Sources: Managing with Data: Using ACRLMetrics and PLAmetrics

Managing with Data: Using ACRLMetrics and PLAmetrics. By Peter Hernon, Robert E. Dugan, and Joseph R. Matthews. Chicago: ALA, 2015. 232 p. Paper. $85 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-1243-0).

Statistics can be daunting, but for today’s library managers, they are an inescapable part of the job. Managers need data to guide the decisions they make. They also must provide evidence to library stakeholders of the direct and indirect benefits their libraries offer. Managing with Data, a companion volume to the authors’ Getting Started with Evaluation (ALA, 2014), provides a detailed approach to how to choose the best metrics for library assessment and how to tell a persuasive story with the resulting data.

Deciding what metrics best prove a library’s value can be a manager’s first hurdle. Collections, services, staffing, and library use are all traditional measures, and the book covers these in detail. Lists of possible metrics are provided, as well as illustrations of how they can be applied to demonstrate value and reveal important trends. In addition to quantitative measures, the authors cover how to assess the often elusive qualitative ways a library adds value. Managing with Data also covers the benchmarking process, best practices, and how to effectively communicate results to the community or campus. Closing the loop—using results to improve practice—is often a neglected step in the assessment process, but the authors cover this in the final chapter with tips on how to use outcomes to enact organizational change.

The most striking feature of this book is its hands-on approach: It includes step-by-step examples that allow users to manipulate real data from real libraries. The data comes from the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Public Library Association (PLA). ACRLMetrics and PLAmetrics are online, subscription-based services offered by these organizations, and the book comes with free access to a subset of these data collections. (Only one of the data sets—academic or public—may be chosen by the reader as part of the registration process.) Readers can use these data to solve the realistic assessment challenges posed throughout many of the chapters. In a benchmarking exercise, for instance, readers are asked to compare one library’s interlibrary loan services to those of a peer institution and are guided through the process step by step. The authors also show how to use data from free services—such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Center for Education Statistics—to answer assessment questions. Additional exercises found at the end of each chapter are designed specifically for library staff. Some challenge staff to solve assessment problems (an appendix provides the answers); others promote discussion about different aspects of the evaluation process.

Assessment projects seem automatically to generate some anxiety, but by detailing how to collect data and demonstrating how the resulting information can be applied, Managing with Data helps bring the stress under control.—Ann Agee, School of Information Librarian, San Jose State University, San Jose, California