Irish Libraries in Numbers - ANLTC SCONUL Statistics Workshop, 13th June 2013

Guest post by Michelle Breen, Assistant Librarian, UL

Representatives of the Irish SCONUL Statistics community assembled in the University of Limerick on June 13th for a 1-day ANLTC workshop delivered by Claire Creaser, the Director of LISU. All UK universities and almost all Higher Education Colleges are members of SCONUL, and increasing numbers of Irish university libraries are now contributing their annual statistics to the SCONUL database.

Ireland will for the first time in 2013 have an All-Ireland total and this will allow us to realistically compare our performance and identify gaps in service. With approximately 3 years of Irish statistics available it is not possible yet to definitively comment on trends in Irish libraries. However with more Irish libraries submitting their statistics to SCONUL we will be better able to benchmark locally and we can have some authority in our advocacy efforts. Member libraries will be able to readily access up to date figures from the SCONUL database. Business cases can be built on quantitative data allowing us to include strong evidence in funding bids and strategic planning.

Image Credit: Michelle Breen

The first group practical session of the course asked us to consider how libraries can measure the effects of new trends on our library services. The suggestions below address familiar trends in Open Access, Patron-Driven Acquisition, Communication, Mobile access to information, Digital Libraries, Shared Services, Altmetrics, Large Datasets. Identifying the trends was step one, our next challenge is establishing common ways to measure the effect of these trends on our services. SCONUL took this feedback from the group and obviously can help with the recording of some of it but there are probably some things we can do ourselves. This is not an exhaustive list but demonstrates how some of our colleagues are already using available data to make service improvements. Perhaps we can flesh out this topic in an #irelibchat next year?

Collections	Communication	Research	Technology
Uptake of patron driven acquisition by discipline	Evaluate engagement levels with your Facebook page or Twitter?	Usage of OA sources Vs ISI titles	Use Google Analytics to see what OS is most heavily used
% of patron driven acquisition Vs traditional purchasing methods	Record amount of online instruction delivered	Uploads/downloads IR / Digital Libraries	Develop services using HTML5 rather than IOs or Android OS apps
Cost/usage of patron selected titles Vs traditionally bought books	Count amount of online queries handled	Identify quietest times, advice researchers accordingly	Additional devices means an increased demand for power sockets
Identify top circulating books and make readily available e.g. NUIG book dispenser	Efficiencies made through shared services (physical and electronic)	Monitor where researchers work/communicate – 70% on Twitter in UK	Increased budget required to cover electricity costs in refurbishment plans
Circulation: reservations not collected	Usage / occupancy of study rooms	Ratio of library spend to researcher	Are your QR codes resulting in increased traffic to your site?

The afternoon’s practical session focused on using the SCONUL Statistical Reporting Tool. The statistical reporting tool is available to SCONUL members only and is a very useful way for libraries to carry out benchmarking exercises against similar institutions. When building a case for a new library, Loughborough University made use of SCONUL data about themselves and their nearest neighbours. They demonstrated that despite having fewer study desks in their library they were more heavily used than those at neighbouring libraries. Having SCONUL statistics available helped them to prepare an evidence-based submission to their funders. They did not get a new library but are due to begin a refurbishment in September.

Collating the annual SCONUL submission is a big undertaking but Claire reminded us that the amount of effort an institution puts in to the submission should be commensurate with the value you are likely to get out of it. Claire made us aware of the work of JUSP, a Manchester-based MIMAS unit that tracks eresource usage. On a commercial basis JUSP Consult can provide libraries with reports on eresource use at an individual institution. Anyone involved in compiling SCONUL Statistics should consider joining the JISC mailing list LIS-SCONUL-STATS

Image Credit: Michelle Breen

Time for take off! The first CoPILOT workshop at the University of Surrey

Guest Post by Nancy Graham

The first (of many, we hope) CoPILOT workshop took place on the 30th May at the University of Surrey.  I wrote a while ago about the community of practice we’ve set up in the UK to encourage and support librarians to share their information literacy teaching material. More information can be found on our wiki at iloer.pbworks.com.

This workshop was designed to introduce participants to CoPILOT, with some background information on the projects and surveys we’ve run and our aims as a group. Various members of the CoPILOT Committee ran the sessions. Vivien Sieber then introduced the group to Creative Commons licencing and we had a short activity (run by Anne Pietsch and Marion Kelt) to look at how ‘open’ our library and information literacy teaching practice is. This was a really useful way of self-auditing practice and getting people to think about how they could improve the way they work with open educational resources.

We also had Sarah Currier from Jorum, which is our equivalent of NDLR, talking via Adobe Connect about updates to the system.  She joined us again later in the hands-on workshop to talk through both finding resources on Jorum and uploading your own content.

