MINES for Libraries(TM)

http://www.arl.org/stats http://www.minesforlibraries.org
MINES for Libraries™
Presented by
Martha Kyrillidou
Director of the ARL Statistics and Service Quality Programs
Association of Research Libraries
TLA
April 14, 2015

Intro
• Association of Research
Libraries
• Assessment
• MINES for Libraries
• Challenges and
Opportunities

http://www.arl.org/stats
“Call to Action: Creating Tomorrow’s
Libraries Today”
• It really did not matter how “user
friendly” our libraries were ….. our
users would become confused and
frustrated trying to help themselves
and ultimately would seek our help
Rush Miller, Choice Magazine, April 2015

www.arl.org/about

Framework

ARL Roles

• Association of Research
Libraries
• Assessment
• MINES for Libraries
• Challenges and
Opportunities

ARL Statistics and Assessment
…To describe and measure the
performance of research
librariesand their contribution to
teaching, research, scholarship and
community service …

ARL Statistics and Assessment
…To describe and measure the performance of
research libraries and their contribution
to teaching, research,
scholarshipand community
service …

ARL Toolkit for Demonstrating
Library Value
ARL Statistics
®
2005 (1906)
LibQUAL+
®
2000
MINES for
Libraries
®
2003 (1985)
ClimateQUAL
®
2008StatsQUAL® 2005
Library Value and Strategic MetricsLibrary Value and Strategic Metrics
LibValue 2009

James Thayer Gerould (1906-1920)
• What would you
like to know about
research libraries
if you were the
library director at
the U of
Minessota in
1906?

Wendy Pradt Lougee (2002-present)
• What would you
like to know about
research libraries
if you were the
library director at
the U of
Minessota in
2014?

Leadership change over a century:
What’s different?

ARL Statistics
•More than 70% of the library
materials expenditures in major research
libraries is spent on continuing
resources
• This proportion is even higher for
smaller college and university libraries

Category Transactions
Library Use and Student Outcomes
U of Minnessota – Jan Fransen and Shane Nackerud

http://www.arl.org/stats www.libqual.org

What is MINES for Libraries®
18

Measuring Digital Content Use
The most popular current method of measuring usage of
electronic resources by libraries is not through web-
based usage surveys, but through vendor supplied data
of library patron usage or transaction usage.
Web-based usage surveys are increasingly relevant in the
collection of usage data to make collection development
and service decisions, to document evidence of usage
by certain patron populations, and to collect and analyze
performance outputs.
Brinley Franklin and Terry Plum, “Successful Web Survey Methodologies for Measuring the Impact of Networked
Electronic Services (MINES for LibrariesTM
)” IFLA Journal 32 (1) March, 2006

What is MINES for Libraries
• Action research
– Historically rooted in indirect cost studies
– Set of recommendations for research design
– Set of recommendations for web survey
presentation
– Set of recommendations for information
architecture in libraries
– Plan for continual assessment of networked
electronic resources
– An opportunity to benchmark across libraries

MINES for LibrariesTM
• MINES is a transaction-based research methodology consisting
of a web-based survey form and a random moments sampling
plan or a random instance transaction
• MINES typically measures who is using electronic resources,
where users are located at the time of use, and their purpose of
use in the least obtrusive way
• MINES was adopted by the Association of Research Libraries
(ARL) as part of the “New Measures” toolkit in May, 2003. 50
North American universities overall. More than 150,000 North
American networked services uses have been surveyed using a
standard protocol.
• MINES is different from other electronic resource usage
measures that quantify total usage (e.g., Project COUNTER, E-
Metrics) or measure how well a library makes electronic
resources accessible (LibQUAL+™).

Questions Addressed By MINES for Libraries™
• How extensively do sponsored researchers use
electronic resources? How much usage is for
non-funded research, instruction/education,
student research papers, and course work?
• Are researchers and instructors more likely to
use the electronic resources from inside or
outside the library? What about other
classifications of users?
• Are there differences in the use of electronic resources depending on
the user’s location (e.g., in the library; on-campus, but not in the
library; or off-campus)?
• Could MINES for Libraries, combined with usage counts, provide an
infrastructure to make electronic resource usage studies routine,
robust, and easily integrated into administrative decision-making
process for assessing networked electronic resources?

Library User Survey
Patron Status

Library User Survey
Affiliation

Library User Survey
Location

Library User Survey
Purpose

OCUL Scholars Portal Usage
Affiliation

Three
articles
http://www.minesforlibraries.org

• Assessing the Value of E-Resources to Yor
Aaron Lupton and Catherine Davidson,
Journal of Web Librarianship 7, no. 4
(2013): 422-433.

• What Is Different About E-Books?: A MINES
Terry Plum and Brinley Franklin, portal:
Libraries and the Academy 15, no. 1
(2015): 93-121, doi:
10.1353/pla.2015.0007.

• Assessment of the usage of electronic reso
Rachel Lewellen and Terry Plum,
Presentation, 2014 Library Assessment
Conference, Seattle, Washington, August
4-6, 2014.

MINES Survey Summary
LAC 2014

Key aspects …
• Ongoing assessment service
• R&D opportunity to understand and
improve the technology infrastructure
• Inform decision making
• Provide basis for sound actions

Dimensions of
Library Service Quality
Information Control
Library
Service
Quality
Self-Reliance
Equipment
Timeliness
Ease of Navigation
Convenience
Scope of Content
Affect of Service
Library as Place
Reliability
Assurance
Responsiveness
Empathy
Refuge
Symbol
Utilitarian Space

The Printed Library Materials I Need
for My Work

Print and/or Electronic Journal
Collections I Require for My Work
www.libqual.org

A Library Website Enabling Me to
Locate Information on My Own

• The library is not the starting point
• The campus is not the work location
• The proxy is not the answer
• The index is not current
• The PC is not the device
• User accounts are not well implemented
• Failure is not inevitable
“interface and experience are baseline requirements for a content
platform just as much as a binding is for a book”

MINES for Libraries™
running
continously

use and value of your
digital resources

Google Analytics Training
June 25 – San Fransisco
•Web Analytics Basics—what can we measure?
•Google Analytics Overview—how it works, implementation and
configuration issues, data quality, and privacy
•Google Analytics 101—tour of reports, metrics definitions, features,
and functions
•Advanced Analysis—custom reports, advanced segments, site
search reporting, content grouping, event tracking, and e-commerce
tracking
•Key Metrics for Actionable Insights—library websites, digital
libraries, OPACs
•Critical Google Analytics Configuration Steps—goal tracking, site
search, campaign links, filters, and profiles
http://www.arl.org/events/upcoming-events/event/165#.VSvB3pPMmjA

• “It is critically important for institutions to
gain a strong understanding of the value
of institutional repositories and digitized
materials as these resources represent a
large and growing part of the
utilization and public
awareness of our collections.”
– Box Fox, University of Louisville

2016 Library Assessment Conference

Thank you
martha@arl.org

MINES for Libraries(TM)

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (19)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (14)

Similar to MINES for Libraries(TM)

Similar to MINES for Libraries(TM) (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

MINES for Libraries(TM)

Editor's Notes