*The quote in the title comes from a great article here.
I need to start by declaring an almost obsessive fascination with Trove - the National Library of Australia's magnificent contribution to librarianship, scholarship and research for our nation. My view is that it is the single greatest contribution to cultural heritage produced in Australia in the last decade. It utilises inputs from many different sources and makes them available to the serious researcher and the general community in a simple to use, engaging way.
This resource is transforming both the work of serious academics, wishing to study Australian history and culture and the curious amateur who wants to know more about their family's history somewhere in Australia. Don't take my word for it; look at these testimonies: Internationally and locally . There are heaps of other articles I could point to that speak eloquently about how Trove has changed the face of Australian research.
Personally I have curiously looked up family members from previous generations, who I've heard about but want to know more details of their lives. It is a truly addictive, fun place to find out so much!!
I'd recommend you search by your family surname and various towns you know families have lived in & see what you can discover!! As an Australian of German descent, it is interesting/disturbing to see how my forebears dealt with wars and prejudice in Australia. While some family members were fighting for Australia, at the same time others were having their haystacks burnt & their cattle poisoned because they had a German surname. Interesting & perhaps slightly relevant in our current race charged debates!!
Why am I talking about Trove? Well sadly the continual ingest of new content into Trove is under threat because of ongoing cuts to the budget of the National Library of Australia (NLA). These annual cuts have been in place for a number of years, but have now gone beyond "trimming the fat" to hacking at the bone of what is one of our national treasures!
The NLA built Trove using its existing, recurrent grant funding - by scrimping and saving to deliver on a magnificent vision. The NLA management - both past and present - are to be congratulated for their vision and persistence to deliver this nationally significant research tool. It is truly sensational & has something for everyone.
I am aware that for a number of years there have been annual cuts to the real value of the NLA budget. These cuts have largely been absorbed internally, impacting on various levels of service quality, but largely hidden from view to the average library user. However, these ongoing annual cuts have finally reached a point where they are directly impacting on the capacity of the NLA to support the legitimate role of Trove to continue to ingest and make available new and interesting content without direct additional funding support.
The issues for Trove and the library & research communities are more eloquently explained by various people here, here, here or here.
While I am not advocating any particular course of action, you may wish to consider the call of the #fundTrove campaign on Twitter and consider how you can contribute to the ongoing national, public campaign regarding the value of what I consider to be a wonderful national treasure.
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
Big Data - empowering business decisions
I follow OCLC on Twitter & yesterday they tweeted about a new blog, which includes a post called transforming data into impact. It is a really interesting article - with a few key points in it. One was that of all the data being gathered in the world, only half of one percent is actually analysed. The article goes on to provide examples of where libraries are using data to drive informed decisions. The examples are worth looking at.
The article has a couple of sub-headings which read From data to insight and From insight to action. This resonated with me as I've always been a bit of a data freak, because I am convinced that the best decisions are made based on evidence. That may appear self-evident, but it is amazing how often decisions are made without a firm evidence base. People who spend any time with me will hear me say that librarianship (like all professions) is a combination of an art and science. Science is the evidence we gather to inform us, but the "art" is the professional judgement we use to interpret the data, or to ask more questions to get more data or to form an hypothesis which we then want to test with more action and evidence. The "art" can be taught formally through library courses, and then it must be further developed through practise, reflection, working with peers and being actively involved in the changes that the profession continues to go through.
True library excellence is based on data, which is translated into insight which then informs action. And without insight, data is of little value.
In relation to data, PLS has just released the 2014/15 library statistics for each library, and provided some comparisons based on the ALIA Standards and Guidelines and averages of various libraries across the State. While these ALIA standards are not perfect & don't measure much of what is important about library practise they are a good starting place for libraries to measure themselves against an industry benchmark. (There is a project on to revise these standards - but that will be the subject of another post soon).
Each library's data was released only to that library, and not published more broadly as we want to give library managers the opportunity to reflect on the data, to use it judiciously to inform their business planning and also choose how they use it within their own council and community. We have also published the rankings for the metropolitan library, so that they can see where they stand in comparison with other libraries. I am hopeful that by providing comparative data against ALIA Standards and between libraries, managers will have an additional information layer to support their practise of the "art" of library management.
As we gather more data from within the LMS and from other sources we'll be happy to share it, and in some cases publish it as well. I am interested in any feedback from libraries about the data we have provided to date.
