Consortium level collection development: a duplication study of the OhioLINK Central Catalog

Statistics regarding OhioLINK's patron-initiated borrowing system (PCIRC) indicate that the consortium has an efficient requesting and delivery system. This study uses samples of recently published books and checks for their PCIRC availability at the OhioLINK Central Catalog to determine the level of duplication. Results indicate that there is a high level of duplication-70% of recent publications are available. In addition, the study also shows that the level of duplication increases over time. Because duplication is measured as a ratio, it is problematic to develop a fixed number of copies to purchase as a standard. Instead, the first objective would be to inform local collection development librarians of this study and to encourage them to become more sensitive to avoiding unnecessary duplication. Over time, the money saved from reduced duplication could be used to enrich OhioLINK's shared collection by buying a more diverse selection of books. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.