tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50555260055357570702024-03-13T01:08:29.704-05:00Being and LibrarianshipThis blog has been superseded by Libraries Are For Use at librariesareforuse.wordpress.com .Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-37408218322992226492013-11-02T18:54:00.003-05:002013-11-02T18:54:53.355-05:00Comments on two posts from Library Babel FishI like reading Barbara Fister's blog, Library Babel Fish. I posted thoughts about two recent items on my new blog, <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Libraries are for Use</a>: the first is on <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/open-access-tenure-and-the-common-good-inside-higher-ed/" target="_blank">OA & tenure</a>, and the other is on the <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/a-confession-of-faith-in-books-inside-higher-ed/" target="_blank">role of books</a> in academia.<br />
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Check it out...Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-45416425669094321162013-10-04T23:09:00.001-05:002013-10-04T23:09:19.866-05:00Reminder - Follow me on WordPress - Libraries are For UseJust a friendly reminder to follow me on my new WordPress blog, <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Libraries Are For Use</a>.<br />
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Here's what you may have missed:<br />
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<li><a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/commodity-or-special-collections/" target="_blank">Commodity- or Special Collections?</a> A discussion of Rick Anderson's proposal for libraries.</li>
<li>Item in the <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/judging-a-library-by-its-circulation/" target="_blank">San Diego press </a>that most books at the SD Public Library don't circulate (really?)</li>
<li>A <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/200-years-later-george-washington-gets-a-presidential-library/" target="_blank">presidential library</a> (of sorts) for our first president.</li>
<li>Several Scoops, including from Stephen's Lighthouse, Allentown newspaper, and Barbara Fister's Library Babel Fish.</li>
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I appreciate all who "listen" to me and my thoughts. Please continue to follow me at my new home. You can follow via WordPress, <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/feed/" target="_blank">RSS feeds</a>, or email.</div>
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Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-49499677896546377102013-08-17T14:38:00.000-05:002013-08-17T14:38:18.419-05:00You win some, you loose some...As I'm finishing my transition from Blogger (a Google product) to WordPress.com (NOT self-hosted WordPress.org), I'm encountering issues I did not expect. <br />
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One is...the usage stats are still higher for Blogger than for WordPress. Why is that? Could be because what few readers I have still subscribe to the Blogger feeds. Woops! I just realized that the RSS buttons are not appearing on the home page of my new site! Well, this has been fixed. But, if you subscribe to both - great! But if you haven't subscribed to my Libraries are for Use site on WordPress.com, please do so now...here's the link: <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/feed/">http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/feed/</a> .<br />
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I noticed that WordPress shows I have 33 Followers...it took me a while to look into that - turns out 32 are via my (now professional) Facebook. I'm not sure that really qualifies - I mean, just because I thrust my postings on my Facebook friends doesn't mean they really follow. But it is nice when folks mention something that was posted.<br />
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And what about my <a href="http://www.blogger.com/manage-followers.g?blogID=5055526005535757070" target="_blank">Google Followers</a>? I thank you for adding me to your Google+ profiles. It's interesting to see who has shown interest in my ideas. But Google pulled its app for displaying Google Friends Connect widget for WordPress.com sites (although there is one for the self-hosted WordPress.org sites). I'm not ready to go self-hosted yet - so I ask my Google+ Followers to, well, follow me to WordPress. There is a Google+ share button on my posts, though. <br />
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Finally, I don't know what to do with the postings on this Blogger site. Some of the pages are still getting hits - particularly the Ranganathan pages. But replacing my content with re-directs would be both time-consuming and disruptive to the Google search chain. For now, I've added a note with the URL in the header of the blog. I'll check into additional moves later.<br />
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I'm not regretting my decision to move - I really do like the template, and I'm hopeful that the WP connection will enable my blog to grow. Any other ideas?<br />
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Thanks for listening.Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-66633695976962281172013-08-10T08:36:00.004-05:002013-08-10T08:36:42.698-05:00The Long-Tail in Libraries<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
Cross-posted from my new blog, <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Libraries are for Use</a>....</div>
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I know, I know...the Long-Tail is not exactly a new concept. It's been a buzz-word since <a data-mce-href="http://bit.ly/17y6lDy" href="http://bit.ly/17y6lDy" style="color: #3c2bb6;" target="_blank" title="The Long Tail by Chris Anderson">Chris Anderson's article in Wired</a> in 2004 (I remember that article). Indeed, it is merely an extension of power-laws that have been known for centuries. Even librarians have been familiar with these distributions for decades, looking at all those circulation and journal use studies.</div>
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This article, however, is pretty intriguing because it extends that concept a little farther than I had seen before (request through ILL if you don't have access):</div>
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Petros A. Kostagiolas, Nikolaos Korfiatis, Marios Poulos<br />A long-tail inspired measure to assess resource use in information services<br /><em>Library & Information Science Research</em>, Volume 34, Issue 4, October 2012, Pages 317–323<br /><a data-mce-href="http://bit.ly/1cKAl4G" href="http://bit.ly/1cKAl4G" style="color: #3c2bb6;" target="_blank" title="A long-tail inspired measure to assess resource use in information services">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2012.05.002</a></blockquote>
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What is most interesting is how the authors applied measures of income disparities between countries to disparities of book usage. I had learned about these "macroeconometric" measures, the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient, in my readings of <em><a data-mce-href="http://econ.st/15Ng7pA" href="http://econ.st/15Ng7pA" style="color: #3c2bb6;" target="_blank" title="Article on well-being and wealth in The Economist">The Economist</a></em>, so I was quite intrigued by this application.</div>
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So, I've been reviewing the application of "long-tail" distributions in library & information science, reading these articles to get back up to speed:</div>
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<li><a data-mce-href="http://bit.ly/18bbtzq" href="http://bit.ly/18bbtzq" style="color: #3c2bb6;" target="_blank" title="The Long Tail (book)">The Long Tail</a> (book by Anderson)</li>
<li><a data-mce-href="http://bit.ly/1cKBqtb" href="http://bit.ly/1cKBqtb" style="color: #3c2bb6;" target="_blank" title="Libraries & the Long Tail (D-Lib)">Libraries and the Long Tail: Some Thoughts about Libraries in a Network Age</a> (D-Lib article by Lorcan Dempsey, 2006)</li>
<li><a data-mce-href="http://bit.ly/13H3oTu" href="http://bit.ly/13H3oTu" style="color: #3c2bb6;" target="_blank" title="The Long Tail, Copyright & Libraries">The Long Tail, Copyright and Libraries</a> (article in LIBER Quarterly by Julian Van Borm, 2009)</li>
<li>More, much more...</li>
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The problem that I see with applying the long-tail concept to book circulation is that books are physical items, although Netflix DVDs are often included in long-tail discussions. But libraries have not yet successfully implemented a delivery model that rivals Netflix's. I would, however, like to look more carefully at applying these models and concepts to journal usage, particularly given the growth of discovery systems. Has the long tail extended? Anderson started his inquiry into long-tail distributions when he was told that 98% of all songs available by a particular "digital jukebox" provider were accessed at least once a quarter. <strong>98%!</strong> Book circulation studies have shown much, much shorter tails - the best I've seen was 50% of titles circulated at least once in <em>5 years</em>. Can discovery systems lengthen this tail? Even better, can it "thicken" the tail (getting more usage of our articles)?</div>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-91354557083881623732013-07-20T22:31:00.000-05:002013-07-20T22:31:08.451-05:00Time for a little dissent<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
A series of blog postings on blogging in librarianship have rattled the library blog-world. Andy Woodworth started it with his rant (used with the best of intentions) on his own blog, Agnostic Maybe. In <a data-mce-href="https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/waiting-for-batgirl/" href="https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/waiting-for-batgirl/" target="_blank" title="Waiting for Batgirl">Waiting for Batgirl</a> (am I the only one who saw the reference to <em>Waiting for Guffman</em>?), Andy skewers library blog writers, and even librarianship as a whole profession, as "mostly been either puppies-and-rainbows positive or uncontroversial benign kinds of things." When referring to the difficulty in expressing discontent, he writes:</div>
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Public dissent is considered gauche in a profession that proudly supports the societal provocateurs, miscreants, and iconoclasts but wants to keep discontent in-house. I could easily write a thousand entries about helping people on a daily basis, but the whole library façade will collapse and burn if I was write about my frustrations regarding a policy, decision, or the work environment.</blockquote>
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I must admit that I was a bit bewildered at Andy's own bewilderment - at the predominance of "banal" topics that top the library blog-charts, at the "energy" spent pointlessly rebutting that which "people stroke themselves into a self-righteous lather over," and the hypocrisy of the ALA hailing Edward Snowden as a "whistleblower" (the analogy provided in the comments by Shalom is spot-on). Why is this such breaking news? Are there other professions that are notably better? Isn't this just being human?</div>
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OK, I did relate to his comments about waiting - for the right time, the right place, the right people - to tackle problems that stir the passion in me. Is this just being pragmatic? Or is that a cop-out?</div>
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All of the comments to his post were supportive - interestingly, nobody reproached him, nor provided any rebuttal to his ravings made with very colorful language. Indeed, it seems almost hypocritical not to be expecting any negative or at least critical (in the highest sense) response.</div>
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In this vein, Chris Bourg posed the question, <a data-mce-href="http://taiga-forum.org/does-the-library-world-squash-public-dissent/" href="http://taiga-forum.org/does-the-library-world-squash-public-dissent/" target="_blank" title="Does the Library World Squash Dissent">Does the Library World Squash Dissent?</a> on the Taiga Forum. He genuinely asks (not rhetorically, he stresses) -</div>
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(H)ow can we as leaders encourage healthy, honest, public conversations about our profession — the good, the bad, and the ugly? And where exactly is the line between unprofessional trash-talking and healthy, thoughtful critical dissent? Those of you who are afraid to speak out, what would have to change for you to feel safe making your thoughts known? And how do issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and other dimensions of difference and power play into this?</blockquote>
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Regarding the idea that librarianship may not be different from other professions, Chris retorts that "librarians SHOULD be different. We have stated values of Diversity, Democracy, and Intellectual Freedom — we ought to be a radically open profession. One that celebrates dissent, and that recognizes that there is tremendous power in disagreements."</div>
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Not surprisingly, the Library Loon offered her own answers to Chris' questions. In <a data-mce-href="http://gavialib.com/2013/07/silencing-librarianship-and-gender-a-preface/" href="http://gavialib.com/2013/07/silencing-librarianship-and-gender-a-preface/" target="_blank" title="Silencing, librarianship & gender: a preface">Silencing, Librarianship & Gender: A Preface</a>, the Loon delivers her answer in her characteristic third-person, confirming the charges Andy made regarding reprisals and recriminations for speaking out. When asked how to encourage "healthy, honest, public conversations about our profession", the Loon commands to "not discourage or punish the open expression of anger or frustration, especially while it is still small and remediable. "</div>
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The Library Loon then refers to her own numerous writings on silencing dissent, which makes me wonder if the situation is like the weather - everybody complains, but nobody is <em>doing</em> anything about it. I, like you, had followed the travails of <a data-mce-href="http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=1765" href="http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=1765" target="_blank" title="Walking away from ACS">Jenica Rogers' open rejection of ACS</a> and the ensuing discussion that devolved into name-calling and not-so-vailed sexism. True, the focus was deflected (and rather effectively, I might add) from the issue at hand - notably extraordinary price increases for resources "required" for accreditation by the same body that publishes them (note eyebrow raised) -- to "professional behavior" (how many envisioned the ACS spokesperson as a caricature of a 1930's Lionel Barrymore sniffing at Audrey Hepburn?).</div>
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So, after all have added their comments (and Tweets) to all of the blog postings that Andy's post has spawned (including this one), will we be better off? Or will this be another rant in the wind?</div>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-69236306871451719222013-07-20T20:25:00.002-05:002013-07-20T20:25:29.219-05:00The Performance-based Funding Model: Creating New Research Databases in Sweden and Norway<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
<a data-mce-href="http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue71/eriksson" href="http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue71/eriksson">The Performance-based Funding Model: Creating New Research Databases in Sweden and Norway | Ariadne: Web Magazine for Information Professionals</a>.</div>
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This article made me wonder about our own institution's impact on research, and notably, how the library could help its members increase their impact. One of my original 5-year goals was to establish a "Research Impact Measures Service" - a la <a data-mce-href="http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/servicesfor/academic/rims.html" href="http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/servicesfor/academic/rims.html" target="_blank" title="RIMS Service - UNSW">University of New South Wales</a> in Australia. This service would not only assist the researchers in their own performances, but also for departments and even university-wide. I still keep this idea in the back of my mind...and it comes forward when reading articles such as this.</div>
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This article refers to national efforts to develop quantitative measures of impact as one (sometimes the primary) decision factor in disseminating funding. There are, of course, many opinions on the validity and value of such methods. It does tend to reward success, but, like pure capitalism, this can lead to greater differences between the "haves" and the "have-nots". It can also stifle innovation by essentially betting on sure things. Many breakthroughs start with research that has high risks of failure.</div>
