Library Data: Empowering Practice and Persuasion

Citation

Calvert, P. (2010), "Library Data: Empowering Practice and Persuasion", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 5, pp. 758-760. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011082059

The topic of this book is the practice of using library‐generated data and relevant externally created data for the better management of the library. That library managers need to use data more frequently and more effectively is almost certainly true in the great majority of cases. Why most library managers do not use readily available data, or data that is fairly easily extracted from their own library's systems, remains less obvious but could have something to do with a reluctance to engage with the numeracy that underpins data‐driven practice. This book attempts to show how much can be achieved by using library data, and that in most cases it is not as difficult as some managers might believe.

There are six different sections in this book. The first is called “Approaching data” and it has three chapters that mostly focus on the presentation of data in order to “persuade” key stakeholder groups. The book does not contain an introduction by the Editor, which seems a strange omission, but the first chapter by Zoellner performs that task to some extent. The second section has two chapters on using data in the evaluation of book collections, while the third section (four chapters) focuses on serials and electronic resources management. The fourth section has three chapters on reference and library instruction. The fifth section has three chapters, one compares libraries to businesses in how they use data, one looks at interlibrary loan research, and the third examines the notion of “investing” capital in electronic resources. The sixth and final section has chapters on data for repositories, measuring the use of library web pages, and finally the use of data in Nigerian university libraries.

There are some very good chapters in this volume. My own favourite, written by Melissa Johnson, has the arcane title of “How library homepage vocabulary influences database usage: use of vendor‐provided usage data for homepage design”. It is the report of a relatively simple experiment conducted by staff of the Brown Library of Abilene Christian University (USA) that investigated how to increase usage of electronic databases. The library wanted to make changes to its web site to attract more usage, and the best data it had to hand to see if the changes worked was the data provided by the database vendors. The conclusion was:

[…] vendor‐provided usage data can be limiting in its scope and purpose, but when this data is easily accessible and available, knowing how to use it can be advantageous in making Web site design decisions (p. 279).

It is a lesson that could apply to most chapters in this book: the data are easily accessible in most cases, it is only a matter of knowing how best to use it. Another good chapter is “If the library were a business, would it be profitable?: how businesses go beyond numbers” by Michael Crumpton. This is rather an unusual find in this book because Crumpton first shows how business and libraries both look at how products and services provide four kinds of economic utility for their customers: time, place, form, and possession, and data is very useful for proving how well the utility is provided for each element. But he then goes on to show how qualitative data is just as important as the quantitative, and this is what the statistics do not provide, and in that area library managers might feel more confident (and perhaps feel justified in giving less emphasis to the hard data).

It is a good book that will find a place on my shelves, but I am not sure who else will buy it. If library managers are timid when faced with data, will they purchase this book, or even read it? Some chapters will be good for library education (I have picked out a few already) and so libraries that support library studies collections should have a copy of this book.