A recent article in AL Direct entitled The Smartest Readers presents some simple library rankings based on that stalwart library measure, circulation per capita. Rankings like these are, at least to me, a reminder of a perennial conundrum concerning the meaning of per capita library measures. For more than a century librarianship has puzzled over [...]
Archive for the ‘Library assessment’ Category
Smaller is Beautifuler
Posted in Library assessment, Measurement, Statistics on June 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Discussing Accuracy
Posted in Advocacy, Library assessment, Measurement, Research, Statistics on January 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Now that I am no longer distracted by the subject of last week’s entry I can get to the intended topic for my first 2011 blog entry. I should say, though, that I won’t be turning over any kind of new leaf for the new year. For now I’m sticking with the theme I’ve dwelt [...]
A Hard Row to Hoe
Posted in Library assessment, Measurement, Research on November 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
During the question-and-answer part of a presentation I gave at the 2010 Library Assessment Conference in Baltimore last week, I couldn’t resist editorializing about how bad convenience sampling is. One audience member spoke up, saying she felt convenience samples are legitimate as long as findings are interpreted as describing only the respondents, themselves. Later on [...]
Navigating with Fragmentary Information
Posted in Advocacy, Library assessment, Measurement, Research, tagged anecdotal data, convenience sample, generalizability of findings, sampling, statistical charts on February 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I have implied this in other entries in this blog, but I might as well say it outright: The library and information science profession needs to come to terms with the issue of standards for (i.e., rules of) evidence for performance, statistical, and advocacy research data. There, now I’ve said it. I recently read the [...]
Sawing with a Dull Saw
Posted in Advocacy, Library assessment, Measurement, Statistics, tagged history of public libraries, performance measurement, public library statistics on January 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
In spite of their evolution over the last few decades, accelerated most recently due to the Googlization of information, public libraries have been amazingly impervious to change in the arena of performance measurement. I found the following observations about library measures in the early history of American libraries: There is no branch of library economy [...]
Thoroughly Modern Museums and Libraries
Posted in Library assessment, Measurement, Research on August 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I think I get it now. I had thought the term assessment meant a systematic and appropriately rigorous measurement of a construct or phenomenon of interest, like program outcomes, community needs, service quality, and so on. Only now have I come to understand that a self-assessment is a different animal altogether. Who would have thought [...]
Cha-Ching!
Posted in Library assessment, Measurement, Research on August 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I noticed that yet another library value calculator has appeared on the scene. This one is offered by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) with the very best of intentions, I am sure. But, let me say that I am convinced that these calculators are a bad idea. Their underlying assumptions are weak [...]
Library Assessment 101
Posted in Library assessment, tagged evaluation, learning organization, management decision-making, objectivity, program improvement, self-evaluation on May 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I want to communicate what I believe is the single most useful message about library assessment. This is not an announcement of a new data analytic technique or some all-purpose library value calculator. Nor is it advice on the importance of aligning work and measurement with vision and strategy, recognizing the political pitfalls of evaluation, or [...]
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IMLS- Blog Post: You just never know who’s going to drop by the IMLS booth in the exhibit hall! February 10, 2012
- IMLS to Hold Briefing on FY13 Budget Request February 8, 2012
- State Library Agencies Continue to Provide Valuable Services Despite Severe Cuts in Funding and Staff February 6, 2012
- Blog Post: IMLS on YouTube: National Aquarium Teaches with Watershed Moments February 3, 2012
- Application Deadline Extended: National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards February 1, 2012
- February 2012: Tubman African American Museum Takes Exhibits Beyond Museum Walls February 1, 2012