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But it <em>did</em> get me thinking about comparing my university's output with others. A cursory look at data from Web of Knowledge (a resource with documented limitations) demonstrates that the university's impact has been limited.</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mceItemTable" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: default; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; width: 849px;"><colgroup><col width="102"></col><col width="79"></col><col width="63"></col><col width="87"></col><col width="72"></col><col width="81"></col><col width="75"></col><col width="79"></col><col width="64"></col><col width="70"></col><col width="77"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr><td height="40" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102">2000-Current</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79"># Articles</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63">Articles Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87"># Citations</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72">Citations Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81"># Citing Articles</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75">Citing Articles Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">Avg Cites</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64">Avg Cites Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70">h-index</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77">h-Index Ratio</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102">UNT</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">8629</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87">64273</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81">48373</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">8.28</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70">86</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77">1.00</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102">UT Dallas</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">8367</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63">0.97</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87">106873</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72">1.66</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81">78644</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75">1.63</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">13.9</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64">1.68</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70">112</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77">1.30</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102">UT Arlington</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">9972</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63">1.16</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87">92587</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72">1.44</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81">68423</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75">1.41</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">10.52</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64">1.27</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70">97</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77">1.13</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102">UT San Antonio</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">5664</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63">0.66</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87">36593</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72">0.57</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81">31200</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75">0.64</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">7.3</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64">0.88</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70">66</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77">0.77</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70"> </td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77"> </td></tr>
<tr><td height="41" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="102">2008-2012</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79"># Articles</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="63">Articles Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="87"># Citations</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="72">Citations Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="81"># Citing Articles</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="75">Citing Articles Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="79">Avg Cites</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="64">Avg Cites Ratio</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="70">h-index</td><td style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;" width="77">h-Index Ratio</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">UNT</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">3992</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">15898</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">12448</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">4.45</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.00</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">42</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.00</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">UTD</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">4157</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.04</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">27898</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.75</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">21228</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.71</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">7.27</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.63</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">60</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.43</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">UTA</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">5137</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.29</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">29637</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.86</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">21718</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.74</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">6.6</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.48</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">57</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.36</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">UTSA</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">4137</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.04</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">23505</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.48</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">19070</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.53</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">6.51</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.46</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">56</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.33</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">Rice</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">8143</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">2.04</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">87831</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">5.52</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">59212</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">4.76</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">12.28</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">2.76</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">103</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">2.45</td></tr>
<tr><td height="20" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">Texas Tech</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">8761</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">2.19</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">38517</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">2.42</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">29387</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">2.36</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">5.47</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.23</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">63</td><td align="right" style="border: 1px dashed rgb(187, 187, 187); cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 8px;">1.50</td></tr>
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This is a puzzle -- UT Dallas published as many articles as UNT, but had over 50% more citations. I would like to investigate this further - is it due to differences in subject coverage? UT-Dallas was initially started as a upper-level and graduate school focusing on technology. UNT was originally a teacher's college - research has been a relatively recent focus. Could the association with the UT System be a factor? This could also help explain the how UT-Arlington, which similarly started as a teacher's college, has 40% more citations and a higher h-index than UNT. This explanation fails, though, in the comparison with UT San Antonio.</div>
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This brief inquiry has only raised more questions. I would like to delve into the details more thoroughly, controlling for number of faculty, subject coverage, longitudinal trends, graduate degrees awarded - what else? I'd really like to know how my institution could get more respect.</div>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-77930033935394560012013-07-14T10:02:00.000-05:002013-08-17T13:55:37.044-05:00The end of the beginning...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHsaBLJmkmgosSOvlishZn1UZ37vH67nyodWkPXECEhJkNX-bypeoQ0Ye9EOMvrXHLWrThrlhyphenhyphenL9WU0LwjVdXzMBMzD1a0If4wy-cjjP3DH_L_Q0EHEm-9uFUKj9ZYg5XBloI8qSJ5Z4g/s1600/change.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHsaBLJmkmgosSOvlishZn1UZ37vH67nyodWkPXECEhJkNX-bypeoQ0Ye9EOMvrXHLWrThrlhyphenhyphenL9WU0LwjVdXzMBMzD1a0If4wy-cjjP3DH_L_Q0EHEm-9uFUKj9ZYg5XBloI8qSJ5Z4g/s320/change.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Reminder: This blog is being superseded by <a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Libraries Are For Use</a>. Please update your feeds.<br />
I've been doing some serious reconsideration about my blog -- are my words being read? (well, a little) Do I have regular readers? (well, a few) Am I satisfied with my work? (well, the writing is OK, but the response has been disappointing) What can I do differently?<br />
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For one thing, I've never been satisfied with the name. I had never read the work on which the name of this blog was based (<i>Being and Nothingness</i>), nor had I explored Sartre's philosophy in any depth...I had just considered the idea of considering librarianship from an existential perspective (what little I know about existentialism). I was particularly interested in bringing together the theoretical or philosophical ideas of, with the practice of librarianship. But the name struck me (even then) as being a little too obscure and, well, pretentious. <br />
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Then there is the platform...I chose Blogger because that is what I had used years ago. I already had my profile set up, I was familiar with the features, and it was easily tied in with my Google account. However, it is, in my opinion, a little on the old-fashioned side, well, in Web terms. It just seems so '90's. When the NTLA blog was set up on WordPress, I liked that platform and decided it was time for a change.<br />
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After several weeks of transferring postings, and finally deciding on a template, I think the site is ready for a sneak preview. I wanted a name the better reflects my own philosophy of my chosen profession, so I harkened back to my early postings about S.R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science. <br />
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<a href="http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Libraries are for Use</a> is my new platform, my new soapbox, which I hope will generate a little more interest. I know, I know...changing blog names is like the character on Parks & Recreation changing his band names. I could loose what few readers I have - would you leave? I also know that content is more important than the name or platform. If I want more readers, I need to write what readers want to read. I'm working on that, too. I'll be learning how to make infographics and writing more on more intriguing ideas. I hope this change gives me some stimulation.<br />
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I will keep both blogs going for about a month. In the meantime, please visit there and subscribe, Like, etc. I've also got a PollDaddy poll asking for your input. <br />
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And thanks for listening.Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-61311152183215201242013-07-07T09:20:00.002-05:002013-07-07T13:20:22.148-05:00Seeking new answers...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLvZadnC2nAqOqlxjddeQuIehglx05fi8yl7sXy8rljIZASo651Gie33NB9ZWBH74PtlP95jBLOChasS8P7tThV6zHRgEPlo6X4Sb18z8Ih45tnvprUhM698UBeu0gNw2u7NGYscHvvE/s1600/MP900387779.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLvZadnC2nAqOqlxjddeQuIehglx05fi8yl7sXy8rljIZASo651Gie33NB9ZWBH74PtlP95jBLOChasS8P7tThV6zHRgEPlo6X4Sb18z8Ih45tnvprUhM698UBeu0gNw2u7NGYscHvvE/s200/MP900387779.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
Now that I'm nearing completion of the shortest statistics course ever (4 sessions over 10 weeks), I've started looking around for new questions to answer. Luckily, I have a number of librarians and students who are also interested and desire the research experience. Here's my new research agenda:<br />
<ul>
<li>Gifts: since I'm tangently responsible for selection of gifts (the library student worker who evaluates and selects items from donations), I wanted to address this function.</li>
<ul>
<li>Do our gift monographs "fill the holes" in our collections? Do they cover areas that we desire to collect but otherwise don't? This is actually a paradoxical question, because if we believe a particular subject is relevant to our users, then we <i>should</i> be purchasing resources; conversely, if we think a subject is <i>not</i> relevant, then should we even be adding <i style="font-weight: bold;">gifts</i>? After all, even gifts cost the library resources for processing and storing.</li>
<li>Are gift monographs used as frequently as purchased monographs (adjusting for subject, age of book, time in collection, and accessibility)? I have only found a couple of studies that looked at circulation, but I found the methodologies to be weak. I hope to build in a little more rigor, while also still providing an opportunity for one of the library students to present and publish.</li>
</ul>
<li>Demand-Driven Acquisitions (DDA): I'm deeply involved in our DDA program at UNT Libraries, which I believe has been fairly successful. But there are some nagging questions:</li>
<ul>
<li>Has demand-driven acquisitions (DDA) resulted in relatively fewer university press titles being purchased by UNT Libraries?</li>
<li>Is overall usage (circulation of print combined with ebook usage) of university press titles decreasing?</li>
</ul>
<li>Remote storage: We are in the process of moving a large number of print books to our new warehouse facility for remote storage. This isn't as remote as many academic libraries - just about a mile away from the main library, and users can request and receive any item within a working day. But it does raise some interesting questions, including:</li>
<ul>
<li>Will the removal of our print books to remote storage will have an impact on <i>overall</i> book circulation. Technically there should not be a big impact, because the titles moved had not been used in what, 10 years? But I think that the removal itself could increase the decline of circulation of print titles.</li>
</ul>
<li>Googling vs. traditional research: This is actually a question that a peer of mine has, and I volunteered to help out with methodology & analysis. </li>
<ul>
<li>"Has the quality of theses/dissertation references declined with the advent of Google and institutional repositories?" There is plenty of evidence that Google is often the resource of first resort for nearly everybody, but is it leading doctoral students (and their faculty mentors) to accept lower quality resources? Of course, the hard part will be objectively measuring quality of references, but this should only add to the challenge.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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Other irons that are still in the fire include:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>What are the effects of our Discovery system (Summon) on vendor-supplied usage stats? Changes in the ProQuest platform have affected their usage stats, so I've been a little stymied in this quest.</li>
<li>Do bibliographic enhancements to catalog records (like tables of contents & additional keywords) increase the chances of an ebook being used? This information could be used to support our purchase of enhanced MARC records.</li>
</ul>
<div>
This is a rather ambitious agenda, which can only be made possible by the collaboration with others. Is there anybody who would like to join in? I see presentations and publications from all of these, and collaboration with other librarians in other libraries, regions or specialties will only add to the universality of the results.</div>
