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HAROLD B. SHILL Open Stacks and Library Performance Although the utility of open stack systems has been widely debated, little empirical research relevant to the controversy is available. Using circula tion, book availability, and search and library-use statistics, major elements of the direct access debate are tested in a six-year study of a library that has recently undergone the transition from closed to open stacks. Direct shelf access, it was found, contributed to an increase in library use and a decrease in c~rculation . Contrary to expectations, book availability perfor mance also improved significantly during the study period. D IRECf COLLECTION ACCESS is a prevailing following the opening of the stacks. practice in American academic libraries Moreover, book availability studies had today and enjoys considerable support been conducted during peak use periods be among faculty members, students, and li fore and after the decision. Access to this brarians. Despite their popularity, open body of data made possible a study of li stack systems have not been incontroverti brary performance, using several dependent bly proven more effective than the closed or variables, under changing conditions of shelf semiclosed alternatives as user access access. mechanisms. Nor is the ongoing debate likely to resolve the issue, since the discus THE ISSUE sion is largely impressionistic and specula The debate over open stacks is multifa tive. ceted, encompassing such diverse issues as Considerable research on patron behavior the effectiveness of browsing, the value of is available. However, the few quantitative close classification, storage policy, the edu studies relevant to the controversy focus on cational role of the library, and collection user behavior in the stacks rather than the security. It also reflects various conceptions broader issue of open access per se. Infer of the patron/collection interface articulated ences about the validity of open stack sys by librarians during the past 150 years. tems have been drawn from measures of pa Closed stack libraries were predominant tron shelf failure and browsing effectiveness in Europe until the post-World War II pe in these reports. riod, with books shelved in accession order The effectiveness of direct access could be or by size. This arrangement conserved established from statistical case studies shelf space and made detailed subject clas comparing library performance before and sification unnecessary. after the stacks were opened. However, no The demand for general access to the such empirical impact studies were iden shelves originated in the mid-1800s, largely tified in a search of Library Literature. as an outgrowth of the public library move The opening of the main library stacks at ment. The concept was consonant with West Virginia University in February 1976 democratic theory and was adopted by provided an opportunity for such a longitu many college libraries and some university dinal analysis. Complete circulation, build libraries, though most of the large research ing use, and search statistics had been kept collections in this country remained closed during the three-year periods preceding and or semiclosed until well into the twentieth century. 1 Harold B. Shill is chief circulation librarian In recent decades, however, most and assistant professor of library science, West academic library buildings have been de Virginia University, Morgantown. signed to support open stack operatio~s, ! 220 I Open Stacks I 221 and many libraries have liberalized access or when even one class becomes so large that it despite architectural shortcomings. In the cannot be scanned efficiently in a fraction of an 8 latter case, the decision has often been hour. made without full advance appreciation of Ratcliffe contended that a classified sub its consequences. 2 ject arrangement is helpful to the browser Many theoretical and practical arguments only in a small or medium-size library. He have been advanced in favor of open access. identified the University of Manchester, In a survey conducted in the 1950s, Hicks with holdings exceeding one million items found widespread expectations that an open in 1969, as a library that has passed. this size stack system would eliminate unnecessary threshold and is gradually restricting patron barriers between readers and the collection, access to its collection. 9 This argument is increase circulation, permit staff reductions, also supported by Hyman's finding that and elicit patron support. 3 In his chapter most librarians consider shelf classification "The Educational Function of the Library," more valuable as a locational device than for Lyle concluded that "open stacks makes subject searches. 10 [sic] possible the intelligent use of library Common to all these contributions, both resources," assuming good library manage pro and con, is a virtual absence of empiri ment and faculty promotion of systematic li cal data to support the authors' contentions. brary research. 4 Celoria, an archaeologist, Factual data relevant to the controversy maintained that researchers can remain ab must be sought elsewhere. reast of advances in sister disciplines by mastering the "higher browsing. " 5 Other PREVIOUS RESEARCH RESULTS advocates of direct access insist that it en Although the open access question is ad hances human dignity and produces a vari dressed indirectly in many user behavior ety of other social benefits. studies, Cooper's 1957 article remains the An equally impressive set of arguments only analysis of the impact upon library per has been arrayed against the open stack formance of a transition to open stacks. concept. The most familiar of these are cus While generally supportive of the Univer todial in origin-increases in theft and muti sity of Washington's decision, her report lation, reduced book availability due to does identify several dysfunctional conse misshelving, greater costs for book replace quences of the decision, including increases ments and staff, inadequacies of building in misshelved books, searches, and noise in 6 design, and inefficient use of shelf space. the stacks and initial dissatisfaction among Criticism has also been advanced at a lof undergraduates accustomed to book delivery tier theoretical level. Ratcliffe and others, service. Improved patron service and expanding upon the conventional argument greater long-term user satisfaction, a result that students cannot function well in an attributed to the opportunity to browse, are open stack system, maintain that open ac cited as benefits of the decision. 11 cess encourages users to bypass the card Several interrelated factors account for catalog and other bibliographic tools. The book availability performance. Buckland re consequence of this tendency, they con ported that a variable loan policy and tinue, is to impair the library's performance demand-based selection of duplicate copies of its educational role by fostering a decline produced a sharp increase in book in bibliographic research skills and system 12 7 availability at the University of Lancaster. atic library use. Saracevic, Shaw, and Kantor found that cir A second argument, applicable particu culation performance at Case Western Re larly to large research libraries, is that the serve University improved from 77 percent utility of browsing in a classified shelf ar to 87 percent after the loan period was rangement varies in a roughly inverse man shortened. 13 ner with collection size. Drawing upon The effectiveness of library security mea search theory, Morse inferred that browsing sures, whether manual or electronic, is an has its own law of diminishing returns: important determinant of a library's ability The trouble comes when the collection becomes to deliver books when requested. Confirm too large for all of it to be easily accessible to all, ing a principal finding of the Case Western 222 I College and Research Libraries • May 1980 Reserve study, Smith and Granade discov shelves. Conversely, increased shelf disor ered that 14 percent of the titles not located der and search failures in a classified collec by patrons in the University of Tennessee's tion are identified. as counterproductive re Undergraduate Library were in their proper sults of open stack access. shelf locations. 14 This last finding is particu Collection access questions should not, larly germane to the open-access debate, however, be regarded as strictly technical since it demonstrates that undergraduates questions that can be resolved in a political encounter some difficulty with classified vacuum. The University of Toronto Library shelf arrangements even in medium-size li confronted the latent power of its student braries. and faculty clienteles in 1972, when an at Studies of stack use at the Library of tempt to institute a closed-stack policy in a Congress, the University of Chicago's new university library precipitated student Harper Library, and Johns Hopkins Univer demonstrations and critical responses from sity indicate that collection size does not the Canadian library community. 21 Faculty deter browsing in an open-stack research li members and students, it should be recog brary. Dubester reported that 38 percent of nized, constitute interest groups able to the individuals interviewed in the Library of define broad parameters within which shelf Congress stacks were browsing rather than access decisions can be made. searching for specific titles. 15 Data from Fussier and Simon's

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