Reports

Charge: Identify current annual data collection statistics and determine whether these procedures are effective and allow evaluation and assessment of resource sharing activity among the membership. Suggest alternative methods, if necessary, and identify how the data will be used and for what purpose. Submit a report to Management Council outlining findings.

• What data can be gathered by the members and what data is useful to member libraries?
  Libraries would like institution-specific data for loans to BLC card holders (walk-ins), but not all libraries can break out the loans by institution.
• Is the data that we currently gather adequate for future needs?
  Yes, with the addition of Virtual Catalog information
• Will the data we recommend be able to track the impact of current initiatives, namely the Virtual Catalog Project, over time?
  Yes, when the Virtual Catalog transactions are added.

The consortium currently gathers basic data on returnables and non-returnables (originals & photocopies) lent and borrowed through Interlibrary Loan, all broken out by institution and OCLC code. It also requests the number of circulation transactions to BLC cardholders, broken out by institution, and the number of BLC cards distributed, broken out by type of users (faculty, student, staff). All of this data is still relevant and should continue to be gathered, although we learned that not all libraries are able to break out the circulation data by institution. In addition, we need to start gathering comparable data for all lending and borrowing initiated through the Virtual Catalog.

While the statistics gathered each year might be used to justify membership in the BLC, to indicate increases or reductions in workloads for individual libraries, or even to see how individual libraries compare with their peers, the information can also track trends and identify potential new directions for the member libraries and for the consortium office that supports them. In order to effectively use the data to make long term projections two issues are vital: the data must be collected consistently from all institutions over a number of years, and each institution must be able to provide at least a minimum of the requested data. Our research indicated that some of the recommended data cannot be collected at the present time by all of the BLC libraries. However, several of the libraries currently unable to gather this data are migrating to new systems and may be able to provide this data in future. Since the survey showed that member libraries prefer data broken out by institution instead of gross totals, it would behoove all libraries to make a serious effort to collect information by institution for all forms of resource sharing.

The survey developed by the task force and distributed to the membership received 16 out of a possible 17 responses, a gratifying 94% response rate. The information gathered helped the group clarify how data was currently gathered and reported, and also indicated what information the membership found most useful. Many members indicated that data gathered was most useful when broken out by institution. Some were not interested in gross totals at all. From this we were able to develop a suggested list of data to be gathered (see Addenda A & B) and identify guidelines for the collecting and reporting of the data.

The only area in which all libraries indicated they were unable to collect the data (although they were interested in knowing this information!) was in-house use of services (i.e. the sharing of "human" resources). This would entail identifying walk-ins by institution as well as tracking all the services they used (reference, photocopier, information desk, circulation, etc). Any tracking of this nature would have to be done manually and most libraries are unable to collect data in this way.

The final point of inquiry was to identify possible uses to which the data could be put. The current data identifies who is lending to whom, who is borrowing from whom, and how many BLC borrowers' cards are issued. The BLC office has this data since 1974, providing a good baseline for pre-Virtual Catalog activity. This data has been used to track institutional activity, to identify ebbs and flows in service, and to chart how changes in service (such as the implementation of ARIEL) have impacted libraries.

The addition of data about resource sharing through the Virtual Catalog to the ongoing collection of data on interlibrary loans and walk-in circulations should allow each site to track the impact of Virtual Catalog-initiated transactions on traditional resource sharing. It should also help identify the ability of the Virtual Catalog to shift work from the labor-intensive ILL service to the more automated routines of Circulation.

Unfortunately, the Virtual Catalog may have some negative impact on member libraries. One of these is the loss of data, now obtainable through ILL reports, that identifies subject areas where borrowing is heaviest. This information assists collection development staff to target subject areas in need of strengthening in order to better support an institution's own users' needs. If possible, the BLC should assist members to develop methods for obtaining this data from the Virtual Catalog transaction reports. If such information cannot now be gathered, the BLC office may wish to request the appropriate enhancements from the vendor, in order to provide the data in future.