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Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-64802153139162444922013-06-29T21:53:00.003-05:002013-06-29T22:14:36.149-05:00Virtual browsing of remote storage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Between 50 & 100 years ago, there was a different kind of Open Access movement in libraries...this one more of the physical kind. I'm referring, of course, to the opening of the stacks. In a quick search Library Literature Retrospective (1905-1983), there were articles about opening the stacks as late as 1982. Here's an article from <a href="http://crl.acrl.org/content/15/3/309.full.pdf+html" target="_blank"><i>CR&L</i>, 1954: Open or Closed Stacks?</a> Even when open, the access to the stacks was often highly regulated. I recall an episode of The Bob Newhart Show (circa 1974) when Emily, in her pursuit of a master's degree, is excited to learn that she and her study partner have a "stacks pass". The biggest concerns of librarians and administrators were, of course, the security of the collection. Losses due to theft, as well as misshelving, were the most common concerns. But, as the article linked above indicates, most libraries had minimal losses (<2%), and increased circulation (upwards of 50-100% or more).<br />
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But as the <a href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/02/15/a-shrinking-piece-of-the-university-pie/" target="_blank">relative funding of libraries shrinks</a> to below 2% of universities' budgets and service priorities shift away from physical books, many academic libraries are moving their books into remote storage, effectively <i>closing</i> the stacks once again. Access is limited to effectively a paging service for known items. Because of the loss of serendipity from browsing the shelves, this increases the importance of the metadata for searching, finding, and identifying the right books. The primary source of metadata, of course, is the catalog, particularly for the kind of books that are being relocated. Even when incorporated into discovery systems, the primary source is the bibliographic record. <br />
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But, as we all know, library catalogs leave a lot to be desired...OK, they suck (<a href="http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2006/03/how-opacs-suck-part-1-relevance-rank-or-the-lack-of-it.html" target="_blank">see here</a>, <a href="http://petere.wordpress.com/2006/03/14/library-catalogs-suck/" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://freerangelibrarian.com/2007/09/05/your-opac-and-the-suck-factor/" target="_blank">here</a>). They have evolved very little from their beginnings of lists of titles on pages (<a href="http://www.nypl.org/collections/nypl-recommendations/guides/dictionary-catalog" target="_blank">literal pages</a> and metaphorical pages). <br />
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<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=_qQhAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA55&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U17h3ktEHp2UTO6zHt8jSiMho3LWA&ci=0%2C1%2C990%2C1708&edge=0" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://books.google.com/books?id=_qQhAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA55&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U17h3ktEHp2UTO6zHt8jSiMho3LWA&ci=0%2C1%2C990%2C1708&edge=0" width="231" /></a></div>
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The addition of enhanced content of bibliographic records helps in the selection process. But against the old adage, we judge much about a book from its cover. That is why <a href="http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-survey-of-library-virtual-shelves-8.html" target="_blank">Aaron Tay's look at "virtual shelves"</a> was intriguing to me. At a time when our library is moving a big chunk of its collection to a remote (albeit local) storage, I've been wondering how we were going to replicate the experience of serendipity. Interestingly, most of the eight virtual shelves he reviews show covers from the front, even though physical books are shelved showing the spines. This is because that is what is available - small images of book covers. Also, most show the books using a horizontal scroll. Harvard's <a href="http://stacklife.harvard.edu/explainer.php" target="_blank">StackLife</a> shows "spines" of results in a vertical stack, with width and length based on the physical size of the book. One additional feature is to visually represent popularity of a title by the darkness of the color, based on total circulation.<br />
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One problem with all of the systems that use book jacket images is that, for many of the titles being moved into remote storage, there are no covers available. These are often older, less popular titles - that's why they are being moved. So the results use a "faux" cover, with the title layered on top. This defeats the purpose of "virtual shelves". It is no better than a list of titles. <br />
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I just don't think our catalog systems have the capability to effectively replace the efficiency of locating a section of the shelves and browsing. Perhaps with some combination of Amazon's LookInside, Harvard's StackLife, and the library's rich metadata, we can get a little closer.<br />
<br />Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-55022918214322437872013-06-16T22:52:00.002-05:002013-06-16T22:52:53.999-05:00Boy! That air feels good!Given that today is Father's Day, I would like to plug my father's newest book (OK, it's his first, but what a first!). <a href="http://www.amazon.com/That-Feels-Good-entrepreneurs-Satisfaction/dp/1481194062" target="_blank">Boy! That Air Feels Good: The Untold Story of Car Air</a> details how it was entrepreneurs, mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and not the big guys in Detroit, who got us air conditioning in cars. <br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/That-Feels-Good-entrepreneurs-Satisfaction/dp/1481194062" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnG3s32gczuzimgD9r8wQLDp59JYq5Aajz7N3CrEIhgTwyyjrXfVon77bv7biWQq4MIZVfR1w6gjHIZU6eAkNXWligiid2KPUG9N9nY6J6IqnBsSMfBYFUQyyKY7Jd4nBUIafYRDUKe8/s1600/dadsBook.jpg" /></a></div>
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I am very proud of my father for seeking out and interviewing the original developers and makers, searching archives at the Dallas Public and UT Arlington libraries, seeking and obtaining permissions for use of photos and diagrams, and, of course, writing a narrative that is interesting and takes you back to that time period. I love his vivid description of a young auto mechanic in the early days of car AC, with business booming and enough work to get him through the summer. Actually, except for the pack of cigarettes in the rolled-up sleeve, the image in my head as I read it was of my Dad, working in his white cotton t-shirt, before he grew his beard. <br />
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This book describes the various renditions of auto ACs, including those that took practically the entire truck space and poured ice-cold air on to the rear seat passengers freezing their ears off. There are schematics, diagrams, sketches, and photos. There are stories of business intrigue and personal backgrounds of key players in the field. Despite the forays into the technical nitty-gritty, I was able to understand how these things worked.<br />
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While I know this venue isn't exactly major media, I did want to pay tribute and show off the fruits of my father's labor. And for his next work, he's wanting to finish a juvenile story about a Japanese boy who accidentally takes off in a balloon and lands in the American desert. Actually, I was hoping he'd work again on his tale of a little car that is used in whisky runs during Prohibition, by guerilla fighters in Czechoslovakia, and so on through various other adventures. Sort of like a mechanical version of War Horse. <br />
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Feel free to peruse the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/That-Feels-Good-entrepreneurs-Satisfaction/dp/1481194062" target="_blank">Amazon "Look Inside"</a> and consider buying your own copy - or tell a friend.<br />
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-56252279221096316502013-06-16T12:07:00.002-05:002013-06-16T12:07:31.674-05:00Interesting stuff - for an Assessment-NerdI recently received the feed of latest articles from <i><a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/issue/view/1446" target="_blank">Evidence-based Library & Information Practice (EBLIP)</a></i>, which included conference papers from the 2010 Library Assessment conference, as well as a few original articles & research summaries. <i>(Official Disclosure: I am a peer-reviewer for EBLIP.)</i> Here is the <a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/about/editorialPolicies#focusAndScope" target="_blank">official scope statement</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
EBLIP is a peer reviewed, open access journal published quarterly by the University of Alberta Learning Services, using the OJS Software. The purpose of the journal is to provide a forum for librarians and other information professionals to discover research that may contribute to decision making in professional practice. EBLIP publishes original research and commentary on the topic of evidence based library and information practice, as well as reviews of previously published research (evidence summaries) on a wide number of topics.</blockquote>
Of course, as a librarian with a background in research, I was drawn to this journal waaaaay back at my previous library. Now I regularly read the articles, looking for gems and ideas for my own professional interests. This issue, I was not disappointed. From the 2010 Library Assessment conference, there is a heavy emphasis on <a href="http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/statistics-assessment" target="_blank">ARL assessment products</a>, including LibQUAL+® and its sister product, ClimateQUAL+®, but I was more interested in the articles on such topics as assessing special collections, faculty dissatisfaction with their libraries' journal collections, and linking outcomes with library resources and instruction. While the conference papers are a bit old (OK, maybe not in "LIS time", but I'm still on "biomedical time"), I still found them quite useful. Here is my take on a few of the key articles, features and evidence summaries.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19643/15224" target="_blank">Still Bound for Disappointment? Another Look at Faculty and Library Journal Collections</a> by Jennifer Rutner (Columbia University) and Jim Self (Univ. of Virginia)<br />
Research Questions: Are faculty at other ARL institutions <i>all</i> dissatisfied with their libraries' journals? “Given the substantial investment in journals at ARL libraries, why are faculty at these institutions consistently dissatisfied with their library’s journal collections?”<br />
What they did: Analyzed LibQUAL+ data from over 20 ARL libraries, and interviewed faculty at Columbia to find out more specifically <i>why</i> they are dissatisfied.<br />
Take-home message: Faculty at many ARL libraries are not satisfied with their libraries journals, but not necessarily for the reasons you think. Many of the issues brought up by Columbia faculty, at least, were technical in nature (e.g. poor "automated responses from library systems", poor search interfaces, etc.) and fall under the umbrella of User Experience. C'mon, folks - let's get together on this. We <i>can</i> make the user experience better if we just start working together.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19614/15220" target="_blank">Linking Information Seeking Patterns with Purpose, Use, Value, and Return On Investment of Academic Library Journals</a> by Donald King & Carol Tenopir.<br />
Research Questions: How are purposes of scholarly reading, information seeking behaviors, aspects of use, and positive outcomes or value all related? How can we use this relationship to demonstrate our value (e.g. with an ROI)?<br />
What they did: This is part of the IMLS-funded MAXDATA project, which included surveys of faculty at 5 universities using the "critical incident" method, asking respondents to think about the most recent information need when completing the survey. Questions were asked about the purpose of their need, how the information was used, and the value they placed on that information. Also asked was what the faculty would have done if that last article they used was not available - buy it? spend how much time looking for it? Based on these responses & previous research, they calculated an ROI of the academic libraries.<br />
Take-home message: Faculty read a lot of articles; they get most of their articles from library resources; the most recent articles are used the most and most articles from library resources are used electronically. Most of this information is not really new - King & Tenopir have been doing a lot of research on use & access. A few interesting results: faculty spent more time <i>reading</i> articles from library resources than their own subscriptions (probably because more research articles were from the library), and faculty spent more time browsing than searching for each article. Faculty would spend about 13 hours a year browsing, searching and obtaining articles if the library didn't provide them, which results in about $3500/faculty in cost savings provided by the library, or a 3.6:1 ROI.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19575/15218" target="_blank">Value of Libraries: Relationships Between Provision, Usage, and Research Outcomes</a> by Michael Jubb, Ian Rowlands and David Nicholas out of England.<br />
Research Question(s): Another attempt to derive a measure of value of libraries via the articles it provides. This time, the link is more outcomes-based. Specifically, what is the relationship of faculty's use of articles, institutional expenditures on journals, and faculty's research productivity?<br />
What they did: They mined the Web logs of Science Direct and Oxford journals to get the information search & use behaviors. Then they interviewed faculty and librarians at selected universities. This data was combined with previously-gathered COUNTER-usage data from a variety of British academic institutions.<br />
Take-home message: Cost per download is going down as usage of ejournals increases. The size of the institution does not necessarily predict usage. Expenditures on journals drives usage, but usage does NOT drive expenditures. More interestingly, research success drives use. They were unable, however, to find a factor that use drives - not even productivity.<br />
<br />
There were several articles on the development and use of assessment systems and methods, including the University of Wollongong's "<a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19574" target="_blank">Library Cube</a>", <a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19550" target="_blank">U Penn's MetriDoc</a>, and <a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19650" target="_blank">ARL's Balanced Scorecard</a>.<br />
<br />
However, these are relatively older items (2010). There were two articles of recent research that caught my eye - one was a citation analysis study for collection development, and the other was an attempt to provide a method of assessing special collections. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/18598/15201" target="_blank">A Citation Analysis of the Classical Philology Literature: Implications for Collection Development</a> by Gregory Crawford from Penn State.<br />
Research Question(s): What are the citation patterns in the classical philology literature and how have these changed over time?<br />
What they did: Examined each citation in every article in two specific years (1986 & 2006) of one journal prominent in the field, noting specifically age, format, language, length. This was compared with study results from the 1950's. <br />
Take-home message: Citation patterns have not changed a whole lot over the last 50 years. Citations are about the same age (24-25 years), which is not too surprising given that the topics are 2500-3500 years old. The distribution of citations by format haven't changed much either - 28-29%. One interesting change has been an <i>increase</i> in the percentage of book citations (55% in 1956 to 68% in 2006). This is due primarily to reductions in citations to Festschriften and dissertations. There were more journal titles cited in 2006 than in 1986 - the author suggests that researchers were "casting a wider net". This, however, does correspond with an increase in journal titles in all fields. Eighteen journals made up the top 10 lists from all three years, with 4 titles in all 3 years, and 4 titles in two of the 3 years. This suggests modest stability of literature. This article will be of much interest when we look at our classical studies collection.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19138/15202" target="_blank">Data-Driven Decision Making: An Holistic Approach to Assessment in Special Collections Repositories</a> by Melanie Griffin and Barbara Lewis of University of South Florida and Mark Greenberg, Western Washington University.<br />
Research Question(s): How can all aspects of special collections be assessed to enable better decision-making?<br />
What they did: Used Web site usage, patron surveys, usability studies, and Web analytics to answer a series of questions regarding staffing needs, staff-training needs, customer needs assessment and technical needs assessment.<br />
Take-home message: It takes a village - of measures, at least -- to assess a library...of any kind. While the title includes "holistic", I think it is more akin to triangulation or, essentially, comprehensive assessment. However, this assessment was focused on the operations and marketing decisions. It did not include any attempt to get at impact or outcomes of usage of their collections. This would make it, indeed, holistic.<br />
