Análise comparativa da aquisição e circulação de periódicos em bibliotecas da Universidade de São Paulo na área médica e afim: uma metodologia bibliométrica

Abstract

A bibliometric methodology, fundamentally based on Bradford law of scattering, for the comparative analysis of acquisition and circulation of periodicals in large library systems organized as networks, is presented. This analysis is intended to serve as basis for the planning and control of the selective process of periodicals acquisition. As a practical application, 10 libraries of the University of Sao Paulo, in the medical and allied fields, were analyzed, with the following main results: a) the duplication of total subscribed titles is low and highly concentrated; b) the total circulation is high and, in conformity with the further results obtained in each unit, highly concentrated on a few titles,remaining the great majority, of both duplicated and non-duplicated titles, little or not circulated at all; c) interlibrary-loan requests, relating to gaps, asked to libraries outside the University, are lowly concentrated. Based on these results, programs of cooperative acquisition and of high dissemination of titles, as well as the decisions to be made, are suggested. A data bank to coordinate permanently the cooperative acquisition is figured out.