IMLS- Growing Young Minds June 19, 2013
- Blog: Student-Designed Apps Address Real University Research Needs June 19, 2013
- Inaugural Class of National Digital Stewardship Residents Selected June 19, 2013
- MEDIA ADVISORY: Report Highlights Roles of Libraries and Museums in School Success June 17, 2013
- Blog: Pilot Project Serves Free Summer Lunch to Kids in Libraries June 17, 2013
- Blog: AAHC Forum: Collections Management Initiatives: Big Things Are Happening at the Harvey B. Gantt Center June 13, 2013
Category Archives: Statistics
Bad Arrangements To Place Before School Children
To begin this episode I want to introduce you to a couple of historical ideas on best practices in graphical data presentation—or using the more modern term, data visualization. (The peculiar title I’ve chosen comes from this history. Read on … Continue reading
Data Detour
Nowadays libraries aspire to be data-driven. Almost everyone agrees that collecting and using data to improve organizational performance is a good thing. Implied in the various regimens promoting this idea (library assessment, managing-for-results, evidence-based practice, quality management, etc.) is the … Continue reading
Posted in Advocacy, Measurement, Numeracy, Probability, Statistics
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Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful!
The graphic below is a variant of one I blogged about in my prior entry. Its designers added a storm to create what might be called an inclement tug-of-war. This version of the graphic is from the Libraries Connect Communities: … Continue reading
Posted in Advocacy, Measurement, Statistics
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Honest-to-Goodness Transformation
A while back, in his 21st Century Library Blog Steve Matthews commented on some data appearing in a report entitled The Library in the City published by the PEW Charitable Trusts Philadelphia Research Initiative. Dr. Matthews was puzzled by an … Continue reading
Posted in Data vizualization, Measurement, Statistics
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Fun With Numbers
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. … Continue reading
Posted in Data vizualization, Measurement, Statistics
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Data Are Not Psychic
It’s great to see other librarians advocating for the same causes I harp on in this blog. I’m referring to Sarah Robbins, Debra Engel, and Christina Kulp of the University of Oklahoma, whose article appears in the current issue of … Continue reading
How Do You Know That?
I borrowed the title for this entry from a 2009 study of student research practices by Randall McClure and Kellian Clink. Their study is cited in an article in the current issue of College & Research Libraries that Joe Matthews … Continue reading
Smaller is Beautifuler
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Library assessment, Measurement, Statistics
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Fickle Users of Figures
The field of program evaluation has grappled with the political context of institutional performance measurement for decades. For libraries and universities, though, the politics of accountability is newer terrain. In some instances these organizations have unwittingly enrolled in a crash … Continue reading
The U Word
This week Chase Bank sent an email to its customers saying that one of their vendor’s computer systems were hacked. The bank stated that they: …are confident that the information that was retrieved [i.e., stolen] included some Chase customer e-mail … Continue reading
