Section on Statistics

Summary of Amsterdam Meeting
IFLA '98, Amsterdam, 14-21 August 1998

Attendance

August 21. Standing Committee:
Ambrozic, Chapman, Dole, Girard-Billon, Hernes, Heusse, Kozlova; Observers: Arnaud.

Current Projects

1. Performance Measures Manual. Secretary/Treasurer Marie-Dominique Heusse (Bibliotheque de l'Universite de Toulouse) reported on the French translation of the manual prepared by the IFLA University Libraries Section (Measuring Quality: International Guidelines for Performance Measures in Academic Libraries, IFLA Publication 76: K.G. Saur, 1996). The Statistics Section has taken responsibility for this translation. Three people had worked on and been paid for the preliminary translation, but more work needs to be done.

   Marie-Dominique Heusse requested and received funding for additional translation work from the University and Research Libraries Section.

   Performance measures continue to be a hot topic. German and Spanish translations of the IFLA manual have now been released and two French works have been published on the topic.

2. ISO 11620 (the standard for library performance indicators) has been published in English. The French version is ready for publication.

3. ISO 2789: 1991 (the standard for library and publishing statistics).
   An international group of 11 experts is charged with surveying the current implementation of ISO 2789, preparing recommendations for additions covering electronic resources, and revising the standard. Aase Lindahl of Odense University in Denmark, the original convener of the group, has resigned because of pressures of work; John Sumsion has taken over as convener. The group met in Athens in May 1998 and will meet in Paris in 1998. Progress reports will be posted at the Website
   http://www.kb.se/bibsam/sc8/standards.html.

4. Statistics Section Brochure. Liz Chapman (University of Oxford) and Marie-Dominque Heusse obtained samples of brochures produced by other sections and shared them with the committee. Committee members discussed possible content and lay-out of the brochure. They agreed that the brochure should include the history of the Section and four or five "good reasons to join." Possible reasons to join and attend section meetings include:
   The opportunity to participate in international communication with librarians interested in statistics
   A forum for exchanging practical information
   A good place to see actual statistical reports from many countries
   A tool for planning, managing, and publicizing the activities of libraries.

   Liz Chapman will write the English edition; Marie-Dominique Heusse, the French, and Ludmilla Kozlova (Russian State Library, Moscow ), the Russian edition. Marie-Dominque will arrange to have the brochure published at Toulouse.

5. Information Coordination. Barbara Perry has resigned as Information Coordinator. Wanda Dole agreed to act as interim coordinator until the 1999 election of section officers. She reported on the Information Coordinators' Meeting and the guidelines for preparing documents for publication on IFLANET. These guidelines will be published in the next Statistics Section Newsletter and are also available at the IFLA Web site
   www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/co-72-2.htm.
   In order for information to be included in IFLANET Unplugged (the CD-ROM edition of the conference documents), it must be submitted by May 30th.

   The role of the Information Coordinator is to gather and send information regarding IFLA units and their activities, projects, newsletters, etc., to IFLA. IFLANET is an extension of the normal publishing and information dissemination activities. IFLANET is multilingual and will accept postings in any language (but will not translate them). Electronic submission is preferred, but information may be submitted in camera-ready format. It will be scanned and PDF, but won't be OCR'ed and HTML-coded. Information may be submitted to IFLANET by floppy disk, FTP, or e-mail attachment (the preferred method).

   IFLANET does not encourage or support "satellite" Web sites.

6. IFLA Booth. Liz Chapman and Cecile Arnaud reported that they did not receive many questions about the Statistics Section during their time at the IFLA booth.
   They did confer with Mobile Library people who want to do a survey.

7. Progress on Medium Term Plan. Action 2.2, Establish an e-mail discussion group for LIS statistical experts. Rather than establishing its own discussion list, the Statistics Section will "piggy-back" on the CAMILE discussion list run by Manchester Metropolitan University in the U.K. The list currently has 248 subscribers from over 25 countries. It provides a forum for librarians interested in the development and testing of tools for the management and administration of library services in the electronic environment. To subscribe to the CAMILE list, e-mail the following message: subscribe camile to the following address:
   majordomo@mmu.ac.uk

8. Plans for 1999 IFLA. This year's Program Session (see below) drew 50 - 60 attendants, about half the usual number. Committee members discussed the need for universally appealing programs, diversity in speakers, and inclusion of some speakers from the region where the conference is being held. Committee members felt there was a need for programs that librarians from "statistics-poor" countries could understand and relate to.

