Telling Your Story With Numbers

Annual Northwest Resource Sharing and Interlibrary Loan Conference

Presented by Jill Wolf, M.Ed., Data Analyst - Brooklyn Public Library

Materials prepared by Jill Wolf and Jeanne Goodrich.

Portland, OregonSeptember 14 & 15, 2006

Agenda

Data Collection –What do you want to know and how do you get it?

Data Analysis – What does your data tell you?

Data Presentation – How can you tell your story most effectively?

Why Collect Data?

Measure progress Influence Directors Make resource allocation decisions Meet data collection requirements of

a grant projectstate library/association/federal reports

Collect the Right Data

Too little isn’t helpful

Too much can be

overwhelming

The wrong data is

misleading

Two Kinds of Data:

Quantitative (quantity): numeric measures how much and/or how often something happens

Example: Fill Rate Turn around time Number of borrows/lend per month or year

Two Kinds of Data:

Qualitative (quality): Data that is rich in detail and description Includes data from surveys, focus groups

Example: User satisfaction surveys Customer service surveys

Where Do You Get Data?

ILS/ILL system

Published reports, ex: demographic information from Census, PLDS

Surveys

Observation

Self-reporting

Data Analysis

reading the data

Data Analysis Techniques

Compare - benchmark

Use averages & medians

Percentages

Change over time - trends

Read the Data

Look for:TrendsPatternsHighs and lowsAnomalies

Analyzing UseActual NumbersILL Activity

-

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

FY96 FY97 FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06

Annual Requests/Filled

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Staff FTE

Patron RequestsItems FilledStaff

1999 - Worldcat available from website - home and

library

2003 - After seeing a 227% increase in requests from 1999 - Limited to 15

active ILLs per patron

From 2000-2006 - 31% decrease in staff

2004 - Limited ILL to in library only

Goal Met

Raw Numbers

Analyzing Use

Patron Requests - % Annual Increase/Decrease

8%

17%

47%

62%

37%

28%

15%

-13%

-32%-26%

-40%

-20%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

FY97 FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06

Fiscal Year

Percent Change

Percent Change

Trends

Past History of Borrowing Requests

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

1980-811981-821982-831983-841984-851985-861986-871987-881988-891989-901990-911991-921992-931993-941994-951995-961996-971997-981998-991999-00

Number of Requests

Patron Requests Fulfilled

Patterns

ILL Requests From Patrons FY 1996-97 thru

2005-06 (Monthly)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb March April May June

Quantity

1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02

2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06

Suspended service during ILS migration

Comparative Data/Benchmarking

Public Library Data Service (PLDS)

Library Peer Comparison Tool public, academic, school National Center for Education Statistics www.nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/

Bibliostat Connect/WebConnect State, federal and PLDS statistics

Cool!

Google:“peer library tool”

Comparative Data/Benchmarking

Click on chart symbol to view chart.

Comparative Data/Benchmarking

Understand average, median Average (mean): sum

of all values divided by number of values

Median: the value in the middle of the data series

LibraryILL Requests/mo

A 1500B 400C 800D 1200E 500Average 880Median 800

Percentages Percentages show the relative size of

two or more categories.

Library Acquisitions

Books36%

Serials39%

E Resources21%

AV Materials4%

Percentages

Examples 50 is what percent of 100?

50/100 = .50 or 50%

10 is what percent of 125? 10/125 = .08 or 8%

OF means DIVIDE

Percentages Example

Beaver State University subscribed to 5,600 serials in 2005 but had to cut the subscription list to 4,725 in 2006.

This was a decrease of 16%.

New Value -Old ValueAnswer/Old ValueAnswer x 100=x%

4725 - 5600 = -875-875 / 5600 = -.15625-.15625 x 100 = -16% (rounded up)

A B C C1 formula

1 5600 4725 -16% =(B1-A1)/A1

In Excel -

Percent Change Last year I spent 18% of my materials budget on AV

materials. This year I plan on spending 20%. What is the difference?

AnswerAt first glance, you might think the difference is 2% - but the difference is 11%. (2/18 = 11)

The dollar difference and absolute difference will also depend on the dollar amounts being talked about. In other words, 18% of x may be more than 20% of y.

20% of $10,000 = $2,000

18% of $50,000 = $9,000

Presentationtelling your story

“statisfaction”

Consider Your Audience

Why are you presenting to them?

