College and Research Libraries ROBERT J. GREENE The Effectiveness of Browsing Faculty at Georgia Institute of Technology specified how they learned about samples of books borrowed from the library. They also rated the usefulness of these books. The relationship between the way in which library books are discovered and their subsequent usefulness is examined. The effectiveness of browsing as a method of learning about books is discussed. SEVERAL PREVIOUS STUDIES have attempt- ed to determine the comparative impor- tance of the different sources employed by scientists in locating information. Voigt reviewed some of these studies and found considerable agreement in the ranking of the various sources. 1 Browsing was found to be the method most often used to learn about printed information sources. The second most important method was the recommenda- tions of colleagues . Ot4er sources, listed in order of their importance, were: the scientist's own memory, cita- tions found in books and periodicals, personal indexes, and library catalogs. The use studies reviewed by Voigt compared the different methods of lo- cating information from a quantitative point of view. That is, the various studies ranked the methods according to how often they were used or how much information they produced. Ex- cept for a few indexing studies, such as the Cranfield investigations, which have included library card catalogs, very little research is available about the quality of the information produced by each of the methods. Therefore, lit- tle is known about the value or useful- ness of information discovered in different ways in libraries. One study which briefly touched on the usefulness of books and serials found through browsing was made by Fussier and Simon.2 They found that Robert ] . Greene is librarian, Kennesaw junior College, Marietta, Georgia. 56 percent of a sample of physics and history volumes removed from the shelves by users were located through browsing. The remaining 44 percent were discovered through the card cata- log or were "known items." Forty-six percent of the persons who found ma- terial by browsing in the stacks reported that they had made some use of the books discovered in this way. Another investigation which gleaned some information about the usefulness of library materials was Slater and Fisher's examination of the users of British technical libraries. 3 For each of the 6,300 people who returned question- naires, the average number of docu- ments consulted was 4.1, and the aver- age number of these that were found useful was 2.1. Slater and Fisher also found that 57 percent of the library users considered their visit to the library a success, and another 24 percent con- sidered their visit a partial success. Only 6 percent of the users considered their visit a failure. SEmNG AND METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY The present study examines the rela- tionship between how a book is discov- ered and its subsequent value to its user. The sttidy is limited to samples of fac- ulty users of the Georgia Institute of Technology Library. Although most of the faculty at Georgia Tech are scien- tists or engineers, several faculty are in the social sciences or humanities. The I 313 314 I College & Research Libraries • July 1977 samples include some of these non- scientists and non-engineers. This may limit the present study's comparability with previous studies. The present study is also limited to an examination of books loaned to faculty and does not look at non-book materials or in-library use of books. This investigation examines data gathered in a study of a library remote access system at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.4 • 5 The remote access system, called LENDS, consists of two main components: ( 1) microfiche copies of the card catalog placed in thirty-five academic and re- search departments; and ( 2) a book de- livery system. In addition to borrowing books in the conventional manner, LENDS provides faculty with the op- tion of searching the catalogs in their departments and having books deliv- ered. Part of the study of the LENDS sys- tem consisted of two questionnaires sent to Georgia Tech faculty to see if the LENDS remote access system had any effect on the circulation of library books. A pretest of the instrument used indicated that faculty could remember the circumstances of a specific loan for at least a period of one month. The first questionnaire (pre-LENDS) was sent to a random sample of faculty who had borrowed books during November 1971, which was before the implementation of LENDS. The second questionnaire was sent to a random sample of faculty who had borrowed books during May 1972, which was after the start of LENDS. Both questionnaires asked the faculty members to respond to a num- ber of questions concerning specific books they had borrow·ed. Of the 233 questionnaires sent out for the pre-LENDS sample, 209 ( 89.7 percent) were returned. This response rate was slightly exceeded for the sec- ond questionnaire. Two hundred and forty-four questionnaires were sent out for the post-LENDS sample and 222 ( 91.0 percent) of these were returned. Both the pre-LENDS and post-LENDS questionnaires asked the faculty to re- spond to two questions in relation to books they had borrowed. The data ob- tained from faculty replies to these two questions are presented in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows a high degree of con- sistency for the distribution of replies between the pre-LENDS and the post- LENDS samples. It also shows that, as in previous studies, browsing was the most used method of finding out about books. However, the data in Table 1 in- dicate that the library catalog and refer- ences in other publications rank higher as methods of · learning about books than in previous studies. Similarly, rec- ommendations of books by colleagues and the subject's own memory rank lower in this study than in previous studies. These differences may be due to TABLE 1 How FACULTY LEARNED ABOUT BooKs BoRROWED FROM THE GEORGIA TEcH LIBRARY Pre-LENDS Sample Post-LENDS Sample Total How the Book Was " Discovered" Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent 1. References in a publication~ 58 27.8 55 24.8 113 26.2 2. Browsing in the library 67 32.1 68 30.6 135 31.3 3. From a colleague 16 7.6 22 9.9 38 8.8 4. From the library catalogst 50 23.9 53 23.9 103 23.9 5. From memory 9 4.3 13 5.9 22 5.1 6. From some other source 7 3.3 9 4.0 16 3.7 7. No response 2 1.0 2 .9 4 1.0 Totals 209 100.0 222 100.0 431 100.0 0 Includes responses specifying advertisement or book reviews from category 6. t Includes responses specifying either the library card catalog or the LENDS microfiche catalog. Effectiveness of Browsing I 315 TABLE 2 VALUE OR UsEFULNESs OF LIBRARY BooKs BoRROWED BY GEoRGIA TEcH FACULTY Pre-LENDS Sample Post- LENDS Sample Total Value or Usefulness Ratings Number 1. Book was "essential" 57 2. Book was " useful" 99 3. Book was "interesting or of 35 incidental value" · 4. Book was not read or could not 9 be judged 5. Book was of no value 7 6. No response 2 Totals 209 the fact that previous studies have in- cluded other sources of information be- sides books. There was a high degree of corre- spondence between the pre-LENDS sam- ple and the post-LENDS sample in the replies to the second question, as shown in Table 2. Table 2 also shows that about three-fourths ( 75.6 percent) of the books borrowed were considered es- sential or useful for the purpose for which they were checked out of the li- brary. Only twelve of the books were judged to be of no value. ANALYSIS OF DATA The data presented in the previous section were analyzed to determine if a relationship exists between the way in which a book is discovered and the sub- sequent value of the book. Since data gathered consisted of frequenCies, the chi-square test was chosen as a method of analysis. The procedure and tests de- scribed by Woolf were used to pool the data from the pre-LENDS and the post- LENDS samples for chi-square analy- sis.6 The pooled data were inserted in a contingency table (Table 3). In order to minimize problems resulting from low frequencies in some of the cells of . this contingency table, books were classi- fied as either "essential" or "not essen- tial" from the faculty ratings. The "not essential" classification consisted of the books rated as "useful," "interesting or of incidental value," and "not useful." Responses indicating that faculty had Percent Number Percent Number Percent 27.3 62 27.9 119 27.6 47.4 111 50.0 210 48.7 16.7 26 11.7 61 14.1 4.3 12 5.4 21 4.9 3.3 5 2.3 12 2.8 1.0 6 2.7 8 1.9 100.0 222 100.0 431 100.0 not read or had not judged the book and "no responses" were not included in the analysis. The chi-square value of 18.075 ob- tained in the analysis of Table 3 is sig- nificant at the .005 level, which is con- sidered statistically