New! Analyzing Library Collection Use with Excel

I lost a significant amount of work from an MS Word file last week, with hide nor hair of an autosaved temp file to be found afterward. Thanks to a tip from our managing editor, Christine, I was able to find the errant file, masquerading as a temp version of a completely different file in a totally random place on my hard drive. So even after at least 10 years as a Word power user, I’m still occasionally attacked by software gremlins, and I still don’t know (or at the very least, I don’t always remember) every trick for navigating the program’s hiccups and oddities.

Even more notorious than Word for its idiosyncracies is Excel, and the program’s sterile functionality puts off more than a few good librarians. Luckily, Tony Greiner and Bob Cooper are here to help with their new book, Analyzing Library Collection Use with Excel. With expertise and a healthy dose of good humor, they walk readers through the process of using Excel to make quick work of library collection use analysis. Starting with the absolute basics and ending with instruction on how to use Excel charts to make your findings really pop in presentations, this book will unquestionably make your job easier. To quote the authors:

Technology has now solved the problem of the cost of collection analysis. By following the procedures in this book, most libraries will be able to analyze their collection in no more than a few days, and perhaps a good deal less. Every library has an acquisitions budget. A use study will help show you where to put it. If you want more money for your library, change your collecting to meet the demand, watch your circulation rise, and a year or two later go to the funders with the numbers. Funders like success.

But the best aspect of the book is Tony and Bob’s approach to the subject. No jargon or techspeak. Just straightforward instruction accompanied by fifty-eight large, easy-to-read screenshots. Be warned, though. After reading this book, you may need to allocate time for fielding your colleagues’ Excel questions…