Meeting Highlights

ALA Midwinter Meeting 2007, Seattle, WA

Submitted by: Christie Koontz, Chair

• Program ALA Annual, Washington DC, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007 1:30 to 3:30 pm
“Roadmap to Targeted Marketing:  Collections, Campaigns & Customers”
Identifying customer markets is essential to delivering targeted programs and services cost effectively with limited resources.  This program introduces demographic resources which can be used in combination with library use statistics to successfully facilitate targeting markets.  A panel includes Drs. Christie Koontz and Bob Molyneux, and Raymond Santiago, director Miami Date Public Library System, and Susan Waxter, Planning and Development Librarian, Baltimore County Public Library.

• Program Proposal for PLA National (Minneapolis 2008)
Larry White will discuss this.  “Recent ‘Hot’ Research for Public Librarians on the Frontlines.” Research can often be your best weapon.  But the gap between researchers and practitioners is often too wide.  This program covers four important research topics that are valuable for today’s practicing librarians.  The panel of  four offers research tips on staff workload measures, branch closures (predicting and possibly avoiding), balance scores card, and SIRSI Dynix Normative Data Product. 

• A Program Proposal for Anaheim, CA., ALA Annual 2008
“Why Public Libraries Closed/Close?:  Results of  from a study of 400 public library Closures, sponsored by OCLC.”  It was agreed that this topic will be proposed.

• ALA/PLA:  Proposal for ‘improving level of committee activity…’
Our group agreed that keen interest in the committee purpose is essential.

Members present: Christie Koontz, Keith C. Lance, Bob Molyneux, Larry White, Despina Wilson (for Annie Norman)

Members absent: Cindy Mediavilla, Barbara Johnson, Joe Matthews

Visitors: Susan Waxter, Rochelle Logan

ALA Annual Conference 2006, New Orleans, LA

Submitted by: Rochelle Logan, Chair

Rochelle thanked members rotating off the committe, Bob Belvin, Holly McCullough, Rochelle Logan. Christie Koontz will be the new chair.

The Steering Committee accepted our suggestion to change the charge of the committee to read: To foster the use of public library statistics; to recommend and promote the application of statistical research; to encourage the use of new statistical methods; and to advance public librarianship through the use of statistics.

1.  We discussed the impact of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) merging with IMLS at the same time as NCES  is migrating public library surveys and data to IMLS. The NCES migration will occur in FY 2008. We discussed the role of this committee and looking for a chance to give input during the transition. Keith Lance will forward details of the transition to the committee. After the meeting Rochelle Logan spoke with Mary Chute at IMLS to voice this committee's interest in seeing the draft plan for comment. She will have Rebecca Danvers at IMLS contact Christie Koontz, the new chair.

2. Program planning:  A program proposal was submitted by this committee for ALA 2007. "Roadmap to Targeted Marketing: Collections, campaigns and customers." For PLA 2008, new member Larry White will work on a partnership with the PLA Workload Measures committee.

Members present: Rochelle Logan, Christie Koontz, Bob Belvin

Members absent: Holly McCullough , Barbara Johnson
Guests present: Keith Curry Lance, Bob Molyneux, Larry White

ALA Midwinter Meeting 2006, San Antonio

Submitted by: Rochelle Logan

Committee reviewed and reacted to a draft of best online research tools lists from electronic members. We decided to use the following guidelines to select these tools: 1) targets public library practitioners; 2) include interactive tools only. A revised draft will be emailed to the group after Midwinter. Final will be posted on the PLA website.

Chair of the Federal-State Cooperative Statistics (FSCS) data use subcommittee asked for input on a list of products using FSCS data. Committee recommended focusing on annual ranking of individual libraries by population range on key statistics and target publishing in American Libraries.

Members present (please name): Rochelle Logan, Barbara Johnson, Candace McKinniss, Christie Koontz, Holly McCullough

Members absent (please name): Robert Belvin (excused), Cindy Mediavilla (electronic member)

Visitors (please name): Keith Curry Lance, Joe Mathews, Bob Molyneaux, Sarah Erekson, Despina “Debbie” Wilson, Annie Norman

ALA Annual Conference 2005, Chicago

ALA Annual Meeting
Rochelle Logan, Chair
June 26, 2005
Depending on the acceptance of our program proposal for ALA 2006, we will be
creating a handout and possibly looking for a 3rd speaker if we are given a
long time slot. Our program title is "Can you hear me now? Real librarians
using numbers to tell their story." We also discussed the option of
presenting demos of some of the new tools identified. Our cluster Chair,
Wayne Crocker reported that our charge is to identify a list of best
research tools such as what we already talked about for the program. The
"best of" list is for the PLA site. The committee discussed library districts and how types of governance affect
funding.

Members Present: Rochelle Logan, Robert Belvin, Christine Koontz

Visitors: Keith Curry Lance, Robert Molyneux, Joe Mathews

ALA Midwinter Meeting 2005, Boston

Rochelle Logan, Chair
Jan. 16, 2005

The committee's goal is to motivate "regular" librarians to use data; to indentify the location of helpful tools. Therefore, our committee plans to fill out a program proposal for ALA 2006 to fulfill this goal.

