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NERCOMP EVENT
Statistics and Measurement for Library Services: Why, How and what to do with the numbers
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Librarians tend to view measurement, assessment and statistics collection as a necessary evil. We continue to perform these measures either because we have been doing so for a long time or because we have been asked to present quantitative justifications for our library services. Somewhere in this complicated process, we seem to have forgotten how to make the numbers work for us.
Information technology has afforded us the means to collect and to interpret vast amounts of data. Gathering of statistics, however, without a specific purpose in mind, is of limited value. It is clearly time that we begin to discuss how to effectively carry out the assessment of library services and collections, as well as what to do with the numbers after we have them.
Please join us for a one-day workshop to discover how librarians can help one another in the collection and evaluation of data to improve the information services we offer.
Workshop Organizer/Host:
Date/Time:
Thursday, April 25, 2002
9:15am - 4:00pm
Registration begins at 8:30am
Location:
Downey House, Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT
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Pricing:
Registration Price: $-
By clicking on the "Register" button below, you are indicating a commitment to attend and will be held responsible for the registration fee.
Registration is not yet open for this event.
Your fee can be refunded if you notify us of a cancellation at least 7 days prior to the event via email to nercomp@nercomp.org.
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Additional Information
Event Schedule:
8:30-9:20 Registration and Coffee
9:20-9:30 Introduction
Rachel Cheng, Associate University Librarian, Wesleyan University
9:30-11:00 LibQUAL+
Speaker: Colleen Cook, LibQUAL+ project manager and Executive Associate Dean and Wright Professor of Library Science at Texas A&M University.
For PowerPoint Presentation, click here.
LibQUAL+, http://www.arl.org/libqual/, is a research and development project undertaken by ARL to define and measure library service quality across institutions and creating useful quality-assessment tools for libraries. The goals of LibQUAL+ are:
to establish a library service quality assessment program at ARL;
to develop web-based tools for assessing library service quality;
to develop mechanisms and protocols for evaluating libraries; and
to identify best practices in providing library service.
The presentation will cover the history of the LibQUAL+ project from its origin 2 years ago, as well as the qualitative and quantitative methods used in the research design of the project. Examples of some of the data resulting from the survey will be covered, and options for interpretive frameworks of results will be discussed.
11:00-11:10 Break
11:10-12:00 Participating in LibQUAL+: Virginia Tech’s experience
Speaker: Eileen Hitchingham, Dean of Libraries, University Libraries at Virginia Tech
For PowerPoint Presentation, click here.
The University Libraries at Virginia Tech have participated in LibQUAL+ since Spring 2000. Eileen Hitchingham will talk about Virginia Tech’s experience with LibQUAL+ , how they look at the data, and what they do with the LibQUAL+ information.
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 1:50 Accountability Versus Count-Ability
Speaker: Denise Troll Covey, Associate University Librarian for Arts, Archives, and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries
For PowerPoint presentation, click here.
For Assessment handout, click here.
For recommendation handout, click here.
The hype and hope of libraries seems to be focused on creating a "culture of assessment." Yet a survey of leading digital libraries conducted by the Digital Library Federation reveals widespread concerns about a flurry of data gathering activity that comes to naught because the data being gathered are either not useful for or not used effectively in decision-making and strategic planning. Like many libraries, Carnegie Mellon has created a task force to assess:
What data they currently gather, how, and for what purposes and audiences
What data they think they should be gathering, how and why
The costs and benefits of current and proposed data gathering
The goals are twofold: to reach consensus on what data are useful and whether to gather them routinely or through sampling, and to prepare a functional and design specification for a Management Information System (MIS) that will simplify data entry, analysis (including cross-correlations), and the generation of graphical presentations (like multi-year trend lines) of routinely gathered data.
1:50 – 2:00 Break
2:00 – 2:50 Collecting statistics: a college library’s approach
Speaker: Steve Bischof, Resources Assessment & Science Librarian, Wesleyan University Library
For PowerPoint Presentation, click here.
Over the last few years, Wesleyan University Library has worked on the creation of an infrastructure to actively collect information and usage statistics to help shape the library’s long and short-term services plan. The presentation will concentrate on the following areas:
What kind of measurements we collect (collection usage statistics, reference statistics by type, links usage statistics for both subscription and free Internet resources, online subject bibliographies, comprehensive faculty survey, student survey and a new faculty survey
What we have done based on what we learned from these assessment (journal cancellations, adding live digital reference services, better way to publicize new online resources, analysis of our faculty liaison activities, user instruction program )
What tools we use to collect statistics (MySQL & PHP, web survey)
2:50-3:40 Collecting Information via the Web
Speakers: Mike Roy, Director of Academic Computing Services, Wesleyan University
Steven Porter, Director of Institutional Research, Wesleyan University.
