A study of the use of materials circulated from an engineering library, March to May 1956

The purpose of this study undertaken from March to May 1956 was to determine how an academic engineering library was used by two groups of users, the undergraduates and graduate students–faculty. The part of the study reported here is the result of a questionnaire given to the user at the time he charged out an item at the circulation desk to ascertain for what purpose he selected the item(s) and how he learned about it as a source of information. Variations in the reasons for selecting items changed during the three periods the data were collected. The undergraduates borrowed less for classroom work as the semester progressed, while the graduate‐faculty group borrowed increasingly for this reason. Supporting the conclusions of the other studies, the most important source for learning about an item was personal through recommendation; however, one of every four items charged out was discovered in browsing through the library's collection. From this study one can conclude that not only must librarians be acquainted with their users as individuals, but that the physical arrangement of library materials is an important factor in accessibility to information in an academic environment.