The article has a couple of sub-headings which read From data to insight and From insight to action. This resonated with me as I've always been a bit of a data freak, because I am convinced that the best decisions are made based on evidence. That may appear self-evident, but it is amazing how often decisions are made without a firm evidence base. People who spend any time with me will hear me say that librarianship (like all professions) is a combination of an art and science. Science is the evidence we gather to inform us, but the "art" is the professional judgement we use to interpret the data, or to ask more questions to get more data or to form an hypothesis which we then want to test with more action and evidence. The "art" can be taught formally through library courses, and then it must be further developed through practise, reflection, working with peers and being actively involved in the changes that the profession continues to go through.
True library excellence is based on data, which is translated into insight which then informs action. And without insight, data is of little value.
In relation to data, PLS has just released the 2014/15 library statistics for each library, and provided some comparisons based on the ALIA Standards and Guidelines and averages of various libraries across the State. While these ALIA standards are not perfect & don't measure much of what is important about library practise they are a good starting place for libraries to measure themselves against an industry benchmark. (There is a project on to revise these standards - but that will be the subject of another post soon).
Each library's data was released only to that library, and not published more broadly as we want to give library managers the opportunity to reflect on the data, to use it judiciously to inform their business planning and also choose how they use it within their own council and community. We have also published the rankings for the metropolitan library, so that they can see where they stand in comparison with other libraries. I am hopeful that by providing comparative data against ALIA Standards and between libraries, managers will have an additional information layer to support their practise of the "art" of library management.
As we gather more data from within the LMS and from other sources we'll be happy to share it, and in some cases publish it as well. I am interested in any feedback from libraries about the data we have provided to date.
Port Lincoln RFID makes the media
Congratulations to the team at Port Lincoln for attracting media attention to the installation of your public self-service RFID kiosks. The article is here. And it is great to see the journalist taking on some of the context of this local project - the fact that RFID is rolling out across the State & this is a follow on from the One Card rollout. She was obviously very well briefed by library manager Louise!
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
Growth in e-Content loans
The consortium has had a subscription to the Overdrive e-content provider for several years. Just over a year ago we were able to make the e-Books and e-Audiobooks discoverable through Enterprise - the public access "catalogue" / discovery product. This increase in accessibility has directly contributed to a significant increase in loans.
Below are two graphs provided through the Overdrive management portal which demonstrate both the growth in loans and also the proportion of loans which are e-Books compared to e-Audiobooks. This growth in customer usage also supports the consortium's decision to increase its expenditure on e-content as well as choosing a second e-content provider to complement our current Overdrive subscription. We are current tidying up a few loose ends with our new provider and SirsiDynix to ensure that the new content we're about to purchase will also be accessible through Enterprise. We will have more to say about this when we're ready to launch this second content source.
Compared to some library services, as a consortium we are relatively new to providing loanable e-content & we have not been as aggressive as some in promoting this service. I was talking to staff at Brisbane City Council libraries at the end of last year & the subject of e-content came up. They treat their e-content as a separate "branch" in that it is online, and independent from all of their physical libraries; and they tell me that late last year their e-content branch generated more loans than any of the other 30+ physical libraries.
It will be interesting to keep score of our growth in e-content in coming years, to see when our State-wide "branch" begins to surpass many of our physical libraries. In fact, while I don't have the figures with me, I'd have to think that loans of 35,000+ per month (as seen October - December) is a figure that would challenge many of our branches. Of course this figure is for all loans right across the State, and many customers who download e-content also borrow physical items, but all the same this is an impressive figure! I might do some research about the costs per loan from this collection compared to others.
As this part of our business continues to grow we will need to ensure that we continue to increase our skills and our support for the community as well as finding new ways to promote this collection to new audiences.
Below are two graphs provided through the Overdrive management portal which demonstrate both the growth in loans and also the proportion of loans which are e-Books compared to e-Audiobooks. This growth in customer usage also supports the consortium's decision to increase its expenditure on e-content as well as choosing a second e-content provider to complement our current Overdrive subscription. We are current tidying up a few loose ends with our new provider and SirsiDynix to ensure that the new content we're about to purchase will also be accessible through Enterprise. We will have more to say about this when we're ready to launch this second content source.
Compared to some library services, as a consortium we are relatively new to providing loanable e-content & we have not been as aggressive as some in promoting this service. I was talking to staff at Brisbane City Council libraries at the end of last year & the subject of e-content came up. They treat their e-content as a separate "branch" in that it is online, and independent from all of their physical libraries; and they tell me that late last year their e-content branch generated more loans than any of the other 30+ physical libraries.