significant. Therefore, it is concluded that the two vari- ables of how a book is discovered and the subsequent usefulness of that book are related. Further analysis of these data was made by assigning arbitrary numerical values to the faculty usefulness rating. Book ratings were assigned the follow- ing values: Essential 3 Useful 2 Interesting or incidental value 1 N~ mcl~ 0 Books not read or not judged and books not discovered in any of the ways listed in Table 3 were not given a nu- merical value. Mean values for books discovered in different ways were com- puted from the assigned values. Table 4 ranks the different methods of learning about books by the mean value of the books discovered by each method. DISCUSSION The results presented in this report should be regarded as preliminary. Fur- ther investigation is needed to deter- mine if other variables (e.g., the pur- pose for which a book is borrowed) play a part in the relationship between how a book is discovered and its subse- quent value .. Also, the previously noted 316 I College & Research Librar·ies • July 1977 TABLE 3 How GEORGIA TECH FACULTY DISCOVERED BoRROWED LIBRARY BooKs AND THE UsEFULNEss oF THEsE BooKs Usefulness Rating of the Book Essential Not Essential Total How the Book Was "Discovered" Number Reference in a publication Browsing in the library From a colleague From the library catalogs Memory Totals X 2 = 18.075 with 4 degrees of freedom. X 2 is significant at greater than .005 level. 44 23 15 26 9 117 limitation of the study to books bor- rowed by faculty at one institution should be kept in mind in making any generalizations. Despite these limita- tions, however, the findings do suggest important implications in the areas of browsing and the open-stack storage of books. Table 1 shows that, from a quantita- tive point of view, browsing is the most important method used by faculty to learn about library books they borrow. However, Table 4 shows that browsing ranks last among all of the methods of learning about books when the useful- ness of the books discovered by the various methods is considered. For ex- ample, browsing was responsible for 31 percent of the books borrowed in this study, but browsing produced only 18 percent of the books rated as essen- tial by faculty. By comparison, refer- ences in publications were responsible for 27 percent of the borrowed books, but produced 41 percent of the books rated as essential. With these findings in mind, perhaps TABLE 4 VALUE OF BOOKS DISCOVERED BY DIFFERENT METHODS How Books Were Discovered From colleagues References in publications From memory From library catalogs Browsing in the library All methods Numbers Mean Value of Books of Books 38 108 21 98 126 391 2.26 2.25 2.23 2.12 1.87 2.09 Percent Number Percent Number Percent 40.7 64 59.3 108 100.0 18.3 103 81.7 126 100.0 39.5 23 60.5 38 100.0 26.5 72 73.5 98 100.0 42.9 12 57.1 21 100.0 29.9 274 70.1 391 100.0 it is time to review Gordon's suggestion of taking a second look at the almost universal acceptance by library adminis - trators of the open-stack concept. Gor- don questions if it is really in the "best interest of the reader to turn him loose in the collection to seek his own salva- tion."7 The main argument for the open-stack arrangement of books is that it permits browsing. However, if brows- ing is the least effective way of discov- ering books, as the present study suggests, then library administrators may wish to reevaluate the usefulness of costly open book stacks. REFERENCES 1. Melvin J. Voigt, Scientists' Approaches to Information ( ACRL Monograph 24 [ Chica- go: American Library Assn., 1961] ), p.5-6. 2. Herman H. Fussier and Julian L. Simon, Patterns in too Use of Books in Larg~ Re- search Libraries (Chicago: University of Chicago Libraries, 1961). 3. Margaret Slater and Pamela Fisher, Use Made of Libraries ( ASLIB Occasional Pub- lication 2 [London, ASLIB, 1969]). 4. Robert John Greene, "Faculty Acceptance and Use of a System Providing Remote Bib- liographic and Physical Access to an Aca- demic Library" (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State Univ., 1973). 5. Robert J. Greene, "LENDS: An Approach to the Centralization/Decentralization Di- ' lemma," College & Research Libraries 36: 201-7 (May 1975). 6. Charles M. Woolf, Principles of Biometry (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1968 ), p.239-42. 7. Harold D. Gordon, "Open Stacks: A Second Look," Library journal 94:1844-45 (May 1, 1969 ).