   A tentative title for the Bangkok program was suggested: "Statistics: A Practical Tool for Library Evaluation and Management." Tentative structure for the two and one-half hour program includes presentations of 15-20 minutes each by three speakers and a question-answer period. Speakers should be encouraged to use good, clear visual aids. Committee members agreed to look for speakers from South East Asia and the Pacific Rim. Wanda Dole will contact Gary E. Gorman, Deputy Director of the Centre for Information Studies at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia. Ludmilla Kozlova will investigate potential speakers from the Russian East (Vladivostok and Novosibirsk). The French members will investigate possible speakers from Vietnam. John Sumsion reported that Ralph Manning suggested a Canadian speaker, Alvin M. Scrader, Dean of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta.

Member Activities

Melita Ambrozic (National and University Library, Slovenia) has introduced courses on library statistics and research into the library science program. Next year she is planning to add an introductory course on library planning and measurement. Some statistics are currently being taught in management classes. Slovenia is using LIBECON standards for collecting national library statistics.

Cecile Arnaud (Bibliotheque universitaire de Paris X Nanterre) reported that for the first time there was a national report on academic libraries (including all 80+ universities). The report included statistics on staffing. The project was sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education. The results were presented at the last national meeting of directors.

Marie-Dominique Heusse reported that there was a movement to review national statistics for French academic libraries. A new survey form has been designed and will be used for the first time in 1998. The new form includes more questions on students.

Liz Chapman reported that U.K. academic libraries are realizing that not all libraries can buy all materials. Libraries are beginning to keep statistics on the number of outside users served.

Ludmilla Kozlova reported on the current state of library statistics in the Russian Federation. In the Soviet Union, there was a strict schedule for reporting statistics on the state level. Every five years statistics were gathered and published in statistical yearbooks.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, individual organizations continue to keep good statistics, but these statistics are not accumulated, analyzed and published at higher administrative levels. The Russian National Library reports statistics to UNESCO. They are waiting for revision of the ISO standard on library statistics to provide a model.

Wanda Dole reported that in the U.S. the Association of Research Libraries continues to study the problem of measuring electronic resources.

Performance Measures in Public Libraries Discussion Group, August 16

1. Updates from countries on developments since those reported at the Berlin 1997 Conference (see Performance Measurement and Quality Management in Public Libraries: IFLA Satellite Meeting, Berlin, 25-28 August, 1997. ed. by Peter Borchardt and Ulla Wimmer. Berlin: DeutschesBibliotheksintitut, 1998. dbi-materialien; 168. ISBN: 3-87068-968-4). Situation reports from other countries.

2. DECIDE project on Performance Indicators Matrices, summary by John Sumsion. The analysis is available on the WWW at: http:/www.dmu.ac.uk/~camile/

3. Future meetings. It was unanimously agreed that this Discussion Group should meet regularly at future conferences and that its program should include both informal reports and prepared presentations.

4. Future administrative arrangements. It was agreed that John Sumsion and Aline Girard-Bilon should continue as conveners. The following volunteered their services on the management group: Dr. M. Van der Burg (Netherlands), Thierry Giappiconi (France), Lone Hansen (Denmark), and Christine Koonz (U.S.A.).

Browsing Session, August 18

Program Session, August 19

Adolf Knoll (Czech National Library) and David Fuegi (Institute of Public Finance, U.K.) reported on the progress of the LIBECON 2000 project. The goal of the project is a year 2000 study of the statistics for all types of libraries (national, university, public, school, and special) for 29 European countries. The statistics will be mounted at the LIBECON Website
http://www.libecon2000.org. The countries include the European Union, European Free Trade Agreement, and countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Major partners in LIBECON include UNESCO, the Institute of Public Finance, LISU, Eurostat, IFLA, and the Czech National Library. The Website also contains a bibliography of relevant data sources for countries and individual library sectors, key statistics contained in the sources referenced, and persons/organizations to contact for information.

John Sumsion reported on the progress of the revision of ISO 2789.

Performance Measures for Academic Libraries Discussion Groups, August 16