After so much stuff about evaluation theory and practice in this blog, it’s time for some fun! And what better fun is there than fun with numbers?1

Let’s begin our diversion with a graph from my prior post shown here. Looking closely, notice how some of the gold circles lie in neat, parallel bands. These bands

Click for larger image. Rest cursor over any circle in larger image to see individual library data. Data Source: IMLS 2009 Public Libraries Datafiles.

are more obvious in next two charts, which ‘zoom in’ on the data by decreasing the vertical axes value ranges. When I first saw this pattern, I suspected that something had corrupted the data. Double-checking, I found the data were fine, or at least they were true to the values in the original IMLS datafile. So, I decided to resort to that popular and trusty problem-solving technique . . .    [Read more]

 
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1  No, this is not an April Fool’s joke. I propose this fun in all seriousness!