Measuring for Results: The Dimensions of Public Library Effectiveness

Citation

Massis, B.E. (2005), "Measuring for Results: The Dimensions of Public Library Effectiveness", Library Management, Vol. 26 No. 6/7, pp. 415-416. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120410609824

Joseph R. Matthews is president of Matthews and Associates, a consulting company in Carlsbad, California, and the author of The Bottom Line: Determining and Communicating the Value of the Special Library and co‐author of Library Information Systems: From Library Automation to Distributed Information Access Solutions. In this volume, he closely examines the strategies of how best to determine the value of public library services.

Mr Matthews posits that it is vitally important to measure the effectiveness of public library services “from the perspective of the user”, not from the historic elements of usage measurement such as circulations statistics, head‐counts, number of reference questions, size of collections, etc. Indeed, public libraries have long been in an environment of increased justification for the expenditure of public funds. Even though, as Mr Matthews agrees, greater than three‐quarters of public library bond issues for either building expansion projects or new building projects are regularly passed by voters, this increased involvement by the public inevitably garners increased call for justification of library expenditures, thus forcing the libraries into the model of more accurate library expenditures. The question that this book presents, however, is, what are the most effective tools to accomplish these measurement activities?

Mr Matthews offers a number of valuable distinctions between the processes necessary to effect the successful management of measurement data. For example, his definitions of “input measures (how much and how many?)”, “process measures (are we doing things right?)”, and “output measures (how frequently the library or a specific service is used)” are clear and understandable. Likewise, the characteristics of “performance measures (something that can be measured directly, for example, a count of circulation checkouts)” and “performance indicators (defined as something that must be calculated, such as circulation per capita)” should serve to clarify such data elements for readers unfamiliar with these distinctions.

Throughout the book, Mr Matthews provides many graphical interpretations of these measures, thus offering further enlightenment on the issues. He cautions those whose task it is to perform this analysis to appreciate when and when not to employ certain measurement strategies. Often, however, it is of almost more effective to know when not to employ a certain measurement strategy that it is to use one. For example, understanding the how the diversity of a community often defines library service, may impact on the results of any “satisfaction” survey. Also, it is incumbent on the survey administrator to know when to employ a telephone interview, or a face‐to‐face interview when measuring data in order to recognize that results may vary from that collected in self‐administered surveys.

This book also references a startling array of academic measurement studies (Kano, Saracevic and Kantor, McClure and Bertot) and offers the strategies and results of those studies. Understanding these studies will prove very beneficial to the reader.

Many public library directors have sought to widen public awareness, public support and increased library funding through discussions within their own municipalities on the social benefits of their libraries and their real, rather than their perceived place, in America's communities. While a number of these elements may appear ephemeral and impossible to measure (such as “increased quality of life, community building, improved personal development”), others offer hard data on numbers of unattended children cared for after school in the library, the library as community center, and access to a safe, secure, clean, well‐lighted public space in order to support their claims to being more than just a place to check out books and audio visual materials. Mr Matthews expands the discussion of this issue and explains the many social impact of the public library in the community, writing that the public library offers, “A strong emotional appeal for library professionals and for library stakeholders”.

In his final chapter, on “Cost‐benefit analysis”, Mr Matthews offers a number of excellent examples of large library systems that have undergone comprehensive programs of data collection for the purpose of providing a “return on investment (ROI)” report for public consumption. Two major studies are highlighted in this section (San Diego Public Library and Miami‐Dade Public Library System.) Both systems calculated their ROI and produced a report indicating a greater than 6:1 cost‐benefit ratio to their users. This is a fine example of how the proper use of a measurement tool can produce an extremely beneficial study that can be used for justification of expenditures in public libraries.

Overall, this is a very valuable book in its efforts at having collected and disseminated the various data measurement tools and presenting them is a clear, concise and readily understandable manner. The book is recommended to public library directors in need of knowledge on which particular measurement tool is most appropriate for their library in order to collect information to justify library expenditures in a sometimes‐embattled funding environment.