By the numbers

We're doing our annual patron survey, both in-house and online. I always look forward to the results -- not because I believe that individual numbers have terrific significance, but because I want to see the trends, and read the comments.

We look at all the numbers and comments, but we are aware this is not a scientific survey. Participation by people picking up a survey form in the library, as well as those clicking a link on the website is voluntary. Participants are thus self-selected, and those who take the time probably have a mixture of motivations: some enjoy the opportunity to share their perceptions and participate in a public process, some want to help the library, and some have an ax to grind. Some years ago, we use volunteers to give a survey to every fifteenth person walking in the door. It was hard to find enough volunteers, and harder to dissuade the volunteers from using their good judgment to decide just who should receive the survey, so even then we were not truly random. When we gave up this practice and let survey participants self-select, we noticed little difference in the responses. We were still surveying library users as a subset of the population.

It's worth noting that library users make up a large subset, with about 2/3 of Appleton residents having library cards. We measure some things for inclusion in the City budget, which contains some output measures. But more important to us is watching changes in customer satisfaction with collections and services, measuring the number of people doing other things downtown when they use the library, seeing what they do at the library, and reading the comments. In addition to measuring attitudes, this is a regular annually organized effort to garner suggestions, and we take them seriously.

Web users enter their data directly via SurveyMonkey, and Kathy, our Data Assistant, hand enters the information into another SurveyMonkey from the in-house pages. SurveyMonkey automatically compiles the data and helps with analysis tools -- and it's interesting to see the differences between online and in-person patrons. Online patrons tend to have a lower opinion of the library neighborhood, somewhat unsurprisingly.

We hope we get a lot of responses. If you're a library user, let us know what you think -- we need to hear from you!

Cure for the Summertime Blues (part 1)

We just had the busiest single day our library has ever seen:

• 2,969 people through the doors
• 8,601 items checked out
• 6,608 items checked in

We checked out, on average: one item every five seconds for twelve hours straight! Over 15,000 things moved through our circulation process in one day. When Colleen Rortvedt, our Assistant Director, heard the news, she promptly (and properly) ordered a cake and invited the staff to an impromptu celebration.

We've got a lot of people, staff and volunteers, working hard to make good things happen here. It's important to acknowledge their hard work and celebrate milestone achievements.

This all happened on the first weekday after public schools were out for the year, so a lot of the business was families starting our summer programs. Summer is just beginning: June and July are our busiest months. We're going to work hard -- and have fun!

Newspaper: As economy dips, Fox Valley libraries have 'banner year'

Patrons seek out more free services

By Ben Jones • Post-Crescent Madison bureau chief • December 28, 2008

As the economy gets worse, there's one place where business just keeps getting better: the public library.

Several Fox Valley library directors report circulation and patronage is up, driven in part by job seekers and people with tightening entertainment budgets ... [read full story]

"We're number 1...or number 50...or in the top 10% or" ?!?

The annual HAPLR rankings have been released, prompting a spate of local press coverage in communities where the libraries found enough HAPLR justification for bragging rights. I don't begrudge any library being able to show reasons why they're good. It's a challenge to find ways that quantify the positive impacts public libraries have in their communities. But we have to keep ranking systems in perspective. I sympathize with any librarian who may be criticized for having low rankings, since ranking systems have built in biases.

HAPLR, which is Hennen's American Public Library Rankings, has been published for years by Tom Hennen, the Director of the Waukesha County Federated Library System here in Wisconsin. I've told Tom since the start that I'm not a big fan of his rankings, which are based on national statistics gathered by the Public Library Statistics Cooperative. The reason I don't much like them is that I believe they emphasize circulation of popular materials and totally disregard library programming and electronic service delivery. I've written about this in the past ("Innovators suffer under HAPLR", Jan. 2007)

In the October issue of American Libraries magazine, Tom posts a spirited defense of his rankings. He makes a good case for why it's important to use input measures as well as output measures, and how weighting numerous factors in a complex formula helps paint a complex picture. The new Library Journal ranking system looks interesting, though it has not yet published rankings. The LJ system intends to include programming (a strength here at APL) and public workstation use -- just about the only objective technology measurement we've been able to agree on as a profession.

It's hard to predict whether APL will fare better or worse in the LJ rankings. I know that we have very few computer workstations relative to both population and demand. That doesn't matter to HAPLR, but it will in the LJ rankings. Most importantly, it matters t our patrons! Any ranking system will reflect some arbitrary choices by those designed it.

For the record, our library's scores in the latest HAPLR:

• raw score 762
• percentile 90%

Rank relative to other Wisconsin libraries:

• in our population class #1
• of all libraries #50 (of 381)
• of public library system resource libraries #7 (of 16)
  

% scores of libraries in the area

• Neenah 94%
  
• Menasha 96%
  
• Oshkosh 90%
  
• Appleton 90%
  
• Kaukauna 80%
  
• Kimberly/Little Chute 67%
  
• Brown County 81%
  

These are all pretty good scores, which is fine because these are all good libraries. Is Menasha the best library around here? Maybe -- it depends. Like a lot of statistics, I find the trend lines over time more interesting than a single year snapshot. The most important point is that measurements and rankings are arbitrary.

