EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE LOSS

Recent technological innovations-the OCLC Online Computer Library Center's Online Union Catalog coupled with the OCLC/AMIGOS collection analysis system-provide the means to assess the declining ability of the nation's research libraries to maintain comprehensive book collections, An application of the new technology is presented in the form of a model of total book publication output and the aggregate acquisitions of 71 research libraries for a selected field over the past decade. The usefulness of such modeling is discussed in terms of generating knowledge that, while low on precision, has broad reliability and relevance.