Assessing the Impact of Special Collections Merrilee Proffitt Jennifer Schaffner RLG Programs “ webinar” 14 August 2008

How we arrived at this issue: Annual meeting photos/“What are they doing in there?”

ARL statistics Reference Queries Total Circulation

“ Statistics are a sort of fetish. We think of statistics as facts that we discover, not as numbers we create.” --Joel Best

“ Statistics are a sort of fetish.

We think of statistics as facts that we discover, not as

numbers we create.”

--Joel Best

All ARL reference with full-time students REFERENCE Special collections at a large public university East-coast IRLA West-coast IRLA

REFERENCE QUESTIONS ARL statistics at that same private university Special collections at a private university Email Visit Phone Mail Fax Total Requests

East-coast IRLA” CIRCULATION Independent special collections at a public university All ARL total circulation to full-time students

Southwestern state university Midwestern flagship university ARL institution the ARL’s own special collection West-coast public university Circulation

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

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.

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.

“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

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

Our “mini survey” results Yes / no / want to (%) (37 responses) Reasons for collecting 73 / 8 / 19 Improve archival / special collections functions 27 / 57 / 16 Intellectual property/legal rights 81 / 5 / 14 Improve archival / special collections management 89 / 5 / 5 Motivation to better serve user 89 / 3 / 8 Reasons pertaining to larger institution

73 / 8 / 19

27 / 57 / 16

81 / 5 / 14

89 / 5 / 5

89 / 3 / 8

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?

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?