According to Ragkanathan's Fifth Law, Libraries are growing organizations, indicating a
continuous evolutionary path. Living in an era of budgets’ restrictions, libraries must make
decisions about their development based on rationality in order to manage effectively their
resources. Their sustainability is directly related to their usage indicators, and the analysis of
usage statistics of their collections can have multiple effects beyond the development of the
collections themselves. Evaluating the usage of printed material can become a beneficial
process for shaping library strategic planning.
The Hellenic Open University Distance Library and Information Centre supports a
geographically distributed academic community, which mandates the provision of electronic
resources, without excluding the development of a printed collection. A thorough analysis of
the usage statistics of the printed collection of the HOU Library will highlight multidimensional
issues related to its development. Such issues are related to the restructuring of the
acquisitions model, the housing of the Central Department of the Library, the creation of new
Branches as well as the enrichment of their, staffing or the formulation of a policy for
acquisitions’ promotion.
Ανάπτυξη συλλογής | Ακαδημαϊκές βιβλιοθήκες | Διαμόρφωση προϋπολογισμού | Βιώσιμη ανάπτυξη | Collection development | Academic libraries | Sustainable development | Budgeting