"Can You Hear Me Now?: Real Librarians using numbers to have their story heard" is the working title of the program. We plan to ask another committee if they would like to partner with us. Rochelle will contact the chair of the marketing committee as this program involves advocacy and PR. We will invite practicing librarians who have success stories to speak about how they used numbers to tell their story. A handout will be created for the program that lists statistical tools used and how to get them.

Members Present: Rochelle Logan, Robert Belvin, Christine Koontz, Holly McCullough

Visitors: Keith Curry Lance, Robert Molyneux, Joe Mathews

ALA Midwinter Meeting 2003, 1/26/03

Robert Belvin, Chair

Mark Smith is the point person for the committee's program in Toronto. The program is entitled "Numbers that Count" and will be from 10:30 a.m. to Noon on Saturday, June 21. Mark will be the moderator. He has contacted the speakers and made sure of their commitment and of the arrangements.

A charge was given the committee regarding the need for a survey to assess what public library needs were not being addressed fully by the current activities of library schools. The committee identified such areas as coping with diversity, communication skills, real-world challenges, and the ability to work with youth.

While the committee could easily identify any number of areas that might be helped by a refocusing of library schools' emphasis, the committee did not feel that it could undertake such a survey. The committee was not entirely sure what the focus of such a survey should be and was also concerned about the time frame since the results of a survey might not be fully analyzed and digested within two years.

For the results to matter, the consensus was that a professionally done, funded survey would be necessary to collect the data in such a way as to be convincing to the audience, the library school administration and faculty. The committee could, and would be happy to, serve as an advisory, consultative body that would generate a framework for the questions. It could also endorse such a proposal to funders. The committee did not feel it had the time and expertise to draft an RFP for this. Later email discussion resulted in the suggestion of focus groups to develop thesame information. This suggestion was referred back to the PLA Board.

The committee decided to cosponsor with the Marketing Committee a program in Seattle 2004, a "Bottoms Up Approach" and a program in Orlando in 2004. Both programs were brought forward by Dr. Christine Koontz.

Members: Belvin, Chair, Dallas, Koontz, Lance, Logan, Mesh, Roddy, Smith

ALA Annual Conference 2002, 6/16/02

Jeanne Goodrich, Chair

Committee members discussed the program planned for the conference in Toronto in 2003. Entitled "The Numbers that Count", the program will feature three experienced librarians who, through examples, studies, and case histories, use statistics effectively to make sound management decisions. Mark Smith and Carol Roddy took the lead in developing the program and contacting speakers.

There was substantial discussion concerning developing a program for either PLA or ALA 2004 about how misleading various statistics and service indicators can be and how users can fool themselves if they aren't aware of the many differnet ways statistics can be collected and interpreted as well as the variety of ways a measurement can be defined within an institution. Tentatively titled "Cheating at Solitaire" this program idea will be refined through additional email and committee meeting discussion.

Germane to this discussion was Judith Hiott's report that Denice Davis (NCLIS) is working on a database of definitions for the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) Library Statistics Data Dictionary. The idea is that the database could be searched and updated more easily than the current document. There was also discussion of working with the Federal State Cooperative System (FSCS) of the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) to revise definitions.

Carry-over and new committee members will work on fleshing out the committee website, including adding links to pertinent data sources and resources.

Members Present: Jeanne Goodrich, Judith Hiott, Keith Curry Lance, Nancy Laskowski, Neel Parikh, Carol Roddy, Mark Smith

Absent: Thomas Alford, Robert Belvin, Timothy Diamond (excused), Thomas Strange, Deborah Wheeler

Visitors: Jan Feye-Stukas (part of meeting), Luis Herrera (part of meeting)

ALA's Midwinter Conference, 1/20/02

Jeanne Goodrich, Chair

Committee members discussed the programs that are being developed and finalized for both PLA 2002 in Phoenix and ALA 2003 in Toronto. The PLA programs, "Collecting Statistics in the Networked Environment" and "Counting on Results" are ready to go. Judith Hiott and Keith Lance are the committee members responsible for these programs, respectively. Members discussed logistics of room volunteers, members to make introductions, etc.

The ALA 2003 program, "The Numbers that Count" is being developed by member Mark Smith. Smith was unable to attend the meeting, but provided an outline of the probram and suggested speakers. Committee members had a number of suggestions related to focusing the program and suggested additional speakers, who they agreed to contact. Mark will be contacted immediately after the conference so he can finish the submission.

Members then discussed work of other groups (Bertot study on use of electronic resources, NCES statistics gathering, studies related to in-building and remote usage of collections and resources) and brainstromed ideas for future conference programs.

Karen Motylewski, Research Office, IMLS, briefly discussed the new $10 million initiative to recruit the next generation of librarians.

Members Present: Jeanne Goodrich, Judith Hiott, Keith Curry Lance, Nancy Laskowski, Carol Roddy

Members Absent: Thomas Alford, Robert Belvin, Timothy Diamond, Neel Parikh, Mark Smith, Thomas Strange, Deborah Wheeler

Visitors: Karen Motylewski, IMLS

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