| Abstract: | A study of the Canadian Conspectus online database explored the reliability of the data and assessed the validity of the Conspectus methodology. A cross-library analysis demonstrated that the assessments for existing collection strength (ECS) and current collecting intensity (CCI) for the 51 subdivisions of psychology were not representative of the libraries' collection sizes or their materials budgets. The CCI assessments for each library for the subject subdivision for memory (BF370-BF395) were also examined. The results of correlation analyses demonstrated that the library's collection size and its materials budget were better predictors of the level of current collecting intensity (as measured by the number of recent acquisitions on memory) than the CCI assessment. Findings drawn from the literature of psychophysics and opinion measurement, as well as from relevance research, demonstrate problems with biasing effects in the category scaling methodology used in the Conspectus. |
