90 Percent Library
THE 90 PERCENT LIBRARY
The basic approach or point of view suggested here is first to en,visage the library users as a composite or aggregate collection of people with a great variety of interests, approaches, needs, habits, and idiosyncracies, and then to ask the basic question, "What does the library have to do to satisfy 90 percent of this population's needs?" That is, what periodicals
93
should be acquired so that 90 percent of the periodicals they use and make reference to are available? What literature searching speeds shall be pro-vided in order to meet the response times required for 90 percent of the requests? By taking this point of view, our attention is focused on the actions or services necessary to satisfy a specified fraction of the user pop-ulation. In this way, no attempt is made by the designer or operator to satisfy every possible request or need that might occur. Both the system designer and operator thus openly acknowledge that, in some instances, some users' needs will not be fully met. However, this approach keeps the library from being overdesigned or from going to extreme efforts in an attempt to make it all things to all people. Past experience by many types of organizations (e.g., transportation industry, retail sales) indicate that a disproportionate effort is usually required to raise the system performance from a capacity to satisfy some high fraction (e.g., 90 percent), to satisfy-ing 100 percent of the user requirements. The libraries are no exception to this rule. The point of diminishing returns is such that it is probably more effective to run an information service at something less than a capability for 100 percent satisfaction of the users' requirements. The figure,90 percent, is used in this paper as an example. Any other figure could of course be used, established by the people responsible for the de-sign, operation, and support of the library. It would seem that many li-braries in fact already subscribe to this principle even though it may not be stated so explicitly. For example, few, if any, local libraries try to duplicate the holdings of our national libraries in order to immediately fulfill any local request, but instead assume that they can satisfy "some reasonable fraction" of their requests from the local collection and handle the remainder in some other way.
This approach of stating requirements of performance measures in some numeric terms has certainly been used before in many types of ap-plications. It may even be practiced to some extent in some libraries.
However, it is mentioned and reemphasized here because it forms the basis for the descriptions of requirements to follow.
The question of whether the library should be designed to serve a large fraction (say 90 percent) of the general user group, rather than the re-mainder that provides the exceptional requirements is another and sepa-rate topic, not to be included in this discussion.
IS IT MEANINGFUL TO STATE
USER REQUIREMENTS IN SUCH TERMS?
The answer to this question is "yes" for some requirements, but cer-tainly not for all of them. Consider the following statements as examples of requirements that could be stated in these terms.
SOME USER REQUIREMENTS 95 Ninety percent ofthe information needs of a given user population are satisfied by:
1. Books that are less than _ _ years old.
2. Periodicals that are less than _ _ years old.
3. Retrospective search speeds of less than _ _ days.
4. Document delivery speeds of less than _ _ days.
5. A collection of less than _ _ chosen journals and less than _ _ chosen books.
6. A current-awareness service that periodically furnishes information at in-tervals of not more than _ _ days.
7. A reference retrieval service that provides not more than _ _ percent ir-relevant material with the search results.
Such statements might be posed as general principles, or, more precisely, as hypotheses to be tested, and with the specific missing numbers deter-mined empirically for separately defined user populations. There are indi-cations (discussed later in this paper) that the specific numbers might not differ greatly between different user populations. Thus it might be pos-sible to use a formulated set of requirement statements and the accom-panying empirical data (expressed as a single number or range of num-bers) as standards for the design and evaluation of information systems and services. The specific numbers could be continually modified as time goes on (similar to the development and maintenance of critical tables) to reflect the acquisition and analysis of more empirical evidence and changing user needs. This approach is sensitive, of course, to the argu-ment that the empirical data may reflect current use patterns (habits) rather than actual need, but this may still provide better statements of goals or requirements than are currently available. It should also be noted that the exact figure stated for the specific requirements will be tempered by practicability. The stated '"needs" will change as technology makes improvements possible.
WHAT SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS CAN BE STATED IN THIS WAY AT THIS TIME?
As mentioned earlier, many of the published statements regarding user requirements are really statements of opinion, or hypotheses, and are not statements that have been backed up by reasonable amounts of support-ing evidence. It would be extremely helpful if data could be collected, organized, critically reviewed, and presented in a way that supports state-ments of user requirestate-ments. The general statestate-ments below, and their sup-porting evidence, are presented as a start toward this objective and as an example of the suggested approach.
General Statement No.1 (use o/materials o/various ages): . "For the majority of users in most fields of research, a specified fraction of their needs for literature can be fulfilled by literature that is younger than some given age."
First Specific Example 0/ General Statement No.1 (age 0/ journal material used in science and technology): "For the majority of users in most fields of science and technology, 90 percent of the needs for journal articles can be fulfilled by journals that are less than 30 to 50 years old. The exact number depends on the
subject field."
