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The circulation records from 1997/98 to 2007/08 for UCLA and from 2000/01 to 2007/08 for Pasadena City College (PCC) were analyzed to examine patterns in the use of print materials during a period of increasingly available online digital information resources. The analysis included examinations of longitudinal circulation patterns broken down by user type, material type, and subject matter. The data were limited to UCLA faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates; and PCC faculty and students.
The results demonstrated a rapid decrease in the use of print journals by four of the five user categories. The use of library books remains strong for UCLA graduate students and undergraduates but has declined slightly from 2004/05 to 2007/08. The use of library books by UCLA faculty increased significantly from 1997/98 to 2001/02, but has declined just as significantly since then.
The use of library books by PCC faculty declined from 2001/02 to 2002/03, but has remained relatively steady since then. The use of library books by PCC students has declined very slightly from 2000/01 to 2007/08, but the use of Regular Collection materials by this user category declined substantially from 2000/01 to 2003/04, while their use of Reserve Collection materials increased. Use of the two collections by PCC students has remained relatively steady and approximately equal from 2004/05 to 2007/08.
The data were also analyzed by frequency counts, Poisson distributions, and mixtures of Poisson distributions. These data indicated that the use of library books by UCLA students and the faculty of both schools is primarily for infrequently used books and this use has remained steady over the timeline.
The circulation patterns exhibited wide variations according to the subject matter of the materials.
The study also discovered that the use of library materials declined significantly at PCC in the year the school transitioned to a compressed calendar. Use since this transition has been significantly lower than in the period before.
These data have significant implications for library management in collection development and user services as information resources transition from print to digital formats.