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Presented at the 2010 Library Assessment Conference, Baltimore, MD, October 25-27, 2010. http://libraryassessment.org/schedule/index.shtml “What’s So Special About Special Collections?” was the title chosen for the inaugural issue of the ACRL journal RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage and a theme issue of American Libraries published later that year in August 2000. In June 2001, ARL held a special collections symposium at Brown University that led the formation of a task force to engage the agenda that emerged from the symposium. Following the task force’s final report in 2006, a new ARL special collections working group was assembled and given a charge that included “contributing to the work underway within ARL to develop qualitative and quantitative measures for the evaluation of special collections.” This past fall, the working group partnered with CNI to host a two-day forum on special collections that opened with a panel titled “Why Are Special Collections so Important? Exploring the Value Proposition of Special Collections.” OCLC Research is currently completing the most comprehensive and detailed survey to date of special collections and archives; results will be published this summer. These two presentations will discuss current initiatives addressing the measure issues in special collections and university archives. In our two-part paper presentation, Christian Dupont will begin by summarizing the key activities and accomplishments of the past decade of efforts to assess the role and contribution of special collections and archives to the academic library enterprise. More importantly, he will point to the significant work that remains to be done to define common practices and measures for assessing special collections and archival services. At present, for instance, there are no generally agreed upon methods for counting basic reading room circulation and reference transactions, much less metrics for evaluating their quality and impact. With little basis for comparing special collections and archives units across institutions, it is difficult to point to best practices and the types of strategic investments needed to implement them. Recent literature indicates that more resources are being devoted to processing and providing access to previously “hidden” collections and conducting instruction outreach programs. Nevertheless, few studies thus far have attempted to systematically analyze their impact. In discussing those that have taken formal approaches, such as a recent NHPRC-funded survey that measured user satisfaction with minimal archival processing techniques, Dupont will point to key areas where standard, guidelines and assessment methods need to be developed. Elizabeth Yakel will discuss several methodologies of the Archival Metrics Project, such as the Repository of Archival Metrics (ROAM) initiative, designed to define and exchange benchmarking data among university archives and special collections. ROAM attempts to address the lack of effective metrics for special collections and archives in ARL Statistics, standards such as ANSI/NISO (Z39.7), and the International Council of Archives (ICA), International Standard for Describing Institutions with Archival Holdings (ICA-ISDIAH). Yakel will also discuss instruments that university archives and special collections can use to assess the learning and education impacts of their programs and the most recent research assessing the economic impact of government archives.
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“What’s So Special about Special Collections?”Or, Assessing the Value Special Collections Bring to Academic Libraries
Christian Dupont Atlas Systems, Inc.Elizabeth Yakel University of Michigan, School of Information
Library Assessment Conference 2010Baltimore, MDOctober 26, 2010
Introductions
Who we are … Our backgrounds …
Christian Dupont
15 years experience in academic library special collections as reference coordinator, curator and director
ACRL/RBMS program and section chair Since 2008, Aeon Program Director for Atlas Systems Researcher, historian, special collections user
Elizabeth Yakel
Associate Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan
Archival Metrics project User studies and assessment Economic impact studies
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Value and Metrics
Why are value and metrics important in special collections?
How are they related? Why here — why now?
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
ARL Agenda
Activity Timeline
1998 Judith Panitch “Exploring Hidden Collections” survey
2000 RBM and American Libraries, “What So Special About Special Collections?” articles
2001 ARL “Future of Special Collections” symposium at Brown
2001-2006 ARL Special Collections Working Group I: Hidden Collections
2006-2009 ARL Special Collections Working Group II: New and Expanding Library Roles; 2009 report and ARL Fall Forum
2010- ARL Special Collections Working Group III: Digital Age; subgroup on value proposition
ACRL “Value of Academic Libraries” report IMLS Lib-Value/ROI study
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Value Propositions
Operational efficiency Lowest price Quickest delivery
Product leadership Best product Prestige
Customer knowledge Best solution (value-added) Best service
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Value Propositions
In the Ithaka report, Sustaining Digital Resources (2009), Maron et al. argue that sustainable digital collections:
“create a resource that offers unique value and continue to add value to the resources based on understanding users’ needs.”
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Metrics Mayhem
Circulation vs. visit counts
Lack of standard definitions Lack of uniform data collection methods Difficult to analyze usage patterns Impossible to compare institutions
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Competing Definitions
Source Definition
ARL:Circulation
Count the number of initial circulations during the fiscal year from the general collection for use usually (although not always) outside the library. Do not count renewals. Include circulations to and from remote storage facilities for library users (i.e., do not include transactions reflecting transfers or stages of technical processing). Count the total number of items lent, not the number of borrowers. For Question 33, report total circulation for the fiscal year including initial transactions reported on line 32 and renewal transactions. Exclude reserve circulations; these are no longer reported.
NISO:In-house Use
Documents taken by a user from open access stock for use on the premises.
NISO Appendix A:Total Circulation
The total annual circulation of all library materials of all types, including renewals. Note: Count all materials in all formats that are charged out for use outside the library. Interlibrary loan transactions included are only items borrowed for users.
SAA Glossary:Circulation Record
– 1. Documentation of who has used materials. – 2. Libraries: a log of books or other materials a patron has checked out, which can also be used to indicate all books checked out from a library. – 3. A document that records the movement of something such as blood, books, drugs, immigrants, money, or water from one place to another.
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Assessing Research Use
Use implies value Reader-days vs. reader-hours Correlative analyses Intensity of use
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Assessing Learning Outcomes
Output to outcomes Moving from value to the library to
value for the user
Output Classes taught Students in attendance Materials used
Outcomes Information literacy skills Confidence level
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Questions to Consider
Areas for further study
Value Where should we center the discussion of value? Should the focus be on the value of the materials or the
services through which they are used, or both? How should value propositions for special collections
be formulated?
Metrics What can standardized metrics offer special collections?
Should they focus on outputs or outcomes, or both? What process should be used to define them?
Dupont and Yakel - Value of Special Collections - Library Assessment Conference 2010
Thank you!
Christian Dupont Atlas Systems, Inc.Elizabeth Yakel University of Michigan, School of Information
Library Assessment Conference 2010Baltimore, MDOctober 26, 2010
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