Analysis of the Russian,Eastern European,and Eurasian Studies Collection at Miami University Libraries

A collection analysis project was carried out on the Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian studies collection at Miami University Libraries. The collection serves a diverse population of scholars and students. These constituents vary in discipline and in reading level of Russian and other Slavic languages. The goal for collecting for this area is to reflect this diversity of disciplines and languages, as well as to follow the collection development policy. The project thus had two objectives: to determine how well the collection supports users’ needs and how well it reflects the collection development policy. A very simple process for data gathering was used to determine the number of items in each subject, the items’ language, and the number of checkouts and in-house uses. The results showed some discrepancies between the policy and the predominant language of the collection, as well as a lack of use among materials in languages other than English.