For presentations, click here.
More and more, people are turning to the Internet to collect information, whether it be simple statistics or complex surveys. The first part of the presentation compares the relative merits of four relatively simple software packages that can be used to collect information via the web: Frontpage, Blackboard, WebCT and Evite. These can be used for a variety of data collection activities, including conducting usage or opinion surveys.
The second part of the presentation will talk about the pros and cons of conducting a survey on the web, with some how-to advice.
3:40-4:00 Q &A
4:00 End
Speaker:
Steven Bischof, Rachel Cheng, Colleen Cook, Denise Troll Covey, Eileen Hitchingham, Stephen Porter, Michael Roy
Steven Bischof: Steven is Resources Assessment & Science Librarian at Wesleyan University and has been at Wesleyan since 2000. Previously he has held positions at Connecticut College and as head of data processing at a private oceanography firm.
Rachel Cheng: Rachel is Associate University Librarian at Wesleyan University Library. In addition to identifying and implementing information technology to facilitate better library services, she is responsible for all aspects of the public services, faculty liaison program, and the branch libraries.
Some of the interesting projects she worked on at Wesleyan University Library:
Wrote and received a $245,000 grant to initiate a two-year pilot program testing 24/7 real-time interactive reference services for a group liberal arts colleges, May 2001
Created an infrastructure to actively collect information and usage statistics to help shape the library’s long and short-term services plan.
Conducted the comprehensive faculty and student survey to establish a base line library usage pattern, 1998-1999.
Using KETexpress, planned and implemented Web based full-text databases for CTW Library Consortium, e.g. Oxford English Dictionary, English Poetry and BooksInPrint, 1997
Colleen Cook: Colleen is Executive Associate Dean of the Texas A&M University Libraries, a position she has held since 1994. She oversaw the administration of the SERVQUAL protocol to the University library community in 1995, 1997, and 1999, which led to her current role as a Project Manager for the ARL LibQUAL+TM project. She also holds the Wright Professorship in Library Science at the University. During her 20-year tenure on the faculty at Texas A&M University Libraries, she has served as Associate Dean for Administration, Assistant Director for Technical Services, Head of Acquisitions, Library Automation Coordinator, and Head of Access Services. She has published journal articles and book chapters and made numerous presentations in the fields of library science, history, and research methodology. She specializes in qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
Denise Troll Covey: Denise is Associate University Librarian of Arts, Archives, and Technology at Carnegie Mellon. In 2000-2001 she was also a Distinguished Fellow in the Digital Library Federation, leading the initiative on usage, usability, and user support. Her professional work focuses on research and development of digital library collections, services, and software; and assessment practices, copyright permissions, and change management as these relate to digital libraries. Covey has academic degrees in theology, philosophy, and rhetoric. Her graduate work emphasized the history of information storage and retrieval, particularly how technology and ideology interacted to define and control the dissemination of literacy.
Eileen Hitchingham: Eileen has been Dean of University Libraries at Virginia Tech since 1995. Her previous experiences include serving as Dean of the Library and faculty member of the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University, as Dean of Libraries at the University of Idaho, holding positions in systems, reference and instruction at Oakland University, and early work with the MEDLINE system as an analyst at Harvard's Countway Library of Medicine. She has a BS in Chemistry, earned her MSLS as an SLA scholar at Western Michigan University, and holds a Ph.D in educational evaluation and research from Wayne State. Hitchingham's presentations and publications emphasize issues associated with determining how library users interact with information systems to guide change in libraries.
Stephen Porter: Stephen is Director of Institutional Research at Wesleyan UniversiHe has published journal articles, presented conference papers, and taught workshops in many areas of higher education research, and is co-editor of the forthcoming volumes of New Directions in Institutional Research entitled Emerging Issues in Survey Research, which deals with various aspects of administering and analyzing surveys, with a focus on electronic surveys.
Michael Roy: Michael is Director of Academic Computing Services at Wesleyan University.
Related Media Files:
Hitchingham.ppt
covey.ppt
bischof.ppt
surveys.ppt
surveytools.ppt
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