<br />
Finally, there were a number of evidence summaries - critical reviews of published literature. Reviews that caught my attention were:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/19075/15236" target="_blank">Academic Librarians Would Benefit from Instruction on Conducting Research</a></li>
<li></li>
<li><a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/18535" target="_blank">For Non-expert Clinical Searches, Google Scholar Results are Older with Higher Impact while PubMed Results Offer More Breadth</a></li>
<li></li>
<li><a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/18543" target="_blank">Quality of Student Paper Sources Improves after Individual Consultation with Librarians</a></li>
</ul>
Well, reading all of these articles will fill my morning train commute next week.Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-24570667826665373922013-06-02T16:10:00.002-05:002013-06-02T16:10:31.269-05:00Three on the changing roles of academic librariesFrom <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2013/05/30/around-the-web-everyone-is-angsty-in-higher-ed-not-just-librarians/" target="_blank">John Dupuis' recent list of articles</a> demonstrating angst in academic libraries and in academia in general, there were three items that particularly interesting to me. The first two are from <a href="http://bibwild.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Bibliographic Wilderness</a> (Jonathan Rochkind, cataloging librarian at Johns Hopkins U). In <a href="http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/academic-library-existence-at-risk/" target="_blank">Academic Libraries at Risk</a>, he focuses on the recently-released ITHAKA survey of faculty attitudes towards libraries, particularly the statements regarding redirecting money away from libraries (because scholarly information is available online) and the decreasing role of libraries and librarians. His concerns are both the rates of those who agreed with these statements, but more importantly, the increasing trend over the six years of surveys. The rates of agreement with these statements has increased <i>steadily</i> from 4-8% in 2006 to 18-20% in 2012. He asks, appropriately enough, "<i>What do you think those numbers will look like in 2015 when they run the survey again?</i>" This decline came despite nearly a decade of increased marketing and advertising efforts of many academic libraries. From this springboard, he insists that to survive, librarians must change the services we provide to reflect what "our host institutions need <i>today</i>, not what they needed 20 years ago" (emphasis original). While interesting, the comments to his post offer more insight into how other librarians react to this information. Barbara Fister brought up the problem of the reducing "power of the purse" by full-time <b>faculty</b>, who have been increasingly replaced by adjunct faculty. Thus, the attitudes of the faculty matter less. But that doesn't necessarily bode well for libraries. Jacob Berg shared his concern about the decreased voice of <b>students</b> in the future of libraries. Alan Zuckerman was concerned about making too many changes to quickly, particularly when more than 80% of the faculty did <i>not</i> agree with these statements. Is 20% a high enough rate to base changes on? But Jonathan responded that, while he thought it was, his main question was regarding the <b>increasing trend</b>.<br />
<br />
In a closely related posting, <a href="http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/one-scenario-for-the-death-of-the-academic-library/" target="_blank">One scenario for the death of the academic library</a>, Jonathan refers to a paper posted by Eric Hellman in the comments to the above-mentioned article. <a href="http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/libpubcomp.pdf" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #ff4b33; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Open Access, library and publisher competition, and the evolution of general commerce</em>, by Andrew Odlyzko, 2013</a>, discusses how libraries have the opportunity to change the future demise of academic libraries by increasing their role in Open Access scholarly publishing. This is timely, given that the UNT Libraries hosted the <a href="https://openaccess.unt.edu/symposium/2013" target="_blank">Fourth Annual Open Access Symposium</a>. Invited speakers included several librarians involved in this very pursuit. But that's a side issue...of interest to me was how library budgets, as a proportion of university budgets, have been decreasing over decades (<a href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/02/15/a-shrinking-piece-of-the-university-pie/" target="_blank">Scholarly Kitchen</a>, <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/21/library-budgets-continue-shrink-relative-university-spending" target="_blank">Inside Higher Ed</a>), which reinforces the changing attitudes of faculty revealed in the ITHAKA survey.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://scholarlykitchen.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/arl-library-expenditures.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://scholarlykitchen.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/arl-library-expenditures.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Jonathan notes that this decrease in relative spending is accompanied by a corresponding <i>increase</i> in relative spending on <b>collections</b> (notably serials) (he refers to Odlyzko's Figure 5, reproduced below):<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/libpubcomp.pdf" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4Su4R0ukMZWObTPuodnziGOFdJqInJXEU6tFxU5B9RTdILjyATxamGEhd8WlB_OYDBCD1z792TtH9O2WexFo5JDw_Q_fcXY-3-oV4lTnWOu2CeSNlif_hnv5LxrUj8xS6kqLg_C7ZNQ/s320/Fig5_PercentLibBudget.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 5: Fraction of library budgets devoted to all acquisitions and to purchases of serials</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Although not the first, both Odlyzko and Rochkind suggest that the libraries' role in both academia and public may be reduced to being simply or solely a buying agent of information resources. While Odlyzko argues that libraries should retain their viability by inserting themselves prominently in the Open Access scholarly communications, Rochkind expands on this idea by suggesting that librarians highlight their role as "disinterested advisors" providing "provide services with transparency, impartiality, assertive protection of user privacy, and a professional ethical responsibility to act always in the interests of our patrons, never sacrificing them to our own business interests." <br />
<br />
The final piece from Dupuis' list that intrugued me was <a href="http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2013/05/library-holds-consultation-sessions-on-proposed-closure-of-the-life-sciences-library/" target="_blank">the posting from McGill University's blog</a> about a "consultation session" called by the Trenholme Dean of Libraries Colleen Cook about the effects of a $1.8 million (Canadian) cut in the library's budget. The plan is to close one library and merge it with another. Essentially, the reason for this is that the money saved will come largely from cuts to support staff, so there will not be enough people to staff both libraries. Since these two libraries have rather low rates of usage (as measured by visits per population served), it made sense to merge them. However, the chief complaint was the inconvenience of the location of the merged library to the primary users of the closed library (medical students). Interestingly, the Dean's proposed solution to this problem (delivery of materials) itself was in jeopardy due to the same issue: reduction of support staff. <br />
<br />
I am surprised that the solutions to this problem that were raised were largely work-arounds: retaining a core set of textbooks at the closed location; having volunteers or librarians performing the duties of the support staff (thank goodness for unions!); book delivery. No mention was made of efforts to obtaining access to digital versions of the core texts (whatever that might require). I am also disappointed that the chief complaint is physical access to <i>materials</i>; there was, apparently, no discussion on the loss of access to librarians.<br />
<br />
The Dean was criticized for the abruptness of the planning of these consultation sessions, as well as the apparent "lack of sincerity and transparency." One of the affected faculty alleged that the Dean had "ended a meeting of the Advisory Committee by saying, 'My library, my decision.'" On her behalf, Colleen Cook informed those attending that the planning is rushed because the cuts went into effect in May and had to be implemented before September 1st. And, in the end, it <i>is</i> her decision, although it is expected that she take the concerns and ideas that she <i>solicited</i> into consideration. <br />
<br />
What is happening at McGill is happening at many, many academic and public libraries. Economics is about making choices -- the university administration made <i>their</i> choices (reducing funding the library), and the library administration made <i>their</i> choices (cutting staff, and thus closing a library). These choices may or may not stand up to the test of time...Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-22346145681508836622013-05-20T13:19:00.000-05:002013-05-20T13:19:33.737-05:00The state of statistical analysis in LIS researchI've been asked at MPOW to conduct some kind of training in the use of statistical analysis for our librarians who are just venturing into the research realm. I'm actually a bit excited about this - it has been a while since I've done any training, and I would also like to contribute to the improvement of the quality of research being conducted by LIS professionals. In my application essay for the MPH program, I mentioned that I was dissatisfied with the level of quality in LIS research and was looking forward to participating in a field with a greater rigor. Of course, everything is relative. Those in medicine consider much of research in public health to be of low quality. <br />
<br />
While I have had an intermediate level of graduate training in statistics, I did struggle with the more advanced aspects associated with my job of analyzing the data in the clinical trials, as biostatistician. I was asked to run multilevel hierarchical analyses on the repeated measures to look for effects of trauma on levels of cortisol in teenagers. Yeah, "What?" was my reaction, too. I read and re-read and read again the literature on this method and ran the procedures in SAS exactly as it was written. I still didn't understand it. I gave my best interpretation of the results to my PI (primary investigator), with lots of caveats. She <i>said</i> that made sense to her, too, but she was an MD, <i>not</i> a statistician. <br />
<br />
So I conceded the limits to my abilities as a biostatistician and did not pursue that career any further. But I <i>do</i> feel I have a good understanding of, well, an intermediate level of statistical analysis. So I feel confident that I can conduct the most common kinds of research in librarianship, as a practicing librarian. And I also feel confident that I can introduce my peers who haven't had this training (or at least, not for a long time) to the basic concepts.<br />
<br />
But I really would like to know what the current state of statistical analyses <i>is</i> in LIS research. Analysis does go hand-in-hand with research methods (you can't adequately analyze data statistically if the methods used to collect the data were inappropriate, incomplete, or inadequate). So I've been scouring the literature looking for studies that addressed my question...but I haven't found a whole lot, and what I <i>did</i> find was not inspiring. In 1984, Charles R. McClure wrote a letter to the editors of <i>CR&L</i> admonishing them for publishing a research article of low quality, stating that "the 'research' was so poorly done, that the results have little meaning." His diatribe continues (emphasis is added):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The sample is never shown to be a valid representation of academic librarians or a subgroup of academic librarians and thus, is not generalizable (especially with a 52% response rate), a copy of the questionnaire is not available as an appendix for the reader, key definitions (such as what exactly constitutes an "article") are not provided, huge assumptions are made as to participants' interpretation of questions, no explanations of the limitations and weaknesses of the study or its findings are offered to the reader, <i>statistical techniques are poorly utilized</i>, and there are no indications of the reliability or validity of the data reported.<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
Mr. McClure had been publishing for quite some time prior to this, and perhaps the topic of the article (librarian tenure) was particularly close to his heart given that his dissertation was on job titles. But his tirade did not go without notice. Just a few years later, an article was published providing an overview of basic statistics and some resources for future reference. The authors, Donald Frank, Leslie Madden & Nancy Simons, referred to McClure's letter as the impetus for their article.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This paper focuses on a rationale for the correct use of statistical procedures and techniques. Basic assumptions and elements of descriptive and inferential statistics are noted. The importance of the thesis or problem statement as well as the relevance of hypothesis testing is emphasized. Additionally, ways to become more familiar and comfortable with statistical usage are reviewed. The paper is written for the librarian who is not aware of these basic techniques, and is interested in research processes.2</blockquote>
</blockquote>
But that was published in 2001 - has there been any more recent examinations or evaluations or discussions since?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-20071590651069152472013-04-30T22:47:00.001-05:002013-04-30T22:47:28.717-05:00TLA 2013, Day Two<word of warning: this is a shameless plug for my library><br />
I had neglected to mention in my first post about TLA that the UNT Libraries' <a href="http://texashistory.unt.edu/" target="_blank">Portal to Texas History</a> was awarded the <a href="http://www.txla.org/news/2013/04/2013-tla-awards-presented-at-general-session-i" target="_blank">TLA Wayne Williams Library Project of the Year</a>. This the Digital Projects' "crown jewel" of the Digital Collections, with a significant amount of grant funding and effort provided for its development. This collection of primary resources has become integrated in the public schools' curriculum, particularly for its Texas history requirement. It is definitely worthy of the award.<br />
<br />
In the second general session, UNT Libraries' again was honored with not only the <i>Best in Show</i>, but also the <i>PR Plan Winner</i> and the <i>Collateral Materials Winner</i> honors of the <a href="http://www.txla.org/2013-branding-iron" target="_blank">TLA Branding Iron Awards</a>. This is the result of a recent focus on marketing, advertising, and external relations. The UNT Libraries takes advantage of the artistic and creative talents of the UNT's students, as well as innovative librarians and hard-working staff, to develop marketing plans and advertising materials in a wide variety of formats. One popular product is the subject liaisons posters, complete with photo, placed strategically in the right places of the stacks.<br />
</end shameless plug><br />
Now, as they were awarding the <a href="http://www.txla.org/2013-unit-awards" target="_blank">Upstart Innovative Programming Award</a> to Eileen Lee of the Montgomery County Memorial Library System for her Sensory Storytime for developmentally disabled children, I had the idea of collaborating with MLS faculty and our <a href="http://autism.unt.edu/" target="_blank">UNT Autism Center</a> to develop collections and services for autism spectrum children. Not exactly totally original, but I wanted to get my idea down on paper before I forgot it.<br />
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I had not paid enough attention to the program about the speaker for the second general session - in fact, I had considered skipping out after the awards and getting some coffee (my one complaint of the TLA facilities - not enough coffee!). I'm glad I stayed. I've been enjoying the segments with <a href="http://www.npr.org/books/authors/138246530/dan-ariely" target="_blank">Dan Aierly's on NPR</a>, and when I realized who the speaker was, I knew I wouldn't need the coffee. His focus was on his latest research on cheating - essentially, most of us cheat a little. Interestingly, providing simple reminders before a test about the "honor code" (even if none exists) decreased the number of people who cheated. Well, on to the sessions of the day, only two of which will I write about. <br />
<br />
