During the 1996/97 academic year, 528 items were donated. The materials consisted
mainly of books, but also included some periodicals and videocassettes. The amount of
donated materials during 1996/1997 was consistent with the amount of donated materials
during previous years. After applying the procedure listed above, 77 books were added to the
library’s general collection. Table 1 illustrates that, of all the items donated, 96 (18%) were
added to the library and 77 (15%) were added to the general circulating collection for testing
(the other 19 items were either non-book materials or books added to other specific
collections in the library). The 77 books added to the general collection were coded for later
identification in the library’s Innovative Interfaces online system and put into circulation in
July 1997. The fact that only 18% of the donated items were actually added to the collection
indicated that the existing procedure for identifying gift materials for addition was already
quite selective, although predicting usage was not a specific quantifiable measure applied to
determine which gifts were added to the collection.