Another CoPILOTer, Helen Howard, also joined us remotely to talk through how her institution, the University of Leeds, has introduced an Open Educational Resources policy, which was developed in the library.

We had around 35 participants on the day and we’re now collecting feedback from them. It was our inaugural event, so we’re looking to tweak the programme and make improvements for the next iteration later in the year. Verbal feedback on the day was positive and it was great to meet so many like minded people from all over the South East of England and beyond and to hear their thoughts on sharing their teaching material openly.

Please go to the CoPILOT SlideShare page to see the slides from the day.  For further information you can follow us on Twitter @CoPILOT2013, visit the wiki or join our mailing list at IL-OERS[at]jiscmail.ac.uk.

#FF: Ten People You Need to Follow on Twitter

There are so many lists with hundreds of great twitter accounts you should follow, including our own Librarians in Ireland List (164 members & rising!). But with Twitter - especially for infrequent users - less can be more. Following a small handful of key people who consistently tweet relevant, high quality content, and keep up-to-date so you don't have to, can be very valuable, low-maintenance CPD.

#FF is Follow Friday, so I have compiled a list of my top ten LIS-related tweeters (& their bios to give you an idea of what they tweet about), but these are pretty much based on my own interests. So if you are interested in scholarly communications, research, service design and delivery, learning, higher education or social media they are well worth following. That said, several tweet about more general LIS issues also.

@sallyheroes Trying to weave both librarianship and project management together as the Strategic Services Development Coordinator for Waimakariri District Libraries www.findingheroes.co.nz

@readkev Medical Librarian & #NLM Associate Fellow. Passionate about everything #medlibs http://bit.ly/PL2pel

@tmccormick New media product dev, scholarly communication, design. Former: co-founder @openlibhums; @mediaXStanford & @highwirepress, @OCLC

@stevehit Sharing useful stuff on digital information and open access repositories

@aarontay I'm a Librarian from the National University of Singapore. Into social media, bibliometrics, library technology etc musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com

@elenizazani Trend-spotter Information Professional, providing learning support to Birkbeck students. **Passionate Lifelong Learner**  www.zazani.info

@researchremix cofounder of @ImpactStory: uncover the full impact of your research. Research passion: measuring data sharing and reuse. researchremix.wordpress.com

@OAJoe Academic librarian in Colorado, USA. Thoughts and opinions my own, maybe not of MPoW. #openaccess #OA #science #libraries #beer (not necessarily in that order.)

@catherinecronin Thinking & talking about online & open education, social media in edu, digital literacies, #ITwomen. National Univ. Ireland, Galway. Also @CT231 catherinecronin.wordpress.com

@myleejoseph urban librarian, social media enthusiast, storyteller

How to Write a Lot

I am always trying to encourage more LIS professionals to write about their experiences, and undertake and publish research (to the extent that a colleague recently called me a "journal pusher", in the nicest possible way of course ;)). It should be an easy sell in theory: you develop valuable skills; increase the visibility of your library and its services; learn from, and share with, your colleagues to improve how things are done. The list of positives is endless. However, in practice it is incredibly difficult for many of us to translate our motivations and intentions into actual output; our day jobs of keeping understaffed libraries ticking over can quickly drain us of both our time and enthusiasm.

An excellent, short book that I would recommend to anyone who finds themselves in this position is Paul J Silva’s How to Write a Lot. It is around a hundred A6-sized pages, so importantly does not distract you from the task at hand - writing. Many of the techniques and approaches that Silva suggests are simple, and indeed obvious, but yet they can be incredibly powerful.

One of these is the idea of specious barriers – those difficulties we often construct for ourselves that in reality can be very easily solved, or at least managed. The first and most often-cited of these being:

“I can’t find time to write” also known as “I would write more if I could just find big blocks of time” (Silva, 2007, p. 11)

The trick is allotting or scheduling the time to write, instead of trying to “find” it – because, let's be honest, you will never, ever “find” it. Indeed, regularity is the essential ingredient in productive writing, not necessarily the length of time or the volume of writing. This is why I believe that blogging can be such a valuable tool for developing your writing output. Blogging encourages you to write regularly, but does not have to be lengthy or time consuming. It is the habit and implicit commitment to writing that is the powerful concept behind it, or in the words of Keyes (The Writer's Book of Hope, 2003), routine is often a better friend than inspiration. This explains why people can find blogging very difficult at first, simply because they may not have developed a regular routine or habit of writing yet. If bloggers persevere beyond this initial threshold, most find that it becomes much easier once writing becomes embedded as a behaviour.

