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Dissertation Information for Reginald Patrick Coady

NAME:
- Reginald Patrick Coady

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- Indiana University (USA) (1981)

ADVISORS:
- David Kaser

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Wayne Winston
- Clayton A. Shepherd
- Allan Daniel Pratt

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: THE APPLICABILITY OF MARKOV MODELS TO THE CIRCULATION OF SOCIAL-SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS IN A LARGE ACADEMIC LIBRARY

Abstract: This study investigates the applicability of Markov models to the circulation of social-science monographs in a large academic library. To date, most Markov models of library-circulation processes have been applied to physical-science monograph circulation. Monographs in the physical sciences exhibit different characteristics from those in the social sciences such as more rapid obsolescence, and less importance to research and teaching. In general, the physical-science literature is dependent upon the journal and the social-science literature is more evenly divided between book and journal use. Social-science monographs may follow a different pattern of use from physical-science monographs or they may have no discernable pattern at all.

The following hypotheses were tested against seven subclasses of universal knowledge as defined by Library of Congress classification system: (1)The distribution in library circulation of social-science monographs to faculty/staff and to undergraduate/graduates will show a statistically significant fit to a regular, stationary Markov chain of order one. (2)The circulation to faculty/staff and undergraduate/graduates of social science monographs in the English language will show no significant difference between their transition frequency matrix and that of monographs in other languages. (3)The combined transition frequency matrices of the faculty/staff and undergraduate/graduate students will not differ significantly from those of undergraduate/graduate students alone.

The unit of data for the study is the unique copy of a monograph title. The data was obtained from The Ohio State University Libraries for the years 1975-1978. The test instrument was Dr. Bruce Rodda's, "Analytic System For Statistical Analysis Of Markov Chains," Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1969.

Tests of the stationarity of the circulation revealed a time dependence in thirteen data sets. Tests of the Markovity of the circulation where second order Markovity is assumed and first order Markovity is tested revealed all fourteen data groups to be without Markovity.

The second hypothesis was not tested due to low circulation counts in the language other than English. The third hypothesis was not tested due to the failure of the Markovity test for all fourteen groups of data.

It appears from this study that further tests of the Markovity of library circulation should be conducted before models based on the same assumptions of state and time periods are constructed.

MPACT Scores for Reginald Patrick Coady

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:07:17

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