After the general statement has been made, other more specific statements can be made for various special cases, such as different subject fields and user populations. There may of course be arguments regarding the methods used to obtain the data, and disagreement about the value or validity of the actual numbers used in the specific statements such as the one above. The numbers could be modified when more evidence is col-lected and critically analyzed.
An example of the data that could be used to support the first general statement and its first specific example appears below. They were assem-bled from the reported results of 50 different studies concerned with the use of literature as a function of its age. These data are plotted as cumula-tive distributions in Fig. 1. Some of the studies were based on actual use records of libraries (i.e., circulation records), but most of them were based on the ages of articles that were cited as references in the articles of lead-ing technical journals. The data have some measurement error due to many factors, but can serve as a reasonable approximation.
The supporting data came from studies of a wide variety of subject fields, including:
Botany [1 *]
Ceramics [2]
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering [1,3-9]
Electrical Engineering [10-12]
Entomology [1]
Geology [1,13]
Mathematics [1,14]
Mechanical Engineering [15]
Medicine [16-21]
Metallurgical Engineering [22]
Petroleum Research and Technology [23,24]
Physics [1,3,12,25]
Physiology [1]
*References are listed at the end of the paper.
SOME USER REQUIREMENTS 97 Zoology [1]
Other general technical fields [26-32]
The collected data also covered a wide span of dates. That is, some studies reflect the use patterns of 1962, whereas some studies reflect the use patterns of 1899.
Second Specific Example of General Statement No.1 (age of book material used in science and technology): "For the majority of users in the medical field, 90 per-cent of the needs for books can be fulfilled by books that are less than 20 years old."
Few data were collected21,33 to support this second specific example of the first statement. The data that were analyzed are plotted as cumulative distributions in Fig. 2.
General Statement No.2 (number of sources of materials): "For the majority of users in most fields of research, a specified fraction of their total needs for literature can be fulfilled by literature from a specified number of sources."
140 JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 1. Distribution of journal use by age-science and technology in general.
fleo
it: (J)
~ (J) (J) 60 a: w
(J)
::>
~ 40
I-Z W U a:
~ 20
"'-
UCLA BIO. MED. BOOKS/I/-VALE MEO. BOOKS
°O~~~-L~~~~IO~~~~-L~L2~O~~-L~-L~~3~O~~-L~~~~40' BOOK AGE - YEARS
Figure 2. Distribution of book use by age-medical field.
First Specific Example of General Statement No.2 (number of journals required in science and technology): "For the majority of users in most fields of science and technology, 90 percent of needs for journal articles can be fulfilled by 100 to 1,000 chosen journals. The exact number depends upon the nature and scope of the subject field."
The data to support the above general statement and its first specific examples were assembled from the results of 27 different studies that were concerned with the number of journals required to satisfy particular user populations (both authors and library patrons). The data are plotted as cumulative distributions in Fig. 3, and represent the following subject fields:
Biochemistry [34]
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering [4,5,6,35]
Dentistry [36]
Electrical Engineering [11,37,38]
Geology [13]
Mathematics [14]
Mechanical Engineering [15]
Medicine [16-20, 38-40]
Metallurgical Engineering [23,41]
Petroleum Technology [23]
Physics [35,42,43]
Physiology [44,45]
Other general technical fields [46-48]
SOME USER REQUIREMENTS 99
O~I ======---;k-O---;l;,OO,---1iiOil1l00~---~4914 NUMBER OF JOURNALS
Figure 3. Distribution of number of journals required-science and technology in general.
General Statement No.3 (speed of retrospective searches): "For the majority of users in most fields of research, a specified fraction of their total needs for exten-sive retrospective searches can be satisfied by a system that provides the search results not later than some specified time interval after the request was made."
First Specific Example of General Statement No.3 (search response time for elec-tronics research engineers): "For the majority of engineers doing elecelec-tronics re-search work, 90 percent of their needs for extensive retrospective re-searches can be satisfied by a system that provides a list of relevant references from 2 to 15 days after the request was made."
The supporting data for General Statement No.3 and its specific ex-ample are shown in Fig. 4.49
SOME ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON THE MEASURED DATA
A close look at some of the data that were used to construct Fig. 1 (use of journal literature of various ages) disclosed patterns that seem to con-tradict some of the earlier stu-dies on this subject. The concon-tradictions center on two main points, and are discussed in more detail below. This is
IIO.---~
NUMBER OF DAYS DELAY
Figure 4. Required reference retrieval speeds-electrical engineering field.
admittedly a digression from the main theme of this paper, but it is re-lated to the methodology for determining the quantitative statements, and is included here for completeness.
