1. Common Statistics Programs and Projects in Canadian Academic Libraries Sylvie Belzile Université de Sherbrooke Statistiques de bibliothèques au 21 e siècle: conférence satellite de l’IFLA Montréal, 18-19 août 2008

2. Paper Summary Presentation of CARL/ABRC and the CREPUQ Sub-Committee on Libraries General statistics publications New indicators Comparative tables of cost/use of consortial electronic resources LibQual+ Survey in consortia Conclusion

3. Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) 27 large university libraries plus the Library and Archives Canada, Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information and the Library of Parliament. Mission: increase capacity of individual members libraries to provide effective support and encouragement to advanced study and research at the national, regional and local levels

4. Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Committee on Effectiveness Measure and Statistics mandate: – To develop and maintain the CARL Statistics Program – To review current efforts in the area of performance indicators, benchmarking and effective resource allocation as they apply to research libraries – To raise awareness of CARL members of development relating to these matters Annual statistics published since 1969

5. CREPUQ Sub-Committee on Libraries All 18 Québec university libraries (6 are also members of CARL/ABRC) Mandate: to promote the concerted development of library collections and services in support of the teaching and research missions of Québec universities

6. CREPUQ Sub-Committe on Libraries Working group on performance and decision making indicators mandate: – To develop and maintain the annual statistics program – To periodically revise the common questionnaires – To identify new relevant performance indicators Annual statistics published since 1979-1980

7. General Statistics Publications Annual data on collections, library personnel, budget and services: – Library personnel: number of librarians and other professionals, technical and support staff – Library expenditures (materials, operating, staffing) – Facilities and library space – Collection size – Transactions: loans, ILL, in house use – Reference questions, information literacy training sessions Harmonization of questionnaires (CARL, CREPUQ, ARL, ACRL)

8. Sample of CREPUQ Questionnaire

9. CREPUQ Statistics Publication (Some Particularities) CREPUQ: – Ratios (per FTE, professors) are available for major indicators – Comparative tables and graphics on libraries trends over the last 15 years

10. Extract of a Table of the 2006-2007 Statistics of CREPUQ

11. Monographs and Serials Expenditures (1990-2005) in CREPUQ Libraries

12. CARL Statistics Publications (Some Particularities) CARL: – Includes an analysis (commentaries) of major trends in Canadian Research Libraries – Section on emerging services: 1998-99: Access to the OPAC through the library online system, circulation renewal via telephone, off-campus document delivery by fax 2005-06: Presence of Information Commons, digitization projects, electronic reference services, loan of electronic equipment – Section on salaries

13. Number of CARL Libraries that Lend Electronic Equipment (2000 to 2006)

14. New Indicators Electronic resources: number and expenditure – CARL: already supplied in the General statistics publication, data not available for some libraries – CREPUQ: supplementary questionnaires on trial

15. New Indicators Challenges: – Définitions: ex. electronic serials titles in aggregator packages are to be counted separately (CARL) or included with reference works (CREPUQ) – The library budget structure does not allow the level of detail requested (ex. recurrent vs non recurrent expenditures) – To ascertain the number of unique serial titles: the SFX knowledge base will be used by CREPUQ

16. New Indicators to Be Developped Use of networked electronic resources and services – Supplementary ARL questionnaire as a model: (number of sessions (logins) to databases or services, number of full-text articles retrieved etc.) – To be developped for CARL and CREPUQ

17. Comparative Tables of Cost vs Use (CREPUQ) Analysis completed by the Working Group on the Virtual Library Collection Development: – For electronic resources acquired in consortia by CREPUQ and CRKN (Canadian Research Knowledge Network) – Counter compliant data received from publisher/vendor – 4th year in 2007-2008 (23 products) – Evaluation of cost effectiveness of each product for a library

18. Cost/Use Analysis for Emerald Insight (2005-2006)- CREPUQ

19. Use of Emerald Insight (2005-2006)- CREPUQ

20. Use of Emerald Insight Database by FTE (2005-2006)- CREPUQ

21. Cost of Use of Emerald Insight Database (2005-2006)- CREPUQ

22. 2007 LibQual+ Survey Complement common quantitative data Coordinated by CARL/ABRC Consortia of 54 Canadian academic, research and governement libraries (11 CREPUQ libraries) A success: will be repeated in 3 years

23. Conclusion Importance of benchmarking and sharing best practices To stay relevant statistics should reflect new activities, collections and transactions in libraries Cooperation at the national and regional levels should continue to develop and test new performance indicators

24. On behalf of CARL and CREPUQ Sub- Committee on Libraries thank you for your attention Sylvie.Belzile@USherbrooke.ca www.carl-abrc.ca www.crepuq.qc.ca