The use of foreign periodicals in the National Technical Library, Hungary (second, conctuding publication)

Abstract

NTL conducted a usage survey of its holding of foreign serial publications from 1 September to 30 November, 1985, utilizing the computer file of foreign periodicals of the coordination committee of special libraries in Hungary. The objectives of this survey were lo search for optimum acquisition policies, to improve circulation control, and to develop rules of differentiated storage of periodicals. The survey covered 3845 periodicals divided into various domains: journals not used during the survey, secondary publications. journals processed for the information services of NTL, journals used for library services. The first publication discussed the composition of the first three domains, to reveal the rational possibilities of acquisition and the rules of optimum storage of the holding. This second publication covers the fourth domain, of periodicals, those used for library services (2111 titles or 54 per cent of total holding). They are divided into two groups - abstracied and indexed journals, and non-abstracted, non-indexed journals, 1362 titles and 749 titles, respectively. They produced 28 002 and 7202 questions, respectively, of the survey. According to the intensity of usage, four categories were established. The properties of the most preferred journals (covering more than half of the total usage of periodicals), 171 journals or 4.77 per cent of all primary journals and 8.1 per cent of all journals used for library services, are analyzed. The usage modes of journals are also given: 55 per cent in the reading room, 45 per cent for copy delivery. The figures for usage retrospectivity broken down by years backlog issues are presented. Based on the results of this survey, NTL plans to conducl consequently the microficheing of mostly used journals prior to their abstracting and indexing, to introduce modifications in its hard copy delivery services, and to form a concentrated core collection of six volumes of each of about 700 foreign journal titles.