ARL Library Investment Index: why is it important?

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ARL Library Investment Index why is it
important?
Presented by Brinley Franklin Martha
Kyrillidou Colleen Cook Bruce Thompson
Chania, Crete, Greece May, 2009
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The real husky!
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New Ways of Measuring Collections Task Force

• Summary of activities
• http//www.arl.org/stats/aboutstats/tfnewways.shtm
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• Composition (convened Dec. 2004)
• Statistics
• Research Collections
• Membership
• Process (Spring-Summer 2005)
• Interviews of 100 ARL members

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Most Important Issues

• Data is not expressing uniqueness of materials
• Relevance to teaching, learning, research not
  adequately reflected
• Collections go beyond printed volumes
• Research library is more than collections
  include its services ARL is not telling the
  story
• Increase in expenditures for Electronic Resources
• Ownership to Access
• Consortial relationships/cooperative collection
  development

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Most Important Issues (cont)

• Shared storage facilities
• Duplicate serials based on bundling
• Special collections not reflected
• ARL Membership Committee wasnt basing membership
  on Membership Index

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Purpose of Measuring

• Historical significance of long dataset to show
  trends
• Accounting for universitys investment
• Comparison benchmarking
• But,
• ARL Membership Index had become misunderstood,
  misleading, and unhelpful

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October 2005 Task Force Recommendations to ARL
Board

• Exploratory factor analysis
• Profile of contemporary research library
• New meaningful measures development
• Publication of the membership index

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Consultant Reports

• Engaged Spring 2006
• Quantitative (Bruce Thompson)
• Confirm membership index
• Established new expenditures-focused index
• http//www.arl.org/stats/index/index.shtml
• Qualitative (Yvonna Lincoln)
• Profile
• www.arl.org/resources/pubs/mmproceedings/
• 149mmproceedings.shtml

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Action Agenda

• Reserve current membership index for membership
  issues
• Implement Library Investment Index (previously
  named expenditures-focused index) report these
  index scores to Chronicle of Higher Education
• Begin to develop service-based index
• Revise definitions of collections-related data
  categories, especially serial counts
• Collect qualitative data for individual member
  profiles that demonstrate the librarys value to
  its parent institution and to the broader
  research community

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The story of two indices
Historical Criteria Index or Membership Criteria Index Library Investment Index (previously named Expenditures-focused Index)
Volumes Held Volumes added gross Current Serials Total Expenditures Professional plus support staff Total Expenditures Salary Expenditures Materials Expenditures Professional plus support staff
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Are they really different?
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ARL Historical Criteria Index (previously named ARL Membership Criteria Index) ARL Historical Criteria Index (previously named ARL Membership Criteria Index) ARL Historical Criteria Index (previously named ARL Membership Criteria Index)
Variance Explained from Principal Component Analysis Variance Explained from Principal Component Analysis Variance Explained from Principal Component Analysis
EigenValue of Variance
2002-03 4.53 90.50
2003-04 4.46 89.23
2004-05 4.40 87.94
2005-06 4.39 87.94
2006-07 4.08 81.7
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Library Investment Index

• Principal Component Analysis
• Variance Explained 92.6
• Variables
• Total Expenditures
• Salary Expenditures
• Materials Expenditures
• Professional plus Support Staff

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Challenge

• ..measuring the size of library collections
  cannot be what it used to be
• Martha Kyrillidou, Reshaping ARL Statistics to
  capture the new environment Feb 2008,
  http//www.arl.org/bmdoc/arl-br-256-stats.pdf

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Profile elements as identified by Task Force

• services to the library and scholarly community
• distinctive research-oriented collections and
  resources of national significance in a variety
  of media
• the nature of use made of the collections and
  services by faculty, students, and visiting
  scholars
• the preservation of research resources
• the leadership and external contributions of the
  staff to the profession
• the effective and innovative use of technology
• consortial memberships (including cooperative
  collection development and preservation efforts)
• important locally created digital collections
• library collaborations with faculty.

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Celebrating Research

• Brief descriptions are offered of the special
  collections at each library
• http//www.celebratingresearch.org/libraries/index
  .shtml

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More info

• www.arl.org/stats/