Silva also suggests other useful strategies that people may often overlook. Setting concrete and explicit writing goals can be a motivational tool. But it is important to stick to these goals in the same way that we stick to our non-writing goals. Actively monitoring your progress not only helps you focus on your writing objectives, but seeing your work progress over time in a visible way can encourage you to follow it through to completion. Social strategies, such as engaging with peers or friends about your ideas and exchanging feedback, can also be incredibly valuable ways of sustaining your writing.

I will finish this post, with two of my favourite ideas from Silva's book that are worth remembering at all times. Firstly, "writing is not a race", and secondly it is about "less wanting, more doing".

Source: Wikimedia Commons, Tonydcwill

Trust and Digital Preservation, 4th - 5th June -- Day 1

Today I went along to the first installment of a two-day workshop revolving around the idea of the importance of creating trust and authenticity within the domain of archival and preservation practices around digital content information. What follows below is a selective recapture of today's activities and some relevant resources.

The day started off with an introduction to APARSEN, which is an alliance of institutions in the business of enabling long-term accessibility and usability to digital information and data through a shared and sustainable infrastructure. Consider in particular their knowledge base, which contains resources on technologies and preservation tools. David Giaretta's half-hour lecture on the difficulties of digital preservation is well worth checking out in this context.

Next up was an overview of the Digital Repository of Ireland, which is about preserving contemporary and historical, social and cultural data held by Irish institutions. Consider their reports section to find out more about activities of digital archiving within the Humanities and Social Sciences in Ireland.

Mariella Guercio of CINI/APARSEN presented an overview of her input on formulating an authenticity management model for specific types of digital resources (APARSEN WP24). Essentially, authenticity in content information (digital records) requires intentional action or intervention by trusted entities imbued with accountability. This is done through performing controls and collecting authenticity evidence in connection to the DR life-cycle. The digital preservation glossary comes in handy at this point...

Ingrid Dillo from DANS/APARSEN gave an interesting overview about evaluation levels and guidelines for IRs. The idea here is that digital repository operators submit themselves to rigorous checking for the purpose of getting an official seal of 'trust' approval. 

Three levels apply:
1) Data Seal of Approval (DSA) = based on self-assessment
2) DIN31644 = 34 criteria that IRs should meet (Kriterien für vertrauenswürdige digitale Langzeitarchive)
3) ISO16363 = based on OAIS and a pretty dense testing regime consisting of over 100 metrics

Drillo emphasized that IR operators should be cognisant with regards to their ability in achieving certification status. Depending on individual operational contexts, certification might not be necessary or desirable.

Also consider the report "Insight into Digital Preservation of Research Output in Europe", which describes the results of the surveys conducted by PARSE.Insight to gain insight into research in Europe.

Let's see what tomorrow will bring along...

IM reference chat etiquette

Providing accurate and reliable information to library patrons during synchronous virtual reference interactions (instant messaging) is not all that matters. It is also important to consider what impact formal or informal language use by reference librarians can have on the level of success in IM reference chat. The idea of a social 'face' also applies to virtual environments and not just the all-familiar face-to-face encounter at the traditional reference desk.

Verbal language style, prosodic signals as well as facial expressions and body language augment expressively to the "what's going on" in face-to-face information exchange. The challenge of IM reference is the apparent lack of these cues due to the physical separation of patron and service provider. Hence, IM reference librarians solely rely on written language to compensate: the question is whether to use a strictly formal or informal register.

Necessarily, effective IM reference delivery is

determined by two basic variables: quality of information provided and use of written language style. Waugh (2013) considered this very question and conducted semi-structured interviews with five 17- to 25-year-old university students to find out how formality of language affects their perception about librarians they encounter during IM reference situations. The interviewees were asked to pass judgement on two IM reference transcripts (one uses formal, the other uses informal language), and subsequently share their opinions about perceived levels of professionalism, competency and credibility displayed by library staff. The quality of interpersonal connection was also considered.

The results of this exploratory study were a mixed bag. And that's no surprise, really, because the researcher looked at personal perceptions about the effects of language use in two very different IM reference transcripts. For example, the formal transcript was considered robotic and impersonal by some respondents, but also valued as competent and trustworthy. Essentially, there was no clear preference expressed for either - formal vs. informal - language use in IM reference interactions. Both styles bring with them inherent advantages and disadvantages, which are perceived differently depending on the situational context and individual patron.

The basic challenge is that IM reference interactions take place place in a vacuum, because so many signifiers are absent.