What are you trying to get them to do?

How do they prefer to see data?

How do you tell your story most effectively?

Presentation Options:

Narrative description

Tables

Graphs and Charts

Maps

Spreadsheets

Excel Is Your Friend

Learn to use Excel spreadsheets and charts

Table or Chart?

Capacity Projections based on purchases and weeding rate per year2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Max TOTAL Holdings - GOAL 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000

Holdings ON SHELF GOAL (80% of total) 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000

Total Actual Holdings 868,000 763,292 748,140 734,326 721,772 720,712 720,410

Actual Holdings ON SHELF 694,400 636,077 623,450 611,938 601,476 600,593 600,342

Amount over/under GOAL 94,400 36,077 23,450 11,938 1,476 593 342

avg # of Items ADDED per year 20,000 72,000 72,000 72,000 72,000 72,000 72,000

Holdings ON SHELF Sub-total 714,400 708,077 695,450 683,938 673,476 672,593 672,342

avg # of items WEEDED per year 60,000 60,000 60,000 60,000 60,000 60,000 60,000

Total ON SHELF Holdings after add/weed 654,400 648,077 635,450 623,938 613,476 612,593 612,342

# of Items Over Goal 54,400 48,077 35,450 23,938 13,476 12,593 12,342

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

if additional weeding rate is… 2.8% 3.8% 3.7% 3.6% 2.1% 2.0% 2.0%

# of items weeded 18,323 24,627 23,512 22,462 12,883 12,252 12,247

ON SHELF holdings after additional weeding 636,077 623,450 611,938 601,476 600,593 600,342 600,095

# of items over goal 36,077 23,450 11,938 1,476 593 342 95

% over goal 4.8% 3.1% 1.6% 0.2% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0%

PROJECTIONS

Table or Chart?

Fishbone Diagram

Central Weeding Projections

580,000

590,000

600,000

610,000

620,000

630,000

640,000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

ON SHELF Holdings After Weeding

-

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

Number of Items Weeded

ON SHELF holdings after additional weeding # of items weeded

Goal = 600,000

Maps and Census Data

Column Charts 3-D Column Chart

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Popular S&B PER HUM

% of circ

% of space in building

% of collection closed to public

Central Collections

Column Charts

Total Questions per Hour

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

10:00-11:30

11:30-12:30

12:30-1:30

1:30-2:30 2:30-3:30 3:30-4:30 4:30-5:30/6pm

5:30-6:30 6:30-7:30/8pm

DIROTHERREF

Stacked Column Chart

Column ChartsStacked Column Chart with Data Table

Total Questions per Hour

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

DIR

OTHER

REF

DIR 186 200 207 211 248 220 223 32 44

OTHER 150 126 107 123 121 108 117 18 15

REF 344 291 315 354 379 282 355 38 94

10:00-11:30

11:30-12:30

12:30-1:30 1:30-2:30 2:30-3:30 3:30-4:30 4:30-5:30/6pm

5:30-6:30 6:30-7:30/8pm

Pie ChartsCENTRAL CHILDREN'S LIBRARY

reference31%

collections21%

off desk19%

travel/break14%

sick/vac2%

meetings/training3%

programming7% other

3%

Staff Time Spent per Category

Bar Charts Stacked Bar Chart

Percent Time Spent per Category

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

CEN CL

CEN PL

CEN S&B

CEN PER

CEN GEN REF

CEN GEN LIBS

CEN HUM

reference

collections

off desk

travel/break

sick/vac

meetings/training

programming

other

equip/fac

Dashboards

Dashboards

Dashboards

Resources

BlogsJuice Analytics

http://www.juiceanalytics.com/weblog/Dash Board Spy

http://dashboardspy.wordpress.com/

Resources

BooksData Analysis with

Microsoft Excel: Updated for Office XP (with CD-ROM) (Paperback) by Kenneth N. Berk, Partrick Carey

Resources

BooksExcel Data Analysis for

Dummies (Paperback) by Stephen L. Nelson

Resources

Websites

Colorado State Library and the Colorado Department of Education

http://www.lrs.org/index.asp

Contact Information

If you have questions, please feel free to contact me at:

Jill Wolf

jillwolf1@comcast.net

503-307-1297