1. The RSSTF recommends that the BLC continue to gather the resource sharing statistics that have been gathered over the past 28 years, adding comparable data for activity initiated through the Virtual Catalog.
2. The RSSTF recommends that the BLC use the statistical survey questions as refined by the task force, rather than relying on the resource sharing portions of the new ALS instrument and a separate report based on OCLC data (see Addendum A). This survey should also include additional instructions to assure consistency in data collection.
3. The BLC office should gather the relevant data from the Virtual Catalog and include it in a consolidated statistical report. (See Addendum B).
4. The resource sharing statistics should be re-evaluated in three years to determine if they are meeting the needs of the BLC members and the BLC Office.
5. To ensure consistency and comparability, the RSSTF recommends the following data reporting guidelines:

• All sites report data based on the previous fiscal year, preferably for a July through June cycle. Alternative time periods should be noted.
• All sites report traditional ILL lending and borrowing by individual OCLC codes for each campus or library within a larger parent institution (no change in current practice). Where possible, walk-in circulation (BLC card users) should be reported at the institutional level.
• Intra-institutional lending should be explicitly excluded from the reported figures (e.g. lending between the various MIT or Tufts libraries or lending between the several campuses of NU or BU.).
• All data should be consolidated and reported by each institution's resource sharing representative (as identified to the BLC), to insure consistency in reporting and completeness of data from various sites.

1. Please follow the general instructions from the main survey instrument. VERY IMPORTANT: please do not leave any field blank. If you are not yet able to report data broken out by institution, please include a total for all BLC activity. If your institution does not gather some of this information currently, please evaluate whether it will be possible to gather it in the future. For this year, provide an estimate, if at all possible. (If the category does not apply to your site, please indicate that the category is non-applicable/NA.)
2. All data should be reported for a fiscal year, preferably July through June. If you operate under a different fiscal year, please so note. If you receive your OCLC data on a calendar year basis, please adjust the monthly figures to adhere to a fiscal year. (If your fiscal year is a calendar year, please try to adjust to a July-June fiscal year where ever possible. Indicate in a note if you are unable to adjust your figures in this way.)
3. Please report lending and borrowing statistics by individual OCLC codes. Exclude all lending between libraries or campuses within the same institution. (intra-institutional lending)
4. Do not include requests through the Virtual Catalog made by staff on behalf of a user. This data will be gathered through the Virtual Catalog statistics.

While the Virtual Catalog is NOT currently able to distinguish staff-initiated requests from patron-initiated ones, we feel that this distinction is a valuable one and should be tracked as soon as possible.

The Resource Sharing Statistics Task Force has been meeting on a regular basis and working through the tasks identified in the last report. We recently sent out a two-part survey to all BLC libraries. We encourage all deans and directors to distribute their surveys to the appropriate contact person for completion. The information gathered will help us identify what kinds of statistics are useful to member libraries and also how easy or difficult these statistics are to gather. We are also contacting those consortia who responded to our earlier inquiries to get more details about their statistics gathering practices.

Once this information is obtained, the Task Force should be able to identify areas of difference between member libraries, evaluate the effectiveness of current practice, and make appropriate recommendations for changes.

Charge: Identify current annual data collection statistics and determine whether these procedures are effective and allow evaluation and assessment of resource sharing activity among the membership. Suggest alternative methods, if necessary, and identify how the data will be used and for what purpose. Submit a report to Management Council outlining findings.

Focusing on resource sharing statistics, the Resource Sharing Statistics Task Force identified four areas in which to begin our investigation of the issue: identifying how BLC currently gathers data and what data they are collecting; gathering information on standard data collection instruments; polling peer consortia to investigate what data they gather; and surveying the existing literature. Significant progress has been made in gathering information in these areas.

The group has begun to discuss concerns about the data being gathered now and whether it will provide all of the information needed to evaluate the impact of the virtual catalog on resource sharing as well as to identify changes and trends over time in how the consortium is sharing resources. There is some concern regarding the discrepancy in reporting periods, fiscal vs. calendar, and the difficulties in comparing these data sets. The group has also questioned how the branch library counts relate to their main library counts? Do the main library and the branches include counts of loans to each other in their figures? If only a main library's counts are reported are the campuses branch libraries' activities automatically rolled in?

In preliminary discussions several areas were identified for which further data will be required. The virtual catalog data will need to be included and some indication of what, if any, data will be provided by the various member sites with regards to fulfillment of mediated and unmediated requests through the virtual catalog. Walk-in services may need to be addressed and how to identify services rendered (e.g. reference) versus actual physical circulations. We've already determined that the ALS (IPEDS) instrument will not capture all of the data currently under discussion. It will need some type of addendum if the determination is made that this data is necessary.

Over the next few weeks the RSSTF members will continue efforts to gathering background information from the professional literature and pursue information sources at other consortia, particularly those with virtual catalogs. We will also prepare and distribute a questionnaire to member libraries to elicit what resource sharing information they would find useful, what information they currently gather, and what other data it would be possible for them to collect. We also hope to obtain more detail about how each site gathers their current data to inform our discussion on possible instructions to be included with the BLC instrument in order to obtain better consistency of data across institutions. We respectfully request the support of the deans and directors in encouraging their staff to assist us with this poll.