CITATION COUNTING VERSUS TRAFFIC COUNTING
Several authors (including most of those who have performed citation counts themselves) have suggested that as a method, citation counting was less accurate than measuring the recorded usage or circulation pat-terns. The inaccuracy has been attributed to many things, such as the dif-ference between time lags that occur between publication and citation and time lags that occur between publication and library circulation. For example, one seldom finds citation counts that include references that are one month old, whereas one often finds circulation records that include one-month-old items. Some systematic error is also due to the rounding off of date of publication and citation, using figures for the years but not for the months. Additional error is due to using the nominal date of pub-lication, rather than the date that the author wrote the manuscript and used the references. Also, there is some error because citation counts are influenced by the fact that there were fewer articles published in earlier
SOME USER REQUIREMENTS 101 years. It is also argued that the user population represented by the cita-tion count method (i.e., the authors in the source journals) are different from the users represented by the library traffic or circulation count. All these points suggest that we might expect some systematic difference or bias between the results of the two approaches. However, the data col-lected here seem to support the view that there is no obvious difference in the results obtained by the two techniques. The curves that represent the traffic study approach are rather uniformly distributed throughout the en-tire range of curves shown in Fig. 1. Figures 5 and 6 show data for request patterns and citation counts, respectively, for a mixture of subject fields, and represent specific subsets of data taken from Fig. 1.
THE FUZZY HALF-LIFE
Several authors have suggested that perhaps there is something that might be called a "half-life" constant for technical literature, and that such a constant can be determined and shown to exist as a descriptive measure of a particular subject field (e.g., " ... chemical literature has a half-life of7.2 years"). The half-life is often interpreted as the time during which one-half of the currently active literature was published.50
How-I How-I O r - - - .
10
140 JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 5. Distribution of journal use by age-as measured by actual library requests.
100
90
80
o
~ 70
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~
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::;)
~ 50
....
z w
~40
~
20
10
JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 6. Distribution of journal use by age-as measured by citation counts.
IIO,---~
w o 100
90
80
~ 70
ii en
20
10
JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 7. Distribution of journal use by age-physics field.
IIOr---,
140 JOURNAL AGE - YEA RS
Figure 8. Distribution of journal use by age-chemistry field.
140 JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 9. Distribution of journal use by age-medical field.
ever, most of the reported half-life studies were apparently made with only one sample or one specific user population, so that there was no indication of the great variance that might oe possible with different samples or dif-ferent test conditions, or difdif-ferent interpretations of the scope of the sub-ject field.
Figure 7 shows what might be considered seven different half-life stud-ies made in the field of physics. 1,3,12,26 Figure 8 shows twelve different half-life studies for the field of chemistry. 1,3-9 Figure 9 shows nine different half-life studies for the field of medicine. 16-21 The striking thing about all of these illustrations is the great variance possible in the value that could be quoted as the "half-life" constant for that field. The curves represent a smear of possible values for a specific field, so that the half-life figures now
Mi,iil PHYSICS
_ M E D I C A L
~CHEMISTRY
JOURNAL AGE -YEARS
Figure 10. Distribution of journal use by age-composite patterns for physics, chemistry, and medicine.
1 I 0 r - - - ,
.... z
'"
1540
0..
30
20
10
00 140
JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 11. Distribution of journal use by age-physical sciences and mathematics.
110
100
90
80
70
'" 60 II:
'"
rg
....
'" z
li 40
'"
0..
140
Figure 12. Distribution of journal use by age-natural sciences.
take on a probabilistic rather than a deterministic manner, and we now talk of half-lives in terms of "variance" and "best estimates" and "confi-dence figures." Variance in these examples did not seem to be related to the size of the sample or the particular year that was studied.
The smears for the subject fields (see Fig. 10 for the superimposed curves for chemistry, physics, and medicine) are so great that they almost completely overlap each other when superimposed on the same curve.
Because of this, it is difficult to think in terms of readily identifiable dif-ferences in half-lives for various subject fields. There certainly are differ-ences, but they are not dramatic differences. Even the contrast suggested by some people between the half-lives of literature in the physical sciences (Fig. 11) and those of literature in the natural sciences (Fig. 12) loses its
~ PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND
~ MATHEMATICS
~ NATURAL SCIENCES
JOURNAL AGE - YEARS
Figure 13. Distribution of journal use by age-composite patterns for physical and natural sciences.
SOME USER REQUIREMENTS 107 impact when viewed in terms of their variance or smear (see Fig. 13). The net result of these observations seems to be that we have what might be considered very "fuzzy" half-lives, rather than easily discriminated con-stants.