It will be interesting to keep score of our growth in e-content in coming years, to see when our State-wide "branch" begins to surpass many of our physical libraries. In fact, while I don't have the figures with me, I'd have to think that loans of 35,000+ per month (as seen October - December) is a figure that would challenge many of our branches. Of course this figure is for all loans right across the State, and many customers who download e-content also borrow physical items, but all the same this is an impressive figure! I might do some research about the costs per loan from this collection compared to others.
As this part of our business continues to grow we will need to ensure that we continue to increase our skills and our support for the community as well as finding new ways to promote this collection to new audiences.
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
Presenting library statistics
I'm always interested in how library statistics can tell a story about library performance. Marissa and I are currently building report cards for each library, looking at how they rate against the ALIA Standards and Guidelines. We hope to release these to each library manager in the next month or so.
While looking at how others have reported library statistics I came across this really interesting blog post which uses a range of technologies to report on visits to UK libraries & how this figure compares to other activities undertaken by the community. There is the use of infographics, Slideshare (my favourite) and Sway amongst others. And someone has re-used the approach to display stats about Canadian libraries. The referencing of sources for the UK data at the bottom of the blog is particularly "librarian" - and great to have so that the authenticity of the data can be verified.
This has given me an idea about both Australian and South Australian library statistics, compared to other community activities. I'm not sure I'll get around to doing anything in the near future, but it's a mini-project I may come back to at some time. Of course if someone else wants to do the comparative research of community visits to various other events I'd be delighted to publish it here (& of course give credit to the authors and sources of their data).
As a starting point for Australian library visits, the most recent set of data about public libraries is from 2013/14 & is available here on the NSLA website. This data shows that there were over 112M visits to Australian public libraries that year, which is over 9M per month, or more than 2.1M a week / 300,000 a day. As Ned Potter's blog says, "So next time someone says libraries are no longer relevant, consider these statistics for a minute (and during that minute 536 people will visit a library."
Collectively, the public libraries of Australia are a powerhouse of community learning and recreation & are obviously very relevant to a significant proportion of our community. We need to shout this out loud to all who we come across.
While looking at how others have reported library statistics I came across this really interesting blog post which uses a range of technologies to report on visits to UK libraries & how this figure compares to other activities undertaken by the community. There is the use of infographics, Slideshare (my favourite) and Sway amongst others. And someone has re-used the approach to display stats about Canadian libraries. The referencing of sources for the UK data at the bottom of the blog is particularly "librarian" - and great to have so that the authenticity of the data can be verified.
This has given me an idea about both Australian and South Australian library statistics, compared to other community activities. I'm not sure I'll get around to doing anything in the near future, but it's a mini-project I may come back to at some time. Of course if someone else wants to do the comparative research of community visits to various other events I'd be delighted to publish it here (& of course give credit to the authors and sources of their data).
As a starting point for Australian library visits, the most recent set of data about public libraries is from 2013/14 & is available here on the NSLA website. This data shows that there were over 112M visits to Australian public libraries that year, which is over 9M per month, or more than 2.1M a week / 300,000 a day. As Ned Potter's blog says, "So next time someone says libraries are no longer relevant, consider these statistics for a minute (and during that minute 536 people will visit a library."
Collectively, the public libraries of Australia are a powerhouse of community learning and recreation & are obviously very relevant to a significant proportion of our community. We need to shout this out loud to all who we come across.
Wednesday, 23 December 2015
Membership numbers & Christmas reading.
Over the last few years I've collected up some professional reading material to take away on leave & have often shared these with you through this blog. This year I've been so flat out I haven't even had the energy to do this. However I was delighted to see that the ALIA PD Postings of yesterday included a link to 55 articles every librarian should read. So I'll be ploughing my way through much of this list in coming days.
There was one article in this list which I did open, because it related to a conversation we've been having in the office about collection management & the overall age, balance and quality of our collective state-wide collections. You'll be hearing more about this next year as a couple of projects ramp up, but I would point you to this interesting article on Collection management & the art of weeding.
Now regarding library membership, we all know that we've been de-duplicating our customer database as well as deleting some very old unused cards from the system. This has had quite an impact on our reportable membership numbers. But at least we know that we're reporting much more accurate numbers than we have in the past. Our current membership percentage now sits at a a little over 40% of the State's population being active library members.
In the face of this clean up of the database it is interesting to report on the rate of NEW library members who have joined in a period of slightly less than the last 6 months. PLS staff have run a report on the system which takes into account deletions of memberships and counts the net increase that has occurred over this period. As the table below indicates, in just under 6 months we have added just over 33,000 new members to the system. I think this is an amazing jump in membership.
