Book Availability and Performance Measure in an Academic Library: The Case of the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) Library, Mthatha Campus

This study evaluates the book availability as well as the performance measure of the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) Library and determines the levels of satisfaction among its users. Attention was focused on four parameters of performance measure, namely: Acquisition (Pa), Circulation (Pc), Users\u27 performance at the catalogue and success in obtaining materials from the shelf (Pu), and, the Library administrative operation (Pm), all of which were independently measured. An overall availability rate of 33% was obtained for the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) Library. This is rather low. This low availability level obtained was associated with the low circulation performance (Pc) at 45%. However, a high performance was obtained for the university acquisition policy at 85%, Library operations at 88%, and User performance at 87%. The study focused largely on availability of monographic materials and not on online searches carried out by users of the library. Similar studies that were carried out in a number of academic libraries identified bottlenecks which enable library managers to effect policy changes or appropriate corrective actions that later resulted in the higher satisfaction level of the libraries concerned. This same approach is being recommended in this study