To compensate for this, I tend to simulate the patron's language style in IM reference. But the 'right' style of language can sometimes only reliably figured out by buying some time. Depending on the situation, I do this by deploying a neutral welcoming statement. This is an effective way to establishing a socio-emotional relationship despite the obvious constraints in doing so in the first place. Tuning into the patron by adopting their IM lingo has to date worked quite well. It's an intuitive and adaptive approach more than anything else as I don't subscribe to rigid formal or informal language styles. This is one of the main reasons why I don't use pre-formulated (canned) replies as they just don't work in most interactions.

In addition to 'appropriate' language use, it is also important to let the patron know what's going on at all times during a VR reference chat session. It is particularly important to spell out instructions as clearly as possible in order to avoid any misunderstandings. Not doing this can have two very negative effects; 1) unnecessarily prolonging the conversation, 2) potentially turning a positive exchange into a negative one.

Use of emoticons, abstractions and abbreviations can also work well for IM reference relationship building. However, I tend to use these devices with caution, and only if an informal rapport has been truly established.

Without trying to downplay the argument over which language style is most appropriate (formal vs. informal), at the end of the day it is the patron who sign-posts the level of formality in IM reference chats.

Ref. & resources:
Waugh, J.. Formality in Chat Reference: Perceptions of 17- to 25-Year-Old University Students. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, North America, 8, mar. 2013. Available at: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/17911.
IM and SMS References Services for Libraries
libsuccess.org / Online Reference

The Wrong Twitter Metrics

Assessing the impact of your library's Twitter account is a challenge, especially when there's a temptation to simply reach for the easy statistics, like the number of people who follow you. However, these numbers often tell you very little about the value of using Twitter, and in fact, can even tell you the wrong things.

An organisation's Twitter account is very different to a personal one. Whilst the latter may primarily function as a means of keeping up to date, for organisations like libraries, the point of using a tool like Twitter should be to generate real interaction and engagement with your users. Consequently, this is what you should be trying to capture when evaluating impact, not whether you have 50 or 5,000 followers.

Real life examples, exchanges and vignettes that show evidence of real engagement can offer much greater insight than a simple statistic. As well as this richer qualitative data, some quantitative measures such as how many people are tweeting @you or retweeting you are also useful. This shows that people value the content that you are sharing, and thus are more likely to continue to follow and interact with you, building closer and longer-lasting relationships. You can also measure how many users are being referred to your library website, blog or databases via Twitter, to assess if the tool helps to directly drive traffic to your resources and services. Map the network of your followers and see how it fits with your library's strategic positioning.

That said, it is still very difficult to show the value of Twitter in a way that is often required in an annual report - a quick bottom line or a headline statistic. However, at the very least, I would strongly recommend trying to avoid the trap of using the following metrics to demonstrate value and impact.

Image: Twitter

The Wrong Metrics

1. Total Number of Followers:
This is one of the easiest measures to obtain, but also perhaps the most flawed. Firstly, it is an easy statistic to manipulate: simply follow more people. Although following 100 people will probably only result in 20% or so reciprocal follow-backs at most, it is still a quick way to increase your absolute number of followers. Clearly however, an increase of this nature is meaningless. Moreover, the quantity of followers gives no indication of the quality of your followers. For instance, are they actually library users or other stakeholders, i.e. people you are interesting in connecting with? Therefore, what might look like a pretty upward sloping line on a graph really tells you very little about the value of your library's Twitter account.

2. Followers to Following ratio:
But surely you need to compare your number of followers with the number of people you follow in order to provide a relative and meaningful measure? And a higher ratio means your account must be great, right? Well, yes and no. Looking at this ratio is certainly a valuable metric, but if you a believe a higher ratio is always a good thing, you may be missing the point of Twitter.

Twitter is about engaging with your users, that means following them back when they take the time to follow you. This demonstrates that you are actually interested in your users' information and what they have to say. If you aren't following the majority of your followers, what kind of a message does this send out? It is different for personal accounts (particularly celebrities, where an extremely high ratio of followers is expected for obvious reasons), but when you are specifically trying to build relationships with your users as an organisation or a business, showing interest in them is key. This doesn't mean that your ratio has to be exactly one, but is should be close to it: this sends out a signal that you are not just racking up as many followers as possible who you can broadcast information to, but instead are actually interested in engaging, communicating and sharing with your users as a two-way process.

3. Number of Tweets
In the same way that looking at your total number of followers is of limited value, measuring the number of times you tweet is similarly flawed. Tweeting should be about sharing content and information that contributes something to your network. If you are not adding value through your tweets there is little point, in fact, excessive tweeting may even turn people off by filling up their Twitter stream with irrelevant content. Therefore looking at retweets of, and replies to, your content is a much better measure, as it shows the kind of content that actually engages your users. You can also use this valuable feedback to direct and shape how you use Twitter for your library. What works? What doesn't? Pay attention to your followers in an honest and authentic way and they will tell you.