<b>Library Assessment Today:</b> This was an overview of the experiences of Jim Self of the University of Virginia. He's been involved in library since the early 1980's, long before the current "fad" of assessment. But he starts with a quote from J.T. Gerould of the Princeton libraries from 1906, stating that the basic questions of assessment were essentially, "Is this method the best? Are we up to the standard of a similar institution?" So clearly, assessment is <i>not</i> a new fad. It is a traditional aspect of librarianship - we've just started looking further away from library collections and outputs, to the broader interests of the institutions we serve. Furthermore, as Jim states, recently, the user has become the center of the discussions.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, Jim mentioned that they had conducted their own patron satisfaction surveys every three to four years since 1993. They did participate in LibQual survey in 2006, but was disappointed by the much lower response rates. They returned to their own customized surveys with a steady 50% response rate. They have seen their patron satisfaction increase over time. He attributes a notable "U" turn in the satisfaction with the online catalog with an attempt to "re-invent" the system. They have evaluated the use of the collection and redefined collection development, with a focus on the user. Now, they are focusing on "budget communications" with university administration. Like most academic libraries (well, all libraries), there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of reference questions asked. But, we both asked, is that necessarily a <i>bad</i> thing? Jim suggests that this may be due, at least in part, to librarians doing a better job with our systems. He summarizes his first section with a listing of how libraries could provide better evidence of our worthiness, including usability testing, "wayfinding" (evaluation of our facilities), ethnographic studies (a la Rochester), quantitative performance measures (aka "balanced scorecard"), MINES, COUNTER & e-resource use, and staff surveys.<br />
<br />
Jim then switches to observations from the consultation work he has provided to other libraries over the last five years. He has seen more libraries accept assessment as a <i>core activity</i>, but that it is still hard to sustain. He has also seen more collaboration with individuals and groups both on- and off-campus. But he emphasizes that what is still needed are common measures of holdings, usage, costs and learning outcomes, as well as sharing of this information. He would also like to see more standard survey templates and metrics, and perhaps an "Index of Performance". <br />
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Mr. Self ends his session with some observations on value and assessment in general. The current need is to determine the library's impact on student and faculty success, but this may be difficult to measure. There are natural limits of assessment, in that we are attempting to predict the future based on our past and present, and goodness knows, that often turns out to be wrong. He pointedly noted that "innovation does not come from assessment, but it can indicate what works". Local barriers to assessment include complacency, fear, arrogance, inertia, an operations mindset, and ethical concerns. <br />
<br />
Finally, he asks about the the point of view of assessment -- is it neutral and unbiased? Or is it advocacy? Would assessment ever result in recommendations for a <i>lesser</i> library? Perhaps, but the purpose of the our work is to improve the service - to give users what they need when they need it.<br />
<br />
<b>Right Size, Right Stuff:</b> This was part two of Fort Worth Public Library's "market segmentation" presentations. This was more of the nitty-gritty of this method - applying the data to actually modify a library's collections. Actually, the market segmentation was only part of this process. The bulk of the work was adjusting collection size based on usage. Like the Dallas Public Library, the FWPL has shifted to a "floating collection", with each branch's collection set by what patrons return. So while they will delivery materials to a branch for an individual, once the patron returns the material to the branch, it stays there - until requested elsewhere. This saves quite a bit of money by not having to return materials. But it also leads to a "pooling effect" in which the collection size of certain heavily-used branches grows dramatically. So the collection development librarians for the FWPL System charted the current holdings against the usage to determine the "right size" for each collection at each branch. The collections were broken down by age level (adult, juvenile), type (fiction, picture book, etc.) and subject. Here is a sample table that was developed for a single branch:<br />
<I'll add this later><br />
Essentially, the "right size" is calculated as such: % of Total System Use X Total Titles in System. This was then used to calculate shelving space (using different formulas for different collections). They also used market segmentation to make additional adjustments to the collection based on interests and hobbies.<br />
<br />
Actually, I was quite intrigued by this use of market data. I'm not sure how, if at all, such info could be used in an academic setting - the data is pretty well set on households. But I was inspired to think outside my little box.<br />
<br />Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-73111720038066165152013-04-30T21:11:00.001-05:002013-04-30T21:11:09.606-05:00Notes from the 2013 Texas Library Association Annual ConferenceThe annual conference of the largest state-based library association, boasting over 7,000 members (<a href="http://www.cla-net.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=30" target="_blank">CLA claims only 3,000+ members</a> and NYLA simply describe their membership at "<a href="http://www.nyla.org/max/4DCGI/cms/review.html?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=16&MenuKey=about" target="_blank">several thousand</a>") took place in Fort Worth ("Cowtown") this year. I took advantage of the close proximity and attended three of the 4 days of the main conference (I had to miss Saturday's sessions to care for a sick dog, who, I believe, was just pretending so that I would take him out to the park). The Texas Library Association is strongly supported by public and school librarians, and academic and special librarians tend to feel not so much excluded as simply overwhelmed at the conferences. We academic librarians do participate in the ALA-sponsored ACRL, so it's not like we have no outlet for our professional growth. However, it <i>is</i> important that all librarians be included in the issues of librarianship that are most relevant to our state. This is particularly true given the changes in education politics over the last 10-20 years. So here are my notes of sessions that were of most interest to me.<br />
<br />
<b>General Session I: </b>The most memorable moment of the first general session was the awarding of the Librarian of the Year to Lydia Tucker, school librarian in San Antonio. Based on the statement of the award, she certainly seemed to have deserved the award. And based on her reaction, she certainly did not expect it. <br />
<br />
<b>Transforming Libraries for Engagement, Gary Strong, UCLA:</b> In this session, Gary Strong, University Librarian at UCLA, detailed the progress his library has made in, well, transforming for engagement. He compared the libraries when he started there as director as a 7-11 store - "people get their quart of milk and leave"; there was little engagement. He described how the UCLA libraries have become "participatory libraries", with space, both physical and virtual, for teaching, learning and research. They did this by engaging faculty and students with new forms of teaching and learning, making student research more visible, and encouraging interdisciplinarity. Notably, the UCLA libraries have embrace alternative roles, including a lab, museum, gallery, performance space, and civic meeting site. My observation, however, is that libraries have <i>always</i> played these roles - some more than others. Maybe it's only been the last 10-20 years that libraries have reduced these roles in an effort to focus on collections and reference.<br />
<br />
One very interesting insight Gary brought up was that many students come from areas with few library resources and engagements. This may become more and more common if we cannot convince school boards and city councils that libraries have a substantial ROI on their primary constituents. Thus, it should not be expected for them to expect the services that we do provide. Rather, we need to reach out to these students to prove what we can provide for them. He then describes several new pedagogical approaches, including:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Inquiry-based learning & Inquiry Labs</li>
<li>Peer-to-Peer Learning (as an alterative to classes)</li>
<li>Game-based Learning (this is becoming more and more common)</li>
<li>Partnering with innovative faculty</li>
</ul>
<div>
Finally, Gary goes into details about several of the programs and services that effectively transform the libraries for engagement. Most prominent was the Library Research Commons, which is lab space that supports the whole life-cycle of research. Of importance is that the space is meant to encourage <i>discussion</i>, not simply experimentation. The space can be reserved for use by faculty and/or students, but this reserved usage requires collaboration with librarians. This ensures that the libraries are involved in the projects and can bring the full breadth of resources and knowledge. When not reserved, the space is available for informal use by anybody. They have been, however, overwhelmed by interested in formal projects and are now having to prioritize projects.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Gary also points out the work in software development, notably for mobile apps, which are developed by students who are hired as software developers. While they are managed by a permanent staff member, it is their ideas that are developed, tested and implemented. Essentially, they are expected to "create stuff (they) will use." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The one final point that I wanted to emphasize from Gary's presentation was that rather than embedded librarianship, they are focusing on <i>embedding faculty in the library</i>. This ensures that teaching, learning and research are intertwined with library resources and services.<br />
<br />
<b>LibValue:</b> Paula Kaufman, of the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, described their role in the LibValue project, a 3 year project that is not yet completed. The first phase looked at how the library is involved in the faculty grant process. Through surveys asking faculty about the role library resources played in their grant applications, they were able to estimate a $4.38 ROI. This is based on the percentage of faculty who rated citations in proposals as important to the percentage of proposals. The second phase conducted the same ROI assessment globally to determine variations based on geography and institution type. <br />
<br />
The bulk of the presentation was on the third phase, which involved multiple institutions and organizations, including ARL, UIUC, University of Tennessee, Stanford and JISC. Through a series of surveys, they determined the value of library collections in teaching, reading and scholarship. Some of the preliminary results show that fewer percentage of students preferred using e-books than faculty..In addition, measures of usage the digital special collections were developed and tested. Tools for determining ROI for academic libraries will be available from the <a href="http://libvalue.cci.utk.edu/" target="_blank">ARL LibValue site</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Course and Subject Guides Usage:</b> It was an unexpected pleasure to attend the presentation by Amy Pajewski, from West Texas A&M (WTAMU). It was short but sweet, with some interesting ideas about assessing subject guides. While her study was closer to usability study than qualitative research, she did learn what at least some students think about the subject guides that librarians hold so near & dear to our hearts. Not much. Really. The students thought the guides were too busy ("stressed" and "overwhelmed" were key words given), could not tell to whom the guides would be useful, and when the guides should be used. Looking at some basic usability guidelines and research, Amy could immediately see some gross violations of good design. <br />
<br />
Then she asked some librarians some key questions about guides & their development. Of particular importance was that only 2% of the librarians asked had talked with faculty and/or students <i>before</i> developing their guides. While this may be bad design, it is not terribly surprising. After all, faculty & students are busy folks. Also, it is hard to get users to express their future information needs effectively. However, some good qualitative research should be able to discern the information needed for common scenarios (beginning a paper, researching a grant, etc.). I also wonder how much, if any, of the knowledge gained from information behavior research that has been conducted has been incorporated into guide design.<br />
<br />
<b>Getting a read on your borrowers:</b> This session, conducted jointly by Debra Duke of the Fort Worth Public Library and Chris Briggs of Bruxton Analytics was the most interesting session I went to all day. Over the last year or two, FWPL had contracted with Bruxton to provide market segmentation analysis of the users of their branch libraries. Using techniques developed for commercial organizations, they were able to combine demographic data and circulation patterns of their patrons with market-level data about their populations likes, dislikes, work habits, hobbies, interests, political bents, and consumer spending patterns. This was all part of the library's "<a href="http://fortworthtexas.gov/library/info/default.aspx?id=74282" target="_blank">20/20 Vision Master Plan</a>". Through this analysis, they determined that the average drive time for active users to their nearest library was 8 minutes, with 2-15 minute range. But they noticed that the spread of users of individual branches was quite wide, with some users preferring branches farther away, at least from their homes. They also used the market segmentation data to get a "read" on their non-users. Of particular importance were the hobbies, reading preferences, and interests. <br />
<br />
Debra emphasized that a major obstacle to initiating this work was, as she put it, the "ick factor". That is, the distaste of librarians to share potentially confidential information about their patrons with a third party. This was partly overcome by the contract stipulations, as well as the company's reputation and experience dealing with companies & other organizations with similar concerns. What they haven't yet decided to do is take that information a step further and actually customize advertising material for potential users based on the market segmentation data. This would be based more on the market research data and not what the patrons used in the libraries, but it does give one pause; should we walk into this environment of less and less privacy? Or should we stubbornly stand as a vanguard, even if others no longer expect it?<br />
<br />
Well, that was just day one. I'll post my notes of day two separately. Don't worry - that's all there is, since my dog's feigning illness kept me home Saturday.</div>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-56133340276341957582013-04-13T22:35:00.002-05:002013-04-13T22:35:19.553-05:00Feedback on the latest ITHAKA surveyLast week, ITHAKA, the non-profit "that helps the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways," released the results of its latest iteration of a wide-reaching survey of faculty about "tracking the attitudes and practices of<br />
faculty members at US colleges and universities for more than a decade" (pg. 5). You can <a href="http://www.sr.ithaka.org/sites/all/modules/contrib/pubdlcnt/pubdlcnt.php?file=http://www.sr.ithaka.org/sites/default/files/reports/Ithaka_SR_US_Faculty_Survey_2012_FINAL.pdf&nid=502" target="_blank">download the report</a> and read for yourself how faculty attitudes and practices have changed. I'll be reporting, however, the reactions of others to these results.<br />
<br />
The first reaction I read was actually in an email from a colleague - "Doesn't really inspire too much enthusiasm…", which itself was none-too-inspiring. Essentially, attitudes of faculty towards the library haven't changed notably over time - the majority of faculty who responded still view libraries primarily as buying agents, gateways, and archives. Depressingly, fewer than in 2009 agreed with the statement that the library helps their productivity in research & scholarship and that the library supports their teaching activities. Finally, less than 60% believed the library helps undergraduates develop critical thinking, research, and information literacy skills. <sigh><br />
<br />
Even more non-inspiring was the breakdown by broad disciplines - as expected, faculty in the humanities were most supportive of all of the library's roles asked in the survey. And as suspected, faculty in the sciences primarily see libraries as a buying agent. Fewer than half of science faculty considered the library important in their research or teaching activities, particularly (and depressingly) the latter. Of course, faculty in the social sciences responded in between these extremes of "love" and "disinterest". But only about half of them thought that the library supports their teaching activities. Hrrmph.<br />
<br />
Barbara Fister, in <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/surfeit-surveys-and-three-short-questions" target="_blank">Library Babel Fish</a>, is similarly uninspired by the results, although she brings up some interesting insights. Given the lack of consideration of the library's role in supporting the development of critical thinking and information literacy skills, she suggests that maybe libraries redirect their attention:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(This makes me think we should stop writing so many articles about information literacy for other librarians and think about reaching the faculty. Just a thought.)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
