Declining reference statistics, diminishing human resources, and the desire to be more proactive and embedded in academic departments, prompted the University of South Florida Library to create a taskforce for re-envisioning reference services. The taskforce was charged with examining the staffing patterns at the desk and developing…

The potential of librarians working in e-science, a term for using the Internet and other digital tools to facilitate scientific data collection, management, and sharing, has been the cause of much discussion. Many professionals agree that librarians could participate in or facilitate e-science tasks. This article explores what e-science…

The third Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) conference gathered at Georgia Institute of Technology's Global Learning and Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia, March 18-21, 2008. Over 360 attendees, from six countries and from 80% of the United States, represented their libraries and organizations resulting in a diverse and…

It has been a decade since the first aggregator journal packages began to become available at academic and public libraries throughout the United States of America. During these 10 years, the library and information science community has published numerous articles on the pros and cons of this method of delivery and these collections, more than…

Based on the concept that library use measurement should have as its basic starting point the individual patron, a method of data collection and analysis has been developed that explores individual patterns of borrowing over time. The method accounts for the number of visits on which borrowing takes place, number of items borrowed per visit, and…

Libraries and information agencies depend heavily on statistics to describe their services, evaluate their activities, and measure their performance. In the data gathering on which statistical analysis depends, there are always assumptions and uncontrolled variables that interfere with the purity and objectivity of the data, and therefore…

This book provides a format for taking information traditionally collected by library media specialists and showing how it can be used to examine existing programs or to document the need for a program change. Field-tested in several school districts, this new tool includes all the necessary forms and worksheets school media specialists will need…

This manual has been designed as a practical guide to quantifying and measuring the results, or outputs, of public library service to children. The basic output measures presented are tailored to reflect library services to children (defined as persons 14 years old and younger) and their care givers. Six categories of measures are presented: (1)…

The use of numeric data has historical significance in the research of many academic disciplines, but today it is burgeoning. Responses from academic business librarians to a 33-item questionnaire are the basis for this study that investigates the interactions between academic business libraries and other local units supplying numeric data…

As resources become more constrained in the library community, many organizations are finding that they need to have a better understanding of their costs. To this end, this article will present one approach to conducting a cost analysis (including questions to ask yourself, project team makeup, organizational support, and data organization). We…

This manual is intended to help people working in local libraries collect and report statistics about what they do and complete the Texas State Library annual report form. Texas uses the annual reports to determine whether local libraries are eligible for membership in the Texas library system. Definitions and explanations are given for…

Discusses agency library information activities, production and dissemination, and resource access as presented at the first conference of state and provincial fish and game agency librarians. Agencies represented include the Fish and Wildlife Reference Service, Aquaculture, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management,…

Reports findings of a Statistics Task Force investigation at New York University's Bobst Library, which reviewed the collection and publication of statistics and data related to library reference and information services and use of resources, and developed a framework for inclusions, definitions, procedures, and policies for data collection and…

The incorporation of technology into library processes has tremendously impacted staff and users alike. The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries is no exception. Sixteen years of reference statistics are analyzed to examine the relationships between the implementation of CD-ROMs and web-based resources and the number of reference questions.…

This document is a manual designed to improve library services to young adults. Information is divided into three parts: (1) "Applying the Planning and Role Setting Process to Library Services for Young Adults"; (2) "Evaluating the Results: The Measurement Process"; and (3) "The Output Measures." Part 1 discusses the Public Library Association…