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Re: Statistics (was RE: WA STATE LIBRARY)



Over my professional career, as a tech/ref librarian/info specialist, I have
had to keep numerous stats, and I will list a few in a moment. However, one
thing I have long done is a monthly highlight, to my boss, of the
neat/extra-ordinary/high impact searches/ref work I do. She loves it. She
then uses that for a monthly report she has to do.  Finding that regulation,
getting that obscure Outer Slobovian document on whatever, assisting a
department in preparing a bid (this has financial impact, something lots of
managers are looking for), assisting the purchasing department in ferreting
out those companies which might not be able to meet contract requirements (I
recall one instance where a contract was issued, to a company which simply
did not have the wherewithal to carry out a function, resulting in a
regulatory non-compliance situation later), etc., keeping a customer happy,
are things which 'matter', make me seem worth my salt. Also, environmental
things...compliance is important here...think of the financial impact of
non-compliance. Things I do which assist in getting business, helping us
comply with regs/environmental matters, reducing operating costs,
trouble-shooting, have value.  If there would be some way to solicit from
patrons the impact the information has on them or their organizations, or
the state or the university, this might go a long way, along with a monthly
or quarterly ooh-ahh report.  Although your professional settings may be far
different from mine, surely things like someone's preparing a grant request,
someone's scholarly research (perhaps about an historical event/personage in
your state)(sure to bring to light these significant happenings which
otherwise have been overlooked), women's or minority studies (hot topics
today).  Is a patron using your archives for authoritative research for a
documentary or a movie? How about plotting trends about demographics,
economics, things like that? Is the patron doing a scholarly work on
underwater basket weaving?

Two other related things come to mind...I know of a museum in the UK which
permitted some of its Sopwith Camels and other vintage aircraft to be filmed
for a blockbuster movie some years ago. I'm sure they garnered fees, and
some nice recognition in the credits at the end of the film.   The wonderful
car museum in Cleveland, OH, the Crawford Collection, used to (and maybe
still does), permit social gatherings, for a fee, after hours. I attended
such a function which garnered some great press for the place, some big wigs
attended, the museum made a few bucks, and it was a win-win seemingly all
around.      Other more mundane stats I keep: reports indexed; phone call
requests; vendors/sources used for searching; alerts monthly. Sorry if seem
long-winded.  The monthly report, if not done, might be of great value.

Sharon Lee Butcher
Reference Librarian
AEDC Technical Library
100 Kindel Drive, Ste C212
Arnold AFB, TN  37389-3212
931-454-4430
Fax:  931-454-5421
sharon.butcher@arnold.af.mil


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Flynn [mailto:cflynn@FNA.FSN.UIDAHO.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 6:07 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: Statistics (was RE: WA STATE LIBRARY)


Other stats might include:

Time taken to fill request
        Compare agency requests and public
Track type of request against:
        Time of year
        Election cycle
        budget cycle

Processing man hours
        Photo
        Text
        Video
        Audio

Track exit interview results

Just a thought or two

Chris Flynn CA CRM

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Peter Kurilecz [mailto:pakurilecz@AOL.COM]
Sent:   Tuesday, February 05, 2002 12:31 PM
To:     ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject:        Re: Statistics (was RE: WA STATE LIBRARY)

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002 14:52:46 -0500, Daniel Sokolow <DSokolow@NSHS.EDU> wrote:

>Peter's response made me think of something (other than the much-maligned
>genealogists, who probably are our best and most passionate advocates).
>Maintaining statistics is probably something we haven't talked about much
>and should be a cornerstone of our archival work.

One must be very careful when setting up the information you want to
collect. Just reporting straight numbers doesn't mean anything. You must
correlate them to something. Otherwise you are only providing a factoid.

Here is a short list (off the top of my head) of some types of statistical
information.

Items pulled - how many books, folders, boxes pulled per day.

Researchers - how many per day, how long per day (purchase an automatic date
stamper clock'em in, clock'em out. Don't have to do it every day, but you
may in the beginning to have valid data), where are they from? (keep track
of their zip codes)when did they arrive ie what part of the day? (helps with
staffing schedules)

Processing - how long, how much, how much more time to completion.

Institutional requests - research requests for your organization so how
long, what was the result, what departments

Outside activities ie PR work speeches given, exhibits designed.


But be careful. Once you started reporting statistical data you will be
asked to compare to past years, don't get locked in to reporting only one
way and no don't be creative.

The information can be reported both as mean and median (look'em up)

once you start it can be fun, carry around a small index card with your
recent stats, if someone asks "how are things?" you can answer great! Our
number of researchers is up compared to last year at this time. We are
serving more researchers from x area, processing is moving along and we gave
5 speeches last week to a total of x number of folks.

Don't bore them, dazzle them. So when it comes to budget time you have the
ammunition, oh! and you want more support? How about establishing a Yahoo!
Group for your researchers. use it as a means to give them updates via email
on your institution. It is 'free' (advertising makes it free), but it is
easy to set up and to run. (http://groups.yahoo.com)

PeterK

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