[Michlib-l] Seeking Benchmark Data on Library Material Losses

[Paul McCann]

Hi Scott, 

I generally use the standard retail shrinkage (loss) percentage which fluctuates between about 1.3% to 1.6%. I have also seen that stated as high as 2% in the past. This is for theft, but also includes spoilage, which we don't face, but the bulk of it is theft. I'm also not sure how much this is used by retail as a tax write off, which libraries can't use. 

As with any statistic, you can make it "say" different things. Dexter's lifetime loss is hovering around 1.7%, but this looks at all the materials in our collection and the percentage that is in either the lost (checked out and not returned past maximum time), missing (could be in the building but misplaced or stolen) and not on shelf (akin to missing but this is an automatic status change when things can't be found to fill holds for other libraries.) 

You can look at the collection as a whole and the cumulative list of media that have walked or cannot be found. This is how Dexter lands at 1.7%. 

For the collection as a whole and the items gone lost in the particular year I reviewed, the loss rate was 0.6%. This just listed the items with lost status that occurred in that year (it happened to be 2023.) The items could have been accessioned in any year. 

Another way to look at it would be to total the number of items purchased in a single year and see how many of those items went lost. For 2023, that number for Dexter amazingly was 0%. It shocked me, but none of the lost, missing or not on shelf items were ones that were accessioned in 2023. 

A less favorable way to look at the numbers would be to compare the total historical amount of lost, missing, etc. to the number of items accessioned in one year. That method finds Dexter at a 7% loss rate. I don't think this way is really fair because the losses were accumulated over many years and libraries only add so many items each year. Given the paragraph above, where no items accessioned in the sample year were in this category, I wouldn't use this. 

You could also look at this from a dollar perspective, mainly because you never know what you are going to lose. A laptop would be a very different price than a children's series paperback. Looking at the total collection value and the total historic loss value, Dexter is at a 1.4% rate. 

Some of this will depend on your policies for carrying fines for lost materials. If you wipe these from your books after a period of time, that will reduce the amount of material in the lost status and skew the loss rate. Likewise, we are always maintaining collections through weeding, so that affects the size of the collection as a whole and the longer term, historic calculations. 

Hope this helps some. 

Paul 



From: "Scott Morey via Michlib-l" <michlib-l at mcls.org> 
To: "michlib-l" <michlib-l at mcls.org> 
Cc: "Christina Meyers" <cmeyers at tadl.org> 
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2025 1:02:41 PM 
Subject: [Michlib-l] Seeking Benchmark Data on Library Material Losses 

Greetings, 


Like many other libraries, we strive to balance increasing access with protecting our community's investment in our collection. 

Today, I had a conversation with our circulation manager about the expected amount of lost or stolen materials as a routine part of library operations. I was hoping to find an established benchmark (e.g., libraries typically lose X% of their collection value annually), but so far, I haven’t come across anything definitive. 

Has anyone else looked into this or found useful data on this topic? 

Having a benchmark would help us assess whether our current loss levels are within a reasonable range or if they indicate a need to adjust our policies or security measures. 

Any insights or resources you can share would be greatly appreciated. 
Cheers! 

Scott W. Morey 
he/him/his 
Assistant Director for Technology 
Traverse Area District Library 
[ mailto:smorey at tadl.org | smorey at tadl.org ] 
(231) 932-8531 

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