torted, incomplete picture. The FDDS helped to ameliorate the inconveniences associated with using a decentralized collection. Respondents re- ported that the FDDS saved travel time and solved the aggravating problem of inadequate parking. One initial objec- tive of the FDDS was to provide an al- ternative channel for researchers work- ing in interdisciplinary institutes. To this end the delivery service succeeded. In summary, a document delivery ser- vice may offer a viable alternative to small decentralized branches. We still need to learn more about the day-to-day material use patterns of researchers. If one could neutralize the political and emotional pressures, it might be discov- ered that departmental libraries do not offer the most effective pattern of li- brary organization. For example, if a departmental library is used primarily to keep current, a reading room stocked with selected current journals and ref- erence books backed up by a strong cen- tral collection, coupled with a document delivery system might offer a more re- sponsive organization. A document de- livery system will not solve all the prob- lems caused by a decentralized collec- tion, but it will lower some barriers to use perceived by some researchers. REFERENCES 1. M. Slater, "Types of Use and User in In- dustrial Libraries: Some Impressions," Journal of Documentation 19: 12-B (March 1963 ). 2. T. J. Allen and P. G. Gerstberger, "Criteria for Selection of an Information Source," (MIT, Working paper, p. 284-7) Sept. 1967; V. Rosenberg, "Factors Affecting the Preferences of Industrial Personnel for In- formation Gathering Methods," Information Storage and Retrieval 3:119 (July 1967). 3. R. S. Taylor, "Questions Negotiation and In- formation Seeking in Libraries," CRL 29:3 (May 1968 ), p. 193. 4. C. Walter Stone, "The Library Function," Library Trends 16:2 (Oct. 1967), p. 185. 5. Memorandum to members of the University of Colorado faculty, Boulder campus from Ralph E. Ellsworth, Director of Libraries, Boulder, Colorado, January 22, 1969. 6. Memorandum to members of the University of Colorado faculty, Boulder campus from Ralph E. Ellsworth, Director of Libraries, Boulder, Colorado, April 17, 1969. 7. An NSF-supported study at Syracuse Uni- versity ( GN-32381) which is investigating how faculty use libraries, supported the contention that graduate assistants often use the library in behalf of a faculty mem- ber. 8. L. E. Leonard, et al, Centralized Book Processing: A Feasibility Study Based on Colorado Academic Libraries (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1969), p. 211- 43. 9. A. N. Oppenheim, Questionnaire Design and Attitude Measurement ( New York: Basic Books, 1966), p. 34. 10. No analyses based on broad subject dis- ciplines were undertaken. The distinction among traditional academic labels has be- come so muddled by the emergence of cross-disciplinary programs that many cate- gorizations would be artificial and arbi- Document Delivery Service I 39 trary. The analysis was used only as a check to compare respondents and non- respondents. 11. "Convenient" and "luxury" were interpreted to mean that the service rated a low priority, and "essential" or "important" as indicators that the FDDS deserved a higher priority. Some who labeled the service as convenient nevertheless appended notes indicating that they very much wished to see the FDDS retained. 12. The expectation rates of users is presently being investigated under NSF Grant GN- 32381. 13. E. M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962).