Predicting On-Line Catalog Terminal Needs

Abstract

To determine if research findings from large academic, research libraries on the number of public access terminals needed apply to smaller libraries, the author compared results of a study done at a large research institution to one done at a mid-sized university. The data were different. This is important because the active automation market is currently thriving at smaller libraries, not larger ones, and because environment/size does seem to be critical to the consideration of automation parameters. Thus, smaller libraries should establish their own parameters and employ models generated at large institutions only as a general recipe.