Library Statistics 2008 July 20
In a number of different settings, both at work and while talking to librarians from other institutions, the subject of library statistics have come up. While all types of library statistics are always an item for discussion, in particular statistics about the size of various library collections have come up recently. While counts of traditional print materials are troublesome enough, counts of electronic resources are even more of an issue. There are just so many variables that make comparing these counts from library to library very difficult. One library may count a collection of databases as one database, while another may count each individual database separately. This is not to mention that the amount and quality of items in different databases can vary greatly.
One thing that I’ve been thinking about recently with respect to library statistics lately is what do we count that is available electronically? Specifically, should we count things that we provide access to that are freely available on the Web. For instance, if we provide a record for the Code4Lib Journal, or the dLIST (Digital Library of Information Science of Technology) should we count them as a serial or database holding respectively. How about if we add MARC records for freely available government documents from a vendor such as MARCIVE to our catalog? Does each record count as a government document although we didn’t purchase or physically possess the document. I’m not sure how many libraries count these items, but I know from talking to librarians many libraries only count items they directly pay for. I don’t think this is the correct approach. I think, especially with the high quality of many Open Access journals and other documents, the should be counted. If a librarian has taken the time and effort to evaluate a resource or collection of resources and to add it to the collection, I think it should count. Academic libraries no longer are just about physical collections of information, they are about providing access to quality information. Thus, if the library takes even minimal actions to provide access to a resource, it should be included in these counts (flawed as the are).