I Had Wondered About This

My mom's library purges their books on the basis of how old they are and how often they are checked out (except for particular books that the staff have decided are important to keep). I had wondered how the university library systems work, esp. given that so many people use books in the library as a reference but do not check them out. I read quite a few econ and psych books at TSU over the last two years that would never show up as being "used" through the check-out system.

Here's one thing my university tells us to do:

When consulting, but not borrowing materials from the stacks, please do not reshelve. The library keeps statistics on materials used in the building but not checked out by counting materials picked up from red shelves, study tables, copier areas, etc.

Nice to know. I had always assumed that libraries request customers not to reshelve books because we could screw up the stacks (which is true); I didn't realize that these books also are considered in compiling usage stats.