HAS POISSON BEEN KICKED TO DEATH? — A REBUTTAL OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY LENDING DIVISION'S VIEWS ON THE INCONSISTENCY OF RANK LISTS OF SERIALS

In a recent article in Interlending Review on the use of serials at the British Library Lending Division it is stated that: ‘Lists of titles in rank order of use have been produced from both the 1980 and 1975 surveys. The amount of overlap between the top titles on each list is not great, and decreases as the number of titles increases. Of the top 5,000 titles on each list, only 2,591 (52%) are common to both lists.’ The conclusion was drawn that: ‘This inconsistency of rank lists overtime sheds doubt on the continuing value of core lists of serials, which might decrease substantially in validity over a relatively short period.’ At first sight the conclusion seems justified; for example, only 60% of titles occur in the first 100 on both occasions. Let us, however, look at the overlap in more detail.