Multidimensional Mapping of Book Circulation in a University Library

Circulated books classified according to academic subject areas and student majors were used to determine relative subject similarities in forty academic departments. -Multidimensional scaling was used to compute a best-fit solution of the similarities in three dimensions for undergraduate circulation, and two dimensions for graduates. Similarity, or "distances," between departments is shown in two-dimensional maps. The meaning of the dimensions and the tendency of departments to cluster within them is discussed. One dimension can confidently be regarded as ''hard-soft, '' a second may be regarded with much less confidence as ''pure applied," and a third is not readily interpreted. Five principal clusters are strongly apparent: quantitative; social services; chemistry and life sciences; humanities; and engineering and earth sciences. Implications for collection development and storage are discussed, including applications for area bibliography, allocation of the budget to departments, organization of the collection, and online retrieval.