As 2015 draws to a close I continue to be amazed at what our public library network continues to achieve on behalf of the community. I look forward to 2016 - anticipating another year where our network of libraries will continue to work together for the best possible outcomes for all our customers.
There was one article in this list which I did open, because it related to a conversation we've been having in the office about collection management & the overall age, balance and quality of our collective state-wide collections. You'll be hearing more about this next year as a couple of projects ramp up, but I would point you to this interesting article on Collection management & the art of weeding.
Now regarding library membership, we all know that we've been de-duplicating our customer database as well as deleting some very old unused cards from the system. This has had quite an impact on our reportable membership numbers. But at least we know that we're reporting much more accurate numbers than we have in the past. Our current membership percentage now sits at a a little over 40% of the State's population being active library members.
In the face of this clean up of the database it is interesting to report on the rate of NEW library members who have joined in a period of slightly less than the last 6 months. PLS staff have run a report on the system which takes into account deletions of memberships and counts the net increase that has occurred over this period. As the table below indicates, in just under 6 months we have added just over 33,000 new members to the system. I think this is an amazing jump in membership.
Date
|
0-14
|
15-19
|
20-64
|
65+
|
Total
| |
30/06/2015
|
Library members
|
78,000
|
42,254
|
355,108
|
136,543
|
611,905
|
New members added from 1/7/15 –
18/12/15
|
5,316
|
1,901
|
20,410
|
5,578
|
33,205
| |
18/12/2015
|
Total
|
83,316
|
44,155
|
375,518
|
142,121
|
645,110
|
2011 Census
|
SA Population
|
286,936
|
103,248
|
948,837
|
257,551
|
1,596,572
|
18/12/2015
|
% increase in 6 months
|
6.80%
|
4.40%
|
5.74%
|
4.08%
|
5.42%
|
Monday, 2 November 2015
RFID milestone
Today marks a key milestone for our State-wide Network. Significant funding from the Libraries Board has brought forward the Network's ability to implement RFID circulation - particularly for all items circulating between libraries. At the start of this project the Network already had over two million items with chips in them - meaning that we'd passed the 50% mark in RFID tagged items.
Seventy Six library branches which were not RFID enabled prior to this project have purchased an RFID pad & are using the tags supplied by the Board to tag all items as they are shipped out to other libraries. Tagging items that are being shipped to other libraries is a key efficiency measure for libraries which have already tagged their own collections, and are using a "self check" approach for customers. Prior to today these libraries had to run two parallel systems for items with chips & those without. Some libraries chose to place chips into all incoming items, while others ran two checkout systems. Neither of these solutions were ideal, so it will be a real bonus for these libraries to move away from the need to do this.
These benefits will continue to grow as libraries complete the tagging of their own collections. This will allow these libraries to move to local RFID circulation if they choose to do so.
Mount Barker is the 1st library during this project to fully tag their collections, using the loan equipment that we have from our supplier Bibliotheca. And I know that Charles Sturt isn't far behind. There are ten other libraries using this loan equipment to speed up their tagging process. This equipment will move on to other libraries as per the schedule that James Kemperman has published.
We're aware that a significant number of libraries are well ahead on their tagging schedule, which is great news for the network.
Obviously there are some items currently in transit between libraries which aren't tagged, so I would expect that libraries will continue to receive untagged items for a week or two.
Seventy Six library branches which were not RFID enabled prior to this project have purchased an RFID pad & are using the tags supplied by the Board to tag all items as they are shipped out to other libraries. Tagging items that are being shipped to other libraries is a key efficiency measure for libraries which have already tagged their own collections, and are using a "self check" approach for customers. Prior to today these libraries had to run two parallel systems for items with chips & those without. Some libraries chose to place chips into all incoming items, while others ran two checkout systems. Neither of these solutions were ideal, so it will be a real bonus for these libraries to move away from the need to do this.
These benefits will continue to grow as libraries complete the tagging of their own collections. This will allow these libraries to move to local RFID circulation if they choose to do so.
Mount Barker is the 1st library during this project to fully tag their collections, using the loan equipment that we have from our supplier Bibliotheca. And I know that Charles Sturt isn't far behind. There are ten other libraries using this loan equipment to speed up their tagging process. This equipment will move on to other libraries as per the schedule that James Kemperman has published.
We're aware that a significant number of libraries are well ahead on their tagging schedule, which is great news for the network.
Obviously there are some items currently in transit between libraries which aren't tagged, so I would expect that libraries will continue to receive untagged items for a week or two.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)