assessing the impact of special collections
DESCRIPTION
RLG Programs webinar, Assessing the Impact of Special Collections, Merrilee Proffitt and Jennifer Schaffner, 14 August 2007. Presentation followed by discussion.TRANSCRIPT
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
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?