A few years ago, I visited a top-rated HAPLR library and I was expecting to be blown away by a paragon of library service. I found a relatively run-down and messy place and felt confused. But it had a lot of tourist use with a small permanent service population, driving up all the per capita outputs heavily weighted in HAPLR, and it had a lot of donated materials, substantially reducing the cost per circulation. Ya gotta love statistics.

Each community is the measure of its own library.

Libraries Shine In Tough Economic Times

Appleton has certainly seen growth and stories similar to the NPR report. If our growth this year has not been as dramatic as some places, it may be due to our consistent steady growth for several years, even when the economy was doing well. But we're certainly seeing more growth and record-breaking circulation.

Libraries Shine In Tough Economic Times [4 min 7 sec]

All Things Considered, July 29, 2008 With the economy slowing, many Americans are doing research in the public library. Boyd County, Ky., Library Director Debbie Cosper says public-use computers are always full and people are checking out books rather than buying them.

Thanks to Lawrence University Library Director Pete Gilbert for pointing out this radio story.

Public libraries boost economy

Northstar Economics has unveiled the results of a statewide study on the economic impact of public libraries. The study was commissioned by the Department of Public Instruction using federal LSTA funds as well as grant funds from the Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries.

In presentations at the Wisconsin Association of Public Libraries conference, David Ward of Northstar noted several key points:

1. Return on investment is $4.06 for every $1.00 of taxpayer investment
2. Overall (conservative) annual economic contribution is $753 million
3. Library serves as a knowledge/information resource base

Relevant messages for libraries to share:

1. Particularly in a rapidly changing global economy, public libraries are a good and necessary investment .
2. Public libraries are a consistent source of information and technology, and won't be acquired, closed down, or moved offshore.
3. Earnings are tied to education, and with an increasing gap in income levels, public libraries level the information and technology playing field.
4. Wisconsin is below average for per capita income and below average for growth. Libraries can be part of changing that.
5. A growing wave of retiring baby boomers will use libraries as a key part of their working and non-working lives.

The report notes that library visits increased 28% in the past 10 years, and materials circulation, children's program attendance, computer access, and electronic access to library catalogs are also showing healthy growth.

Perhaps not coincidentally, our staff, in assessing the Best Practices Review, recently published by the Legislative Audit Bureau, noted that the Appleton Public Library shows some of the fastest growth in use among large libraries in the state. Of the ten libraries with the highest circulation between 2002-2006, only Madison and LaCrosse showed faster growth in use than Appleton; our circulation grew 22.1% in that time.

Turn and face the strain...

Our good neighbors at the Neenah Public Library got a nice article in yesterday's paper about changes in usage patterns as seen in annual circulation numbers. My immediate reaction was how universal some of the trends seemed: if you change the exact numbers and a few proper names, the article would have been true of many libraries, and certainly ours.

The last sentence grabbed me: "...library staff has been able to keep pace with the growth in circulation though the help of volunteers and self-checkout machines..." -- yep, that's us, too, spot on.

But it occurred that we should look at specific numbers to see where we were alike and different -- and thank about why. Neenah's growth in circulation was 52,422 -- the largest increase in their five countypublic library system. Our growth at APL was 79,173, but we're a larger library, so it might be more useful to compare percentage changes.

Circulation comparison, % changes 2006-7:



Interesting stuff... more of our growth is coming in books, CDs, books on CD and magazines. Some of the differences may have to do with how the two libraries have implemented format changes in their collections. I know that we've been trying to grow our books on CD collection, and the numbers reflect that. We also finished bar-coding all our magazines, and while that's not a big number for us, it's probably more accurate now than previously.

But just like in Neenah, people like our video collection for the wide-ranging selections not found in video stores, and we're also pushing books and literacy.

Innovators suffer under HAPLR

In this article in the Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery Library Director Jaunita Owes observes that Hennen's American Public Library Ratings provide a biased measure. She is correct; the HAPLR needs to be taken with a large dose of salt. Far from measuring the "best" public libraries, it measures the libraries which best meet the criteria Tom Hennen is able to -- and chooses to -- measure.

Owes specifically notes that the HAPLR neglects to include electronic services, increasingly a significant and cost-effective service delivery method. Hennen acknowledges this omission and, in his defense, correctly notes that there are inadequate standards for objective measurement in this area.

Another entire area missing in HAPLR is programming. With libraries increasingly adopting the roles of community centers, use of meeting spaces and attendance at library programs is a significant part of many libraries' efforts. My workplace, the Appleton Public Library is one of these.

As Owes rightly states, "Only through a complete picture of a library, its services, and how the needs of a community are met may the public library be viewed." While the HAPLR can be valuable for many libraries in gaining well-deserved credit, it can wrongly be cited as evidence that a library heavily invested in electronic services & community programs is worse than one heavily invested in high circulation and traditional reference.

Because measurements lag behind services, standards lag behind measurements, and comparative analysis lags further, it is nigh unto impossible for any system such as the HAPLR to be up to date. Problems arise when library critics point fingers due to a low "score", without keeping in perspective both this lag and the somewhat arbitrary nature of choosing and weighting some criteria and excluding others.

The Montgomery City-County Public Library has a 2006 HAPLR score of 21%; the Appleton Public Library's 2006 score is 90%. I still think it's unfair. The true measure of any library is the community it serves. Arbitrary measurements like HAPLR have their use, but they cannot determine how any library is doing relative to the vlaues and needs of the community it serves. You can measure by standard criteria, but not judge by them. If we don't understand the difference, we're just hapless.