William Badke notes in his comment to this post that information literacy is not on the radar of higher education, with few journals including articles on IL, citing a publisher whose reason for rejecting a manuscript was that there was "'no market for information literacy books among educators'". A quick search of our discovery tool, Summon, and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed articles on "information literacy" and "higher education". About 1/5th of the results were from higher-ed journals (e.g. <i>College Teaching</i> and <i>Studies in Higher Education</i>), and a smattering communications and educational technology journals (notably <i>EDUCAUSE</i>), but about 75% were from library journals. A quick search of WorldCat retrieved over 400 titles (not limited by publication year), but many of the initial results were from traditional librarianship publishers (Neal-Schuman, Libraries Unlimited, ALA, Scarecrow Press, etc.). So Badke's comment does bear out, at least on first glance.<br />
<br />
Barbara brings up a point, though, that casts doubt on the validity of the report - the incredibly low response rate of 3.5%. Of course, this 3.5% of the over 160,000 recipients to whom invitations were sent results in 5,261 respondents. The question is, then, are the 5,261 representative of the sample population. Once the data are deposited in the ICSPR, this can be determined.<br />
<br />
Others, including Steven Harris of <a href="http://www.collectionconnection.alcts.ala.org/?p=171" target="_blank">Collection=Connection</a>, noted the vast disparity of opinions about the library's roles between library directors and other faculty. This "disconnect" is apparent in the nearly 40% differences in responses of agreement to statements about the library's roles in supporting teaching activities and research productivity. Harris suggests it may be a matter of lack of faculty awareness...maybe it's something else? <br />
<br />
While Rick Anderson in the <a href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/04/11/interesting-findings-from-ithaka-srs-latest-faculty-survey/" target="_blank">Scholarly Kitchen</a> mentions the "less surprising results" (increasing use of search engines by faculty, faculty don't see the library as important as library directors, etc.), he does point out results that he found "more surprising". These include a modest increase in the use of the catalog as the initial search tool (although I, like others, think this is an anomaly), and a "modest" decrease in comfort with the shift from print to online journals.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/08/study-shows-gap-between-research-use-classroom-adoption-technology" target="_blank">Carol Straumsheim</a> looks at the use of technology in the classroom, or lack thereof. A posting in the blog, <a href="http://scholarlyworkflow.org/2013/04/09/ithaka-2012-faculty-survey-research-dissemination-findings/" target="_blank">Scholarly Workflow</a>, focuses on the the issues of, well, scholarly workflows. The poster notes the low percentages of faculty who value institutional support of research and publication process in such ways as providing Web pages of research outputs, assessing the impact of work, determining the most optimal venues for publication, etc. The ranges of support were all below 50%, indicating that most faculty appear to prefer to go it alone. <br />
<br />
Overall, the reception of the <a href="http://www.sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/us-faculty-survey-2012" target="_blank">2012 ITHAKA S+R Faculty Survey</a> has been modest and less than enthusiastic. Generally, the faculty have their own opinions about the value of technology and libraries, and they are very different from librarians. How can we bridge this gap? More food for thought...<br />
<br />Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-72197248588700814282013-04-06T19:29:00.002-05:002013-04-06T19:29:28.640-05:00Providing support for research & publicationA paper by two of my colleagues has just been released in pre-publication of <i>College & Research Libraries (C&RL)</i>, one of the top library science journals, particularly for academic libraries. The article, <a href="http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2013/04/05/crl13-447.abstract" target="_blank">Fostering Research and Publication in Academic Libraries</a>, presents results of a survey my colleagues had been working on for the last two years. I like this article for more reasons than the fact that I know & respect the authors...I like that it was replicating research completed 35 years ago, and thus providing good comparisons over time. This is so rarely done in social science research (and even in natural sciences). Replicating research is important to verify findings, validate instruments, and provide data that can be compared over time. So I'm proud of the authors for doing the work and proud of <i>C&RL</i> for publishing (one of the biggest reasons replicating research is not done is because it is usually not published). <br />
<br />
I also like the purpose of the article, which was to get a sense of the support that is being provided to librarians who are expected to publish research. This is important because "not all academic librarians are<br />
prepared to meet these requirements because of time constraints and a lack of training." Think about it...teaching and research faculty in the social sciences have to complete at least 60 more hours of classes, including research methods and statistics, conduct some kind of research project, write a dissertation or several articles, and then either support the dissertation or submit the articles to the peer review process. Few librarians go through a program that provides that same experience. <br />
<br />
I appreciated my education at Texas Woman's University in the mid- to late-1990's, where we were required to take a research methods course and a social sciences statistics course. We did have the choice of completing a research project or a professional project, but we had to write a "professional paper" - which, for those of us who opted for the research, was on the level of a master's thesis. Then we had to participate in a poster session where we had to support the project to the dean himself (yes, I was nervous when he stopped by <i>my</i> poster). My understanding among my peer librarians is that this was not a common educational experience.<br />
<br />
So what kind of support do the 70% of ARL deans (who responded to the survey) who expect their librarians to research and publish provide? They <i>say</i> that their libraries provide "library work time for research and publication" - although a few do not <i>support</i> that. Yet so often I hear from my colleagues (of this and other institutions) that they just don't have the time. There is a definite dissonance between what institutions say is <i>provided</i> and what librarians perceive is <i>allowed</i>. Maybe it's the amount of time that's allowed versus what is thought to be needed. The median amount of time provided is 1-5 hours per week (that's a big spread: 2.5% - 12.5% of a 40-hour work week). Interestingly, about 40% of the responding libraries provided 6-10 hours (up to 25%). Most libraries also offer sabbaticals, but the percentage of pay provided is down from 30 years ago. <br />
<br />
What about funding? Well, nearly all library deans say they support internal funding for research projects, with most of them actually providing money, usually from the library's discretionary budget. Is it enough money? Well, the amount provided has increased by 50% in the last thirty years - is that enough? A quick look at the <a href="http://www.inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Calculators/Cumulative_Inflation_Calculator.aspx" target="_blank">inflation calculator</a> shows that the total inflation rate between 1980 and 2012 was 191%. <br />
<br />
While most deans provide support for training and informal mentoring for research activities, only about half provide formal mentoring programs for their librarians. And even fewer provide "library research committees", defined by the authors as groups "organized to support the research and writing activities of librarians." Only about a third of the responding deans indicated that such activities were provided at their libraries. And what's more, the gap between what was supported by the deans and what was actually provided was notable for the formal training and mentoring activities. <br />
<br />
The vast majority of responding deans provide their libraries with "project support" - as in computers, photocopying, mail, even financial incentives for survey or focus groups. Less than half, however, provide support for student assistants. This is down from 30 years ago. <br />
<br />
OK, so what does all of this mean? What did my peers conclude? Well, more ARL libraries provide faculty status for their librarians and, concomitantly, require their librarians to conduct research and publish for promotion. While the stated dollar amounts of internal funding have increased, it did not keep up with inflation. More deans state that they think it is right to provide support for research and publication, but fewer state that their libraries actually do provide it. <br />
<br />
Time seems to be the biggest concern for librarians. Yet, as mentioned by the article's authors, this was so even for a university that provided upwards of 20% of work time for research activities, as well as sabbaticals. I'm very interested in this phenomenom. My colleagues in this article mention other comparisons of work schedules and division of tasks between academic librarians and other academic faculty. They particularly point out that faculty have been found to have variations in the divisions of their time within the year and between years, depending on their research activities. So maybe the issue is that librarians do not schedule these variations themselves; instead, they continue to provide their services year-round, continuously which leaves only 5-10 hours a week. And not much can be accomplished with this kind of scheduling. Rather, librarians should consider taking "sabbaticals" from their regular duties (akin to academic faculty who have a lighter teaching load one year) to focus 50-75% of their time to a research project. Can this be done without affecting quality of library services? <br />
<br />
I think that the main support feature of interest to the authors, though, was the "library research committees," if only because that is what has been attempted at our library. We have a larger committee that attempts to coordinate training and support groups aimed at different foci of research. Some groups are more active than others, and evaluation of their success is difficult to measure. I lead a small group, and I know that it is hard to find the balance between support and pestering, finding just the right amount of pressure to apply to each person. I think the reason these groups have a hard time catching on and producing measurable results is that they require excellent leadership, which is hard to find, and the right mix of people, which can vary year to year. <br />
<br />
Overall, this was a very good article and I'm interested to see what others will do with the information. Will deans realize that they need to do more than <i>say</i> they think support <i>should</i> be provided? Will other libraries attempt some kind of support group or formal mentoring program? Will librarians change the way they devote time to their research activities?<br />
<br />
Of course, the whole issue of whether research & publication should even be expected of practicing librarians is for another time...Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-26765374405804007232013-04-03T16:22:00.000-05:002013-04-03T16:22:40.966-05:00Dealing with the aftermath of cancellationsDue to factors beyond the immediate control of our library, we had to reduce our materials budget for this current fiscal year by about one-seventh. This was my initiating into collections management, essentially cutting journals and databases. For journals, key factors involved in making decisions on what to cut included:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Usage</li>
<li>Length of embargo from aggregator</li>
<li>Cost (both total cost and cost-per-use)</li>
</ul>
<div>
Although we had worked with our subject liaisons and had communicated the cuts to the faculty through both the liaisons and our dean, it has only been since January when they've really taken notice. This is because of the inevitable delays between release of the final budget and actual elimination of service. One such incident provides a good example.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We had decided to cancel the subscription to <i>Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS)</i> primary because our $3000+ subscription fee was paying for only six months worth of content, and about 20-25% of these articles were Open Access. The copyright fee for PNAS is $2.00 - a quick glance at the articles in PNAS (research articles) suggests an average article length of about 8-10 pages. It would take, then, about 150 ILL requests to make up for the cost (OK, less than that if you factor in indirect costs of ILL, but you get the point). Indeed, there had only been one ILL request for a PNAS article this year. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yet, our liaisons are hit by (admittedly a vocal few) irate faculty who are indignant that we would not have a current subscription. I hope the liaisons inform these reasonable people of the factors involved. I wish we could include this information in a Notes field in the MARC record -- maybe they'd read it, maybe not. </div>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-13481409599046603672013-03-17T11:25:00.001-05:002013-03-17T11:25:13.895-05:00Research misconduct in LIS?The editorial, <a href="http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/18891/14820" target="_blank">Bogus Evidence</a> by R. Laval Hunsucker in the latest <i>Evidence-Based Library & Information Practice (EBLIP)</i>, discusses at great length the potential for research misconduct in the LIS field. After setting the stage with the recent apparent rise in "questionable research practices" (QRP's) and outright fraud in the basic, medical, and social sciences, Laval brings our attention to our own profession, or rather, the lack of attention that our profession has given this issue. He questions whether we, as members of the LIS profession, should consider research misconduct to be more or less or equally prevalent than in other research fields. He admits that there is enough evidence to support any of these positions, yet not enough evidence to reach any conclusions. And that, Laval asserts, is the crux of the problem. Why should we assume that we are any better (or worse) than any other field? And if we are neither better nor worse, shouldn't we be concerned that we are equally bad?<br />
<br />
Laval brings up some very valid points, particularly regarding the difficulty of detecting research fraud. Indeed, having been involved in a few research studies, I can imagine where fraud could occur, if so desired, particularly with data. Auditing the data collected is rarely done, and yet, it is, I believe, the weakest (or easiest) point. I have heard of large surveys where one single survey-taker fraudulently completed forms. Proper follow-ups detected the problem, but not before so many had been submitted that the integrity of the entire study had been threatened. But that is an easier problem to detect because the researchers were themselves conducted the study with integrity. The more difficult cases occur when the researchers manufacture the data. Only a full data audit could detect this, but as mentioned above, this is so rarely done because it is difficult and time-consuming (and thus, costs money). <br />
<br />
So, like so many researchers, those conducting studies in LIS are trusted to collect, analyze, and report their data in an unbiased and appropriate manner with little oversight. Is this trust justified? It appears that in this day and age of competition for jobs, promotions, and respect, people are growing more deceitful. But could we not say, too, that in this day and age of growing transparency with the Internet, people are growing more skeptical and distrustful? <br />
<br />
Professionally, I'm less concerned with outright fraud in the LIS literature than with QRP's related to poor training and limited knowledge. This is particularly true regarding studies conducted by practicing librarians like myself, rather than LIS research faculty who have completed more formal training and apprenticeship in research, in the form of the dissertation. Most practicing physicians do not initiate and formally conduct clinical studies. There are many who participate in research, but very few actually develop proposals, gather the data, analyze the results, and write the papers of their own research. Yet academic librarians are very often expected to do so themselves, often with less training than the physicians receive. Therefore, why should we not expect QRP's to occur? Laval himself notes that the "good news, and the other important difference, is that genuinely fraudulent research in LIS is almost certainly far less prevalent than sloppy research in LIS."<br />
<br />
