Broward County Library

Shrinking budgets and continued yearly increase in the cost of serials affects all libraries. It has become imperative that libraries study the usage of their periodicals collections. It is no longer feasible to hold a title because someone might request it in the far future. Libraries need to critically evaluate the usage of their serials. They should consider dropping expensive titles that are requested only a few times a year and investigate titles that are more popular and used regularly. There seems to be an abundance of published articles concerning periodical usage for academic libraries. It is rare to find articles written by librarians in public libraries. If public librarians are not studying the usage of periodicals/ serials it is important that they begin. If they are tracking the usage of their collections they should publish their findings. Publishing is beneficial to them and to public libraries.