LISU Annual Library Statistics 2004: Featuring Trend Analysis of UK Public and Academic Libraries 1993‐2003

Citation

Ole Pors, N. (2005), "LISU Annual Library Statistics 2004: Featuring Trend Analysis of UK Public and Academic Libraries 1993‐2003", New Library World, Vol. 106 No. 9/10, pp. 471-472. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800510623155

Each year LISU publishes a book about statistics on library issues in the United Kingdom. The book also includes a trend analysis of the development for the last 10 years. The book is stuffed with tables and charts or figures together with informed, and sometimes thought‐provoking, comments.

The book contains statistics on both public and academic libraries. This review will concentrate on public libraries.

For every section there is an introduction containing a written analysis of the main trends and some methodological advices or warnings about how far you can interpret the tables and charts in the section. These sections also include valuable information about the design of the data collection. Another interesting feature is that many of the numbers for public libraries are ratio numbers with per capita as the bottom line. The coverage of topics in the book is impressive. There is information about economy, stock and staff, lending and acquisition and much more.

It seems that we witness a kind of turning point for the financing of public libraries because they appear to have received an average increase in expenditure of more than 8 percent. Unfortunately, the increase in expenditure is not on the core services apart from the audio‐visual materials.

As in many other countries, the statistics indicate a changing behaviour among users of the public libraries. Issues of books and other printed materials continue to decrease. The number of visits to the public libraries increases. This indicated that lending and traditional information seeking declines in importance while activities such as using the internet becomes more and more important. In the introduction, the editors are rather optimistic. I think it is fair to say that we do see the public libraries at some kind of a turning point but it is also important to note that the average user of the public libraries has become older and that it is still a very important issue to consider the market penetration.

One of the statistics I find extremely interesting is the case of inter‐library loans. It is amazing how small the numbers really are. To put the amount of interlibrary loans in perspective, it is interesting to compare it with the Danish situation. The actual number of the inter‐library loans in the public libraries in Denmark amount to nearly 2 million, which is six or seven times the number for the whole UK public library system. I think one can draw two conclusions from that. One is, of course, that the UK local collection policy is much more effective in UK concerning meeting demands. The second conclusion is that the inter‐library loan system in UK has deficiencies concerning marketing, cooperation and seamless conditions for the users.

I feel that one statistics is missing from the book. It is the calculation of the number of renewals as a proportion of loans. Another statistic that must come into the annual review in the coming years is concerned with digital services like downloads, web page visits and the like.

As all good statistics, this collection of numbers and comments raise interesting and pertinent questions. It is, of course, good to see that the users have a rather high satisfaction rate in relation to the public library system. The problem is that the statistics indicate that there simply are fewer of them.

This year, there is a very interesting section included in the statistics which is a report on the BBC's Big Read Campaign and how the marketing of a selected number of books influence both lending and sales. It is really material for the imaginative public librarian wanting to work with outreach to the public.

The book also contain sections on academic libraries, special libraries, national libraries and important miscellaneous statistics such as price indexes, exchange rates, number of book titles published and interesting lists of titles of the most borrowed books.

Most of the statistics in these sections only gives meaning by taking into account the drastic rise in the number of FTE students during the last 10 years. To a certain degree, the rises in student numbers are followed by a rise in the number of library staff. Of special interest is how electronic resources play a more and more important role in the library picture. There are differences between the different types of educational institutions, but it is evident that a substantial part of the material budget is used for digital resources. It is also obvious that most of the HE libraries have invested heavily in workstations for the students. There are statistics that would have been nice to have concerning the HE libraries. One is the use of electronic resources counted as the number of downloads. As the statistics now stand, it is difficult to see the relationship between printed and digital materials. I would also have liked to see statistics for the amount of information literacy teaching carried out in the HE libraries.

One of the many good things about this publication is the inclusion of relevant statistics about the book market, economic indicators and prices for serials.

Overall, it is a very stimulating publication. In particular the introductory comments made by the editors for each chapter give a very good presentation of the area under scrutiny. It ought to be bedtime reading for all librarians wanting to contemplate the situation and possible remedies for it.