Exploring utility function in utility management: an evaluating method of library preservation

In order to seek a new method of book evaluation and realize book resources sharing among the regional university libraries, we think that library should collect books of the high utility value in the case of limited funds. We proposed a changing Bellman equation as a utility function and used the explicit functions of the book usage factor and the book usage half-life derived from the utility function as an evaluating method of the collecting books. The results from empirical data given some conclusions such as the varieties diversity, the collected risk, the tendencies of reading varieties, species continuity and so on and a librarian can use the utility management to supplement the collections management. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-61) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.