ST 4/13: IFLA key initiatives

IFLA has chosen five Key Initiatives for its Strategic Plan 2010 – 2015.

The two first are broad in scope.

The Digital Content Programme responds to the global transition from print to digital media. IFLA specifies four topics:

1. digital legal deposit – with a focus on legislative certainty for deposit and library user access
2. digital lending – with a focus on library user access to e-resources, and inter-organisation/cross-border uses compatible with fair practice
3. mass digitisation – with a focus on IFLA facilitating information exchange for the library sector
4. digital preservation – with a focus on legal mechanisms for harvesting and preserving born digital information and local content hosted on websites and in social media

ST 3/13: Statistics training in Romania

The second SFA course this year will be held in Brasov in late June. The final program has just been published.

Picture: girl from Maramures

Statistics for library director

Braşov, 24-25 of June, 2013, Auditorium of „Transilvania” University

The course is presented by Mr. Tord Høivik, Associate Professor (emeritus) at Oslo and Akershus University College for Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway, Secretary of IFLA Statistics and Evaluation Section

The purpose of this course is to presents methods of collecting data and use of statistics in order to create useful tools for library management and to obtain financial support for library activities. The course is organized by Romanian Library Association and the IFLA Statistics and Evaluation Section, as part of IFLA’s BSLA program.

ST 2/13: Statistics workshop in South Africa

Picture: group work at the 2012 LATINA training course, at Makerere University Library.

African libraries need statistics to plan their work and to promote their standing.

This year The International Association of Academic and Technical Libraries meets in Cape Town. The convener, Elisha Chiware, is the Director of Cape Peninsula University of Technology Libraries. After the main IATUL conference (April 14-18) there will be a workshop on library statistics to

• encourage the collection of statistics for benchmarking,
• improve the collection of statistics in African libraries,
• develop a basis for regional cooperation and activity
• and to create an awareness of the various options available 

Elisha was also the regional expert from Africa when IFLA developed guidelines for the Statistics for Advocacy training course, at a workshop in the Hague in late 2009.

 

ST 18/12: Statistics for advocacy in Poland

I am happy to note that the first Statistics for Advocacy course in Poland was held on 25th September 2012.

Lovely Masuria: lakes and forests …

Joanna Burska from Olsztyn County Library reports that there were 12 participants (directors and persons involved in statistic works) from public libraries in Warmia and Mazury region.

The materials were translated into Polish in late 2011, with financial support fram SES/IFLA. Joanna is now working on the final version of materials with comments after first course. It will then be published on the net as you suggested. She adds:

I hope that demand for statistical training will be increasing in Poland and in my region (as in Norway). Problem is that librarians are still not aware enough that numbers are favourable arguments. I am convinced that it will change soon and course will be very important for librarians.

ST 13/12: A fair amount of traffic

The average traffic to this blog hovers around four to five hundred hits per month.

About sixteen thousand pages have been downloaded since we started three years ago: a little more than two hundred hits per blog post.

August tends to be the hottest month. The traffic statistics provided by WordPress get better all the time. Now we can also see the geographic locations of our visitors.

ST 4/12: Mid-term in Berlin

Next week our Statistics and Evaluation Section will have its first mid-term meeting in a long, long time.

Or is it the first one ever? The sessions at IFLA itself tend to be hurried – and consumed by practical and administrative matters. I look forward to have more time for professional discussions with a cool cohort of colleagues.

The draft agenda looks as follows:

ST 2/12: Growing interest in Norway

In Norway, the interest in statistical advocacy and statistics-based library management is growing rapidly.

Photo: members of the regional statistics network in Buskerud.

Throughout society we find an increased demand for  numerical information. In a digital world, the access to data multiplies. We also have powerful tools to process them.

Academic libraries must defend their budgets.

• How do you contribute to teaching, study and research?

ST 10/11: Norway, Poland and Uganda

Statistics for Advocacy is a module within the BSLA training program.

It deals with the role of statistical reasoning and documentation when we need to argue the case of libraries. SFA provides a general outline of a full-day web-supported course that can be applied in all countries with an interest in library statistics. Interested learners should be able to work through the content in a flexible mode.

• This blog post is based on the application to IFLA for continued funding in October 2011.
• Picture: graffiti from Olsztyn

SFA has been tried out in two pilot settings and as several one day courses in Lithuania and Norway.  The Statistics and Evaluation section has selected the workshop as its new priority action.

ST 7/11: Public libraries in Brazil 2009

Brazil has just carried out a systematic count of all its municipal public libraries. I summarize some of the data below

The  First National Census of Public Municipal Libraries (PML) shows that in 2009

• 79% of the municipalities had at least one functioning library
• in 13% public libraries were being planned or in the process of reopening
• in 8% they were absent (closed, abandoned or had never existed)

ST 4/11: Levels of statistical development

The question how the statistical data will be gathered in the future is of vital importance.

This is the message from my IFLA colleagues Ulla Wimmer and Theo Bothman. Wimmer is secretary of the IFLA Statistics and Evaluation Committee. Bothman works with FAIFE and the IFLA world report.

• By all experience, a survey on a global scale cannot be done by volunteer work (i.e. the Standing Committee) alone.
  
• The project [“Global Statistics for IFLA World Report” ] was started on the assumption that it would be possible to gather the data as part of the World Report Survey with input by the Section SC.
• As this option is no longer available, an alternative plan is needed, which combines resources by volunteers and a professional structure / paid workforce.
  
• Suggestions by the Professional Committee are highly appreciated.

My answer would be:

At the moment, the quantity and quality of statistical information on libraries varies enormously between countries. A handful of countries run advanced statistical systems with comprehensive coverage of their public, academic and special libraries. School libraries, which tend to be small and poorly staffed, is still a statistical problem, however.