Actually, the apparent increase in research misconduct does need more study in order to establish the environment in which our research can be trusted. But to judge all studies with a jaundiced eye will make it more difficult to move ideas into practice. Laval discusses the many proposed solutions, ranging from changes to rewards and incentives to formalized research integrity training. Like any complex problem with multiple foundations, no solution addressing just one of these foundations will work by itself. But like they tell those with mental or addiction problems, simply recognizing the problem exists is the first step.Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-40284988447183024842013-03-02T17:40:00.000-06:002013-03-02T17:40:03.601-06:00New results from impact studiesThe <a href="http://acrl.ala.org/valueography/?p=269" target="_blank">ACRL Value of Academic Libraries</a> site highlighted two articles recently published from the University of Minnesota, led by Shane Nackerud. Both articles are published in the April 2013 issue of <i>portal: Libraries and the Academy</i>, although I'll be linking to their institutional repository. The <a href="http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/143309/1/Analyzing%20Demographics-%20Assessing%20Library%20Use%20Across%20the%20Institution.pdf" target="_blank">first article</a> describes how the data was collected and analyzed and provides basic demographics of the users of library's services. The research questions in this paper were:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>Do sufficient measures exist to determine what services individual library patrons use? </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>Do the Libraries reach the majority of students in some way?</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>Do students in different colleges use library materials and services in different ways?</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>How does undergraduate library use compare to that of graduate students?</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
With increasing use of methods that capture, essentially, who uses each service, they were able to link with demographic and academic data about each user. The "access points" or services for which data was captured includes:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>material circulation</li>
<li>ILL requests</li>
<li>library workstation logins </li>
<li>usage of electronic resources for those who were off-campus or those who logged into the library workstations</li>
<li>attendance at workshops</li>
<li>reference consultations</li>
<li>course-integrated instruction (through Blackboard)</li>
</ul>
<div>
While not a complete set of data from all library services, this set does represent much of what the library provides. Missing are usage of electronic resources from those on-campus and not using library workstations, in-house usage of materials, brief reference transactions, and visits to the library. The authors admit that such data, especially the last, would be essential for measurement of "library as place", but they express concerns about over-reaching to such an extent that it would affect usage of the very services they would be measuring. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But it's still a big data set - over 1.5 million transactions from over 61,000 unique users. They were able to work with their Office of Institutional Research to get the demographic and academic data. This step has been a common obstacle to such impact research for many libraries, whose own OIR's were reluctant to share the information. The solution seems to be to split the collection of data between the two campus units - library gathers the user identifiers and the OIR provides the demographic/academic data, returning an anonymized data set to the library. This way, neither party should have access to the entire data set, thus securing privacy that much more. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With the complete, anonymized data set, the librarians were able to run correlation analysis to determine if academic achievement was in any way associated with library usage of any kind. Pretty basic...and, to no one's surprise, there was a significant correlation. This is very much in-line with other similar studies, such as the Library Impact Project. I found this part interesting, though (emphasis added):</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Already library staff have been able to share this data with University deans and administration and the feedback has been both positive and somewhat unexpected. For example, while University administrators have been enthused by the results, <i>they are also not surprised</i>. It seems intuitive that libraries should be able to demonstrate appropriate levels of usage, and that usage should result in increased academic success.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
How frustrating! University administration puts libraries (and others) under pressure to justify our value, our impact on student achievement, then says, "So?"! Maybe this demonstrates a need to find out exactly <i>what</i> measures administrators expect. <br />
<br />
In the <a href="http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/143312/1/Library%20Use%20and%20Undergraduate%20Student%20Outcomes-%20%20New%20Evidence%20for%20Students%E2%80%99%20Retention%20and%20Academic%20Success%20.pdf" target="_blank">second paper</a><i>, </i>the authors look at a subset of the population that could provide the clearest association of library usage and academic outcome: first-year, non-transfer students. This group would have the fewest confounders, such as previous college experience, to muddie the results. They looked at the effects of library usage on both student achievement (grades) and retention. Their statistical analyses was more sophisticated than you typically see in LIS research, using not only <i>t</i>-tests and chi-squared-tests to determine the significance of differences between groups, but also determining the effect size (medium) and multiple linear and logistic regression. They attribute the (relative) richness of this analysis to their own outreach to campus statisticians, and they recommend libraries not try to do it all themselves. Hear, Hear. The value of doing this analysis is that the authors demonstrated the size of the relationships they had found (significantly positive), but also the limitations of such relationships (most correlations were small). <br />
<br />
However, with their models, they were able demonstrate significant effect of <i>any</i> library usage on GPA, while controlling for demographic factors. Essentially, users of library service had a GPA 0.23 points higher than non-users, and that usage of the library accounted for 12.4% of the difference between the groups. Given how many factors went into the model (12), that's a bigger chunk than expected (1/12th or 8.3%). The second model broke the services out. Not unexpectedly, these effects were much, much smaller. The only services that showed statistically significant effects were database use, book loans, and workstation logins, and while the size was small, they were services that would be used repeatedly over the course of the semester. The totality of the usage of services represented a larger share of the effect - 13.7%. <br />
<br />
Finally, their logistical regression models were conducted to predict student retention based on either usage of any service or usage of specific services. This kind of model demonstrates the strength of the relationships by showing how library services can <i>predict</i>, or explain, outcomes. This is a key aspect of research - can a variable predict a specific outcome? If it can, then it can be used to change the outcome. These models were both significant, even when adjusting for demographic factors. Another important feature of logistic regression analysis is the calculation of the odds ratio (OR). This measures the sized of the effect of the variable on the outcome. In this case, students who used any of the library's services were 1.54 times more likely to continue to the next semester than those who did not. Conversely, few of the individual services showed significant effects on retention; those that did were likely due to small sample sizes (few attendees). <br />
<br />
So, what does this all mean? Using these moderately-sophisticated statistical analyses is very much like triangulation - analyzing data from different angles to see the true picture. This picture shows that there appears to be modest relationship between usage of any of the library's services and student achievement and retention. However, picking out which services had the biggest effects is more difficult. The linear model showed database logins, workstation logins and materials circulation as having a small effect; this doesn't show, though, in the logistic model. More evidence, then, is needed. <br />
<br />
It is somewhat disappointing that more interpersonal services, such as instruction and consultation, showed much lower effects. This, I imagine, is due in no small part to the size of the data set. Usage of these was services much lower compared to the more self-service, well, services. This could hide any association of the less-used services because of higher standard errors. The problem with studying such low-usage services is selection bias. If this can be controlled, randomly-selecting classes to provide instruction, then the effects should be more significant.<br />
<br />
These articles, I think, are invaluable to the efforts of demonstrating value. Like all applied research, it is but a piece in the overall puzzle. It is not sufficient for the argument, but with more such studies filling in the gaps of knowledge, the picture becomes more and more clear. It would be nice, however, if those who are the intended audience of such studies (presumably the campus decision-makers) would show their interest.<br />
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-18371068119391118152013-02-19T20:50:00.001-06:002013-02-19T20:50:34.416-06:00Collection Assessment: Going in the right direction<br />
For the last six months or so, I've been trying to develop a more systematic method of evaluating our collections, incorporating different kinds of measures. So it's nice to see examples from other libraries, as demonstrated by the slew of <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/archive/2012_posters.shtml" target="_blank">posters and presentations from the last Library Assessment Conference</a>. Here are highlights from a few that piqued my interest...<br />
<br />
From out of <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/edwards-susan-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">UC Berkeley, Susan Edwards, et al.</a> describe their evaluation of the library's collections based on three types of measures: collection uniqueness (overlap with their closest peer), direct usage (cross-tab analysis of book usage by location and patron affiliation), and indirect usage (citation analysis of dissertations). This is very much in the direction I've been working, evaluating the collection from different angles, using these exact same measures (among others). For collection uniqueness, they point out both that having a fair amount of overlap is appropriate, but that there is no national benchmark for overlap percentages. How unique <i>should</i> the collection be? I'd be interested in perhaps collaborating with UC Berkeley to come up with that national benchmark for overlap. But the citation analysis was most interesting, in part because they used a random selection of citations. A major obstacle of conducting citation analyses is the time and labor necessary to gather and record each citation. This is really not necessary if a random selection is used appropriately. I'd really like to learn exactly how they did their selection. From this analysis, they learned that their monograph collection for the social welfare students did not meet their needs as well as other collections. An interesting feature of their poster was an interactive slide on which users could add stickers that related their estimation of how well their own libraries met their users' needs.<br />
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From the University of Maryland University College Library, Lenore England and Barbara J. Mann describe their efforts to <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/england-lenore-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">centralize the evaluation of electronic resources</a>. Their poster described the criteria included in the evaluations, as well as the methods of communication with faculty and students regarding the review process. What was most interesting was the use of a <a href="http://libguides.umuc.edu/content.php?pid=100107&sid=751324" target="_blank">LibGuide</a> that is used to both document the process and communicate the progress to those who may be most impacted by the collection development decisions. The LibGuide not only makes the process transparent, but also provides the opportunity for comments from the stakeholders. This may be a useful method to employ in our next go-around of budget cuts.<br />
<br />
Alicia Estes and Samantha Guss from NYU described their methods for <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/estes-alicia-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">Data Gathering and Assessment for Strategic Planning</a>. This was accomplished using a team-based approach, with librarians from a wide range of divisions of the library. The team gathered data to be used in the planning process, including summarizing recent library assessment activities, discovering and producing an inventory of data collected, and "identifying trends." In addition to providing data for strategic planning, the poster listed some lessons learned from this project. These included discovering a need for more training in gathering, analyzing and understanding statistics, the need for an individual explicitly responsible for gathering and managing data ("to 'own' assessment"), and most notably, the need for a "more uniform process for data collection." Alicia and Samantha, I feel your pain. <br />
<br />
But this is a good lead in to a set of posters on developing such processes and repositories. From Joanne Leary and Linda Miller describe Cornell Library's <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/miller-linda-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">implementation of LibPAS for their annual data collection</a>. This caught <i>my</i> eye because we, too, are implementing LibPAS as a central repository of our statistics. Some of the challenges, opportunities and the "Conceptual Shifts" seemed quite familiar, including the "chance to review and rethink" data collection, the challenge of a large and complicated organization, and the shift of having standardized data that is immediately available. Although it's a little late for us to learn from their efforts, but it is good to know with whom we could collaborate or to whom we could go for ideas. <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/turner-nancy-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">Nancy B. Turner, from Syracuse University</a>, described their use of SharePoint for their data collection. Their document repository was most intriguing, with its "structured metadata for filtering results". Finally, <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/wanamaker-karen-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">there is the poster from Kutztown University Library</a> (you learn something new everyday) which describes their efforts to combine their locally-grown data repository system (ROAR) with the university's TracDat system. Again, this caught my eyes because of our use of TracDat for campus assessment.<br />
<br />
Of course, the latest efforts have been to associate usage of library resources and services to student outcomes, notably grades. The <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/peterson-kate-2012-poster.pdf" target="_blank">poster from the University of Minnesota</a> focused on using the data that are already available to the library to make this connection. This included circulation, computer workstation logins, e-resource logins (mostly from off-campus users), registration for library instruction, and individual consultations. Despite certain limitations of this data, they were able to demonstrate clear quantitative associations of a number of data with student grades and re-enrollment. They do not mention if these associations were tested for statistical significance, but I am definitely interested in their methods.<br />
<br />
Overall, I realized how much I missed from last year's <a href="http://libraryassessment.org/archive/2012_posters.shtml" target="_blank">Library Assessment Conference</a> and what I hope to contribute this coming year.<br />
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-73803611734101750002013-02-10T09:43:00.000-06:002013-02-10T09:43:15.183-06:00Favorite TEDTalk of the weekFor the last few months, I've been trying to schedule a time on Sunday mornings to watch the latest TEDTalks posted during the week. Today, I'm having to catch up from missing a couple of weeks due to various reasons. While most are quite interesting, I did want to highlight one that I found most intriguing and/or inspirational.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Tyler DeWitt talks about his efforts as a middle-school science teacher to <i>explain</i> science without the "tyranny of precision" and conforming to the "cult of seriousness". His key line is, "Let me tell you a story..." advocating the use of storytelling as a tool for engaging students. Tyler seems like a person who has been born & raised in a cult and has just thought of and is bewildered by ideas such as speaking your mind and freedom to believe in any (or no) religion. He (metaphorically) wonders why others haven't thought of this before. It's almost like Tyler believes he's the first person to use storytelling to reach students in science. And it's quite reasonable for him to believe this. He, himself, has been indoctrinated into the "cult of seriousness" and has been complicit in the "tyranny of precision" through his own science education and training to teach and write about science. So we can forgive him for his seemingly egocentrism and examine the meat of his argument: Make the teaching of science engaging and inspiring to students by using <i>simpler</i> language, metaphors that the students can relate to, and occassional "little lies". While he winces when people call it "dumbing down" (you'd be surprised at how many of the negative comments use this exact phrase), .... The "little lies" is another aspect that some people take exception to. But Tyler affirms it is better that the students learn overall concepts that may not be 100% accurate than to not learn any of the concepts at all. <br />
