This report will give you titles, as opposed to numbers of titles.  Notice: You can compare your library to ONE other library or your Peer Group.  See "About Choosing Libraries" for a longer explanation of this.

1.       See SEARCH tab

2.       Click on PEER COMPARISON TITLES

3.       The top section of this page looks just like the "Edit Peer Groups" page. Here you can choose which one library you wish to compare or keep the default, which is a Peer Group you have saved. If you decide to choose the Selected Libraries button, be sure to click FILTER afterwards to get the list of libraries. (You can also apply further filters.)

4.       Scroll down to choose values on the variables offered (Universe, Acquisition Category, etc.)

5.       SHOW TITLES ACQUIRED BY will determine the results between your library and your comparison library or, if you choose Peer Group, your library and any libraries in your Group.

a.       "Peer but not my library" This will retrieve a list of titles that your comparison library (or any library in your Peer Group) has obtained and you did not.  Starting a new Slavic Collection? Choose University of Chicago and this option to see what they have purchased in the last two years.  Have designated gift money to spend on Religion? Select the library with the strongest collection in that field to find books to purchase.

b.      "My library but not peer" This will retrieve titles that your library obtained and your comparison library (or libraries in your Peer Group) did not.  Maybe these books have some commonality; perhaps there is a subfield for which your library collects, but your peer does not. Or, are you getting extraneous materials? Or, is this really a peer library anymore (it is now an aspirational peer or a former peer)?

c.       "Neither peer nor my library" This will retrieve titles that neither of the two libraries (or anyone in the Peer Group) has obtained. Are there worthwhile titles falling through a gap in collection building in this subject area? 

d.      "Both peer and my library" This will retrieve titles that all concerned libraries have obtained.  Is this overlap of acquisitions necessary? Is it great or trivial? Might this analysis provide guidance to cooperative collection building plans?

The search below shows that UC Berkeley acquired 32 books that NUL did not obtain on Globalization, excluding those books related to Human Rights, in the second quarter of YBP's fiscal year. This list was generated by choosing "Peer but not my library." Here is the first title:

Notice that there is no indication on the search results page of what makes up this search. That can become confusing especially if you are doing multiple searches. Look at your options to the left (not shown above) for help. For example, you could EMAIL the results to yourself and describe your search in the message. Or you can click on SAVE PARAMETERS to view the values you chose.

Or, you can actually SAVE PARAMETERS of the search. This is convenient, too, if you wish to perform the saved search against a number of libraries or at different periods of time. You will be prompted as to whether or not you want to the parameters to SHOW IN MENU:

(1) If yes, you will see the saved parameters listed on the SEARCH menu under SAVED SEARCHES.

(2) If no, when you return to the SEARCH / PEER COMPARISON TITLES page, you can "Retrieve Parameters." It retrieves all parameters except the comparison library.