SUMMARY
It appears to be both possible and reasonable to make some statements of user requirements in terms of what is required to satisfy a specified portion of the user population. Several general and specific examples were given to support this stand and others could easily be suggested.
There is the possibility that requirements, when stated in this manner, might not be significantly different among different user populations ex-cept for the specific numerical value associated with them for each user population. This relatively simple mechanism for stating requirements provides a useful tool for the system designer and the evaluator of library systems and service.
REFERENCES
1. Brown, Charles Harvey, Scientific Serials: Characteristics and Lists of Most Cited Publications in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Physiology, Botany, Zoology, and Entomology, ACRL Monograph No. 16 (Assoc. of College and Reference Libraries, Chicago, Ill., 1956).
2. Westbrook, J. H., "Identifying Significant Research," Science, vol. 132, no.
3435 (Oct. 28,1963), pp. 1229-1234.
3. Fussier, Herman H., "Characteristics of the Research Literature Used by Chemists and Physicists in the United States," Library Quarterly, vol. 19 (1949), pp. 19-35.
4. Gross, P. L. K., and E. M. Gross, "College Libraries and Chemical Educa-tion," Science, vol. 66, no. 1713 (Oct. 28, 1927), pp. 385-389.
5. Burton, Robert E., "Citations in American Engineering Journals, Part I:
Chemical Engineering," A mer. Doc., vol. 10, no. 1 (January 1959), pp. 70-73.
6. Smith, Maurice H., "The Selection of Chemical Engineering Periodicals in College Libraries," College & Research Libraries, vol. 5 (June 1944), pp. 217-227.
7. Barrett, Richard L., and Mildred A. Barrett, "Journals Most Cited by Chem-ists and Chemical Engineers," J. Chem. Educ., vol. 34, no. 1 (January 1957), pp.35-38.
8. Patterson, Austin M., "Literature References in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry for 1939," J. Chem. Educ., vol. 22 (October 1945), pp. 514-515.
9. Patterson, Austin M., "Journal Citations in the 'Recueil,' 1937-1939," Recueil des travaux chimiques des Pays-Bas ei 1e la Belgique, vol. 59 (1940), pp. 538-544.
10. Coile, R. C., "Periodical Literature for Electrical Engineers," J. Doc., vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1952), pp. 209-226.
11. Roa, Gundu, "Scatter and Seepage of Documents on Radio Engineering," in Documentation Periodicals: Coverage, Arrangement, Scatter, Seepage, Com-pilation, S. R. Ranganathan and A. Neelameghan (eds.), pp. 167-180, Report, Documentation Research & Training Centre, 112 Cross Road 11, Malle-swaram, Bangalore, India.
12. Hooker, Ruth H., "A Study of Scientific Periodicals," Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 6 (November 1935), pp. 333-338.
13. Gross, P. L. K., and A. O. Woodford, "Serial Literature Used by American Geologists," Science, vol. 73 (June 19, 1931), pp. 660-664.
14. Allen, Edward S., "Periodicals for Mathematicians," Science, vol. 70, no. Library of Medicine," Report, U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service (April 1962).
17. Jenkins, R. L., "Periodicals for Medical Libraries," J. Amer. Med. Assoc., vol. 97 (Aug. 29, 1931), pp. 608-610.
18. Hunt, Judith Wallen, "Periodicals for the Small Bio-Medical and Clinical Library," Library Quarterly, vol. 7 (1937), pp. 121-140.
19. Sherwood, K. K., "Relative Value of Medical Magazines," Northwest Medi-cine, vol. 31, no. 6 (June 1932), pp. 273-276.
20. Barnard, Cyril C., "The Selection of Periodicals for Medical and Scientific Libraries," The Library Association Record, vol. 40 (November 1938), pp.
549-557.
21. "Activity Statistics for a Large Bio-Medical Library," Part II of the "Final Report on the Organization of Large Files," Advanced Information Systems Div., Hughes Dynamics, Inc., Los Angeles, Calif. (April 30, 1964).
22. Burton, Robert E., "Citations in American Engineering Journals, Part III:
SOME USER REQUIREMENTS 109 27. Urquhart, D. J., "Use of Scientific Periodicals," Proc. International Con! on Scientific Information, vol. 1 (National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1959), pp. 287-300.
28. Cole, P. F., "Journal Usage Versus Age of Journal," J. Doc., vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1963), pp. 1-11.
29. Randall, Gordon E., "Literature Obsolescence at a British and an American
29. Randall, Gordon E., "Literature Obsolescence at a British and an American