<br />
I always find it interesting to read the comments of the TEDTalks to find what others think. Inevitably, there are the gushing "Right on!" and "Amen!" comments, but just as inevitably there are naysayers. I think this exchange is good and right. And I found it quite interesting that the bulk of the negative comments came from fellow science teachers who express the exact sentiments that Tyler advocates against: a tyranny of precision, focusing on the idea of "little lies" idea; and the "dumbing down" of science. I think the concerns about the "little lies" are due to a poor choice of words. From what I understood, Tyler is not advocating <i>lying</i> per se but rather not being 100% <i>precise.</i> Using the examples of his talk, by leaving out the fact that a few viruses use RNA instead of DNA, he avoids confusing the students as they attempt to understand the basic concept of bacteriophage viruses. The more exceptions you throw into an explanation, the harder it is to understand. So, while Tyler is not telling the <i>whole</i> truth, he is, nonetheless, telling the<i> truth. </i> The second issue of "dumbing down" is also about choice of words, in this case, by the naysayers. Tyler emphasizes "simplifying" the language, not "dumbing it down". I believe the difference is based on your assumptions of how learning should happen. If you believe that it is the individual student's responsibility to "do the work" and understand it on his or her own, then using simpler language is "dumbing down". If you believe it is the responsibility of the teacher to explain and to, well, teach, then using simpler language is one tool of many. <br />
<br />
Finally, context of the class is key to the teaching methods used. Tyler (and most science teachers in primary, secondary, and lower-level undergraduate education) is teaching students many of whom will not even go to college, let alone become a scientist or science teacher. His goals are to have his students understand the basic concepts of science and the scientific method, and to inspire interest in discovering the ways of nature. <br />
<br />
So, what does this have to do with librarianship? Well, librarianship is an extension of education, and using library-centric terms and teaching searching skills using complex concepts like "boolean" and "relevance". Just as with science teachers, there are some who think we should teach the terminology and not "dumb it down". I believe there is a compromise of sorts - teaching the terminology by telling a story. Similarly, by using metaphors and storytelling to explain concepts of information literacy, our goals should not include making our students professional searchers, but rather to be able find relevant and useful information and to evaluate the sources and potential biases of the sources. <br />
<br />Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-28761786494521542902013-02-09T13:46:00.003-06:002013-02-09T17:05:00.743-06:00The data you need?Walt Crawford, who has done some rather amazing analyses of library-data, notably the freely-available data from <a href="http://www.imls.gov/research/public_libraries_in_the_united_states_survey.aspx" target="_blank">IMLS</a> (for public libraries) and <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/aca_data.asp" target="_blank">NCES</a> (for academic libraries), appears to be feeling a little, well, under-appreciated. In his post, "<a href="http://walt.lishost.org/2013/01/the-data-you-need-musings-on-libraries-and-numbers/" target="_blank">The data you need? Musings on libraries and numbers</a>," (in which he admits to have edited "to reduce the whininess") he expresses his concern that there appears to be a lot of data out there but nobody seems to care. He cites a series of examples, including the low sales of his own work, the apparent demise of Tom <a href="http://www.haplr-index.com/" target="_blank">Hennen's American Public Library Ratings</a> (which, admittedly, I was previously unaware of), and the unfortunate circumstances that led a PhD colleague to pursue other venues because there were no jobs to analyze data in libraries. This last example hits home with me because I feel quite fortunate to have the title of <i>Collection Assessment Librarian</i>. Not only am I paid to analyze data about our collections, but that is my <i>primary</i> responsibility; it was not tacked on to the list of responsibilities of the Collection Development Librarian or the Reference Librarian or even the Dean. <i>This</i> is what I do. I am not meaning to boast, but rather to express my appreciation. I also hope to point out that while such work of data analysis may be under-appreciated, I think there is interest, however scattered it may be. <br />
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But this is a general problem associated with LIS field itself - are we a <i>science</i> or are we a <i>profession</i>? Can we be <b>both</b>? The <i>science</i> of LIS implies that data is analyzed to answer fundamental questions regarding the who, what, when, where, why, and how of libraries and information. But the big questions are almost always asked by the academicians. Those in the <i>profession</i> are generally more concerned with the little questions regarding their collections, their budgets, their users. What I think is needed is a greater connection of the little questions to the bigger ones. How is my collection at my library affected by economic forces of scholarly communication? In exactly what ways will the local, state and national economies affect the services and collections of my library? <br />
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My concern is that we are not preparing professional librarians to make these connections. While "research" is mentioned in 16 of the approximately 90 sections/standards in the <a href="http://www.ala.org/accreditedprograms/standards" target="_blank">2008 Accreditation Standards</a>, courses in research methods and data analysis are haphazardly required by the SLIS graduates. Of the 3 LIS schools in Texas, only UT requires a course in research methods, but not in statistics. While I don't think that a practicing librarian needs to have the same training and skills of an epidemiologist or social sciences researcher, I do believe they should be able to read <i>and evaluate </i>published research and apply it to their smaller questions. I also think they should be able to conduct small-scale studies to answer their questions using methods that will provide valid answers.<br />
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Walt goes on to question his own contributions, due to lack of response from the library community. He is, essentially, taking a sounding, asking - Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Well, Walt, I think we do care and some of us do read your results. I think what is contributing to this apparent anomie is not disinterest, but perhaps a kind of paralysis - what do we do with this? It is interesting that the libraries in my state have generally moderate circulation rates or that circulation is correlated to expenditures. What can I do with that information? While this may be taught in the core curriculum of MLS programs, it may be forgotten as the graduates enter the workforce and get sucked into drudgery of their everyday routines.<br />
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Trying to address these issues, he asks some questions which are quite familiar to me:<br />
<ul>
<li>Am I asking the right questions?</li>
<li>Is there any analysis that is worth doing?</li>
<li>How can this information be made "meaningful and useful to librarians"?</li>
<li>Are librarians "willing to deal with data at all–to work with the results, to go beyond the level of analysis I can do and make it effective for local use"?</li>
<li>Can librarians "get" the differences in statistical measures, such as averages versus medians?</li>
</ul>
I don't believe the truth is clear about this. It is probably something like, some of us do care but don't get it; some of us get it but don't care; some care and understand it, but don't have the time; and some of us are quite interested and can follow through. And it's not clear whether this last group is growing in numbers or just staying on the fringes.<br />
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Finally, he asks the one question that got me to start this post in the first place: What <i>is</i> the data we need? This struck me because I've been working on my first collection assessment using more formal process and I keep thinking of other measures to include:<br />
<ul>
<li>Relative circulation rates compared with holdings rates</li>
<li>Distribution of age of books</li>
<li>Distribution of materials by type, age and usage</li>
<li>Comparisons of these against our peer institutions</li>
<li>Comparisons of databases against our peers</li>
<li>Spending on these subject areas compared with our peers</li>
<li>Acquisitions of recognized materials (highly-recommended, highly-cited, award-winning, etc.)</li>
<li>Coverage of resources in databases</li>
<li>Usage of all of our resources (notably electronic)</li>
<li>Publication of materials in this area, especially given changes to the ecology and economy of scholarly communications</li>
<li>Impact of primary research materials on the field and in the school</li>
</ul>
<div>
Some of this data we have or can start collecting. We are paying dearly for the use of the WorldCat Collection Analysis System so that we can compare with our peers (I understand the risks and problems with this but we believe it can still provide valid trends and comparisons). We have been working to standardize how circulation and in-house usage data is collected at the different collections or libraries within our system. And we have been working to bring all the data into central repositories to make comparisons and analysis a little easier.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Others, notably of usage and publication, are notoriously difficult. It would be very useful to know if our usage of selected databases differed significantly from usage of the same resources at our peer institutions. Heck, even after nearly 10 years of the COUNTER standard, our own usage data is still quite difficult to compile and understand (for some vendors, that data is absolutely worthless because it is masked by queries through a common interface). </div>
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So, Mr. Crawford, I just wanted to say, I feel your pain. It can seem lonely doing all this work without the formal recognition and the ultimate expression of value (money). This is why I will start looking at the NCES data more carefully and try to think of how this information can be applied locally. And I finally put my money where my mouth is...I purchased the book (print is still my preferred format) and downloaded the <i>Graphing</i><b style="font-style: italic;"> </b>ebook - you now have one sale. Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-31411679795455181392013-02-02T08:28:00.002-06:002013-02-02T11:55:02.891-06:00What could I do with 20 extra hours a week?This past week, I have hired two library student assistants. This is a first for me, to be solely responsible for interviewing and hiring and training <i>anybody</i>. While each student has other responsibilities, about half of their time can be spent on tasks that I can assign. So, this adds up to one part-time worker! Now, what could I do with essentially 20 extra hours a week? Here are some ideas:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Compare our holdings in specific subject fields with those of our other institutions..</li>
<li>Check the rate of ownership of award-winning books by year of award.</li>
<li>Analyze the distribution of circulation by subject area, year of publication and patron type and compare it with the distribution of usage of ebooks.</li>
<li>Analyze the life-cycle of materials by format (print book, ebook, media), and determining the period to first use and length of "time on shelf" between uses.</li>
<li>Compare the items requested via ILL from previous years to determine how many we eventually gain access to.</li>
<li>Determine differences in MARC records and other metadata between items used and items not used.</li>
<li>Compare the usage of ebooks through different vendors to answer the question, Does platform matter?</li>
<li>Conduct a Brief Test of Collection Strength.</li>
<li>Conduct a basic descriptive assessment of our media collection.</li>
<li>....I've only just begun....</li>
</ul>
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Admittedly, it will take me some time to develop the methods and document the procedures for the assistant to do these tasks. But these are pretty smart students who have a desire to do well and gain experience. I, too, look forward to developing some basic managerial and supervision skills and experience. </div>
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Although you <i>could</i> say they are <i>only</i> students, I feel a responsibility to mentor each one and provide an introduction to professional librarianship in an academic setting. Towards that end, I am considering providing a space for students on this blog, in which they could develop their writing skills. I'd be interested in learning more from them.</div>
Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055526005535757070.post-70758179203678550442013-01-24T16:11:00.001-06:002013-01-24T16:11:28.431-06:00ARL report on bundled-journal packages<a href="http://www.arl.org/news/pr/rli282-licensing-ejournal-bundles-23jan13.shtml" target="_blank">ARL released a pre-publication version</a> of its report on licensing of bundled ejournal packages. This is an update to surveys they conducted throughout the 2000's regarding the extent and licensing terms of the "Big Deals". It's only 9 pages, so it's a quick read, but there are a few points that are of most interest. What's disappointing is that they provide precious little information on the number and distribution of respondents. It would be nice to know how representative (at least of ARL members) the results are. <br />
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First is the <i>increase</i> in uptake of ejournal bundles, at least among the respondents. At least 85% of libraries had opted for ejournal bundles from 5 of the top 6 publishers (only 57% opted for Taylor & Francis packages). This, however, is contrasted by a decline in the rate of those libraries which have access to the complete set of titles offered by the publisher. Essentially, librarians have learned that access to everything is not the ideal collection development policy, especially when money is tight.<br />
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I was surprised at the extent of historical pricing, linked to costs of "print subscriptions grounded in an increasingly distant past." Most of the contracts were based on historical pricing and only two of the top six publishers are changing (note that while ACS technically is moving to a tiered pricing model, it has a base-level price that negates the value of that model). Having been in collection development only a short while, I am still learning the ins-and-outs of licensing, pricing, and budgets. But I do not see how historical pricing can continue in this day and age, with both cuts in library budgets and greater expectations of accountability by campus administrations that are more and more coming from the business perspective. What we are willing to pay for resources reflects our values, which may change over time, with changes in faculty, campus directions, and budgets. <br />
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The report does document a trend away from the "non-disclosure agreements" that have made research on this issue nearly impossible to conduct. Nearly half of respondents noted that they have a formal policy for not signing such contracts, and many question the legality of such clauses in their states due to FOIA and "sunshine laws". Indeed, when asked if their institutions had signed any such agreements, less than 1/3rd reported they did. Now, all we need to do is start sharing the information that we can (or testing the legality of those that we have signed). <br />
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One issue that was only glossed over in this report that I was interested in was the ILL policies. They provided ranges on such issues as sending printed articles, direct transmission of electronic articles, etc., but they did not go into any details. Perhaps they want the libraries to purchase the final report? Perhaps they are still crunching the numbers?<br />
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Well, the information in this report was enlightening on some issues, but, as mentioned above, I find it hard to generalize to the larger population of academic libraries, even those with a strong research basis. What questions did it raise for you?Karen Harkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13494190711234719868noreply@blogger.com0