USING ICAS
- Program Reviews
- Benchmarking
- Last 5 or last 10 years
- Uniqueness and overlap studies to show pattern of selection
- Combine with other indicators to show strength or weakness.
- Requests for Funding
- Comparisons with like schools
- Add lists of journals, checking journal lists against standard lists, electronic use statistics, interlibrary loan statistics, or checkout statistics if available
- Look at trends over the years.
- Preservation Indicators
- Uniqueness and overlap to show need for preservation
- Look at percentage of older materials to suggest preservation needs
- Look at material purchased in the high acid years of 1860-1910 to determine the need for brittle book conditioning.
- Look at subject areas with high numbers of older/brittle year/unique items to determine need for attention. Compare these with other schools to see if there is a collection that is unusual.
- Check older material to determine whether it belongs in a special collection.
- Curriculum Comparisons
- Look at your biggest or highest degree program (lots of factors you can use here) and compare the strength of library holdings in those subject areas in consort with the disciplinary need for library materials to determine whether the collection is appropriate. Comparisons with peer institutions are always good here.
- Look at any areas where you do not have a program or have only occasional courses to determine whether you have an appropriate number of monographs.
- Examine general undergraduate areas to make sure they are adequately covered. Refer to overlap studies and comparisons with peer institutions to see if the collection is appropriate.
- Grant Applications
- Select a subject and see if there is a statewide or a regional need to build that collection.
- Look at the whole state to see if there are gaps either retrospectively or in current materials.
- Look to see if selections are too similar in this area and need to be expanded perhaps in niche collections.
- Look for unusual numbers or dates to see if the materials need to be adjusted in any way.
- When you are setting up the tables, groups can be made by size of library, geographic locations, size of collection, etc.