Friday, March 30, 2001

Enrollment Limit: 35 people

Workshop Leaders:

Joyce Toscan, Library Statistics Coordinator, University of Southern California

Sponsors:

Statistics Task Force

This workshop is wheelchair accessible

All of us collect statistics concerning our libraries: how many items circulated for the year, how many new patrons we registered, etc. Many of us do patron surveys to determine why users enter the library or how satisfied they are with library services. But how many of us make good use of the numbers we collect?

The workshop will look specifically at areas such as:

Sampling, or how to be sure your numbers are valid so you can use them with confidence; when do you need "valid" numbers and when can a "sense" be enough for action? What kinds of numbers might you want about patrons, e.g., if 50% of your patrons rate your library as "good," so what? What level of dissatisfaction is something to worry about? Suppose you know from your numbers that 80% of the students in the disciplines your library covers have used the library at least once in the semester. Is that good? What, if anything, do you do about the other 20%? Are these the kind of stats of which one simply wants to be aware? What kind of numbers might you want on collection use? If a title never circulates, do you keep it? At what point do you buy a second copy? What is benchmarking all about? How can you do it and why would you want to? How can it result in a better library?

Participants are encouraged to bring surveys or studies they would like to have critiqued, as well as questions which they would like addressed by workshop leader Joyce Toscan.