Assessing the Impact of Special Collections

RLG Programs

Assessing the Impact of Special Collections

Merrilee ProffittJennifer SchaffnerRLG Programs

“webinar”

14 August 2008

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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How we arrived at this issue:

Annual meeting photos/“What are they doing in there?”

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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Reference Queries

Total Circulation

ARL statistics

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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“Statistics are a sort of fetish.  

We think of statistics as facts that we discover, not as

numbers we create.”

--Joel Best

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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All ARL reference with full-time students

REFERENCE

Special collections at a large public university

East-coast IRLA

West-coast IRLA

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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REFERENCE QUESTIONS

ARL statistics at that same private universitySpecial collections at a private university

Email

Visit

Phone MailFax

Total Requests

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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East-coast IRLA”

CIRCULATION

Independent special collections at a public university

All ARL total circulation to full-time students

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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Southwestern state university

Midwestern flagship university

ARL institutionthe ARL’s own

special collection

West-coast public university

Circulation

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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http://eisengeiste.blogspot.com/

Over the course of three weeks, the Digital Collections site received over 2,100 hits from one blog post.

Ann Lally | University of Washington Libraries

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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Now is the time!

• In the United States… • MPLP / Greene-Meissner: pressure to “pick up

the pace” of processing (or shift processing to point of demand)

• Funding programs for “hidden collections”

• Everywhere..• More materials visible through increased

cataloging efforts, migration from paper to online systems, digitization efforts large and small.

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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“Building a culture of assessment”

• Archival Metrics project• Research projects• Toolkits to evaluate qualitative measures (online and in

person) • http://archivalmetrics.org/

• Specifically, ROAM (Repository of Archival Metrics)• “…an experiment in establishing performance measures

specifically for archives and special collections and in creating a repository of archival metrics that can be for benchmarking.”

• http://archivalmetrics.org/roam_select

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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Our “mini survey” results

Reasons for collecting Yes / no / want to (%) (37 responses)

Reasons pertaining to larger institution

89 / 3 / 8

Motivation to better serve user 89 / 5 / 5

Improve archival / special collections management

81 / 5 / 14

Intellectual property/legal rights 27 / 57 / 16

Improve archival / special collections functions

73 / 8 / 19

RLG Programs 14 August 2008RLG Programs Webinar – Special Collections Metrics

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What do we want or need to do?

• Paul Courant – What special collections need are champions, not statistics.

• However….seeing where you can improve, providing excellent access to collections and service around collections will beget champions.

• “Just do it”? – collect information on an hoc basis• Build from what we have to a shared

understanding?• Establish (or build on) shared measures?