This presentation was provided by Carl Grant of the University of Oklahoma for a NISO virtual conference, held on April 20, 2016.

1. http://www.normantranscript.com/news/university_of_oklahoma/ou-graduation-week-activities-
listed/article_41ac4a5a-eae9-5335-b132-6cd6ac0e821e.html
CC-BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pahudson/7719889426/
Why measure that when we need to show this?
Carl Grant, University of Oklahoma Libraries
April 20h, 2016

2. Agenda
1. What are we measuring now?
2. What do we need to be measuring tomorrow?
3. How are we going to do that?
4. Conclusion

3. What are we measuring now?
Let’s take a look where we focus & what we report:
• ALA website: http://www.ala.org/research/sites/ala.org.research/files/content/librarystats/LBTA-
research2014.pdf
– Circulation
– ILL
– Reference calls
– Access to computers/internet
– Funding/expenditure levels
– # of librarians
– # of hours open
– Among other similar measures
<sigh>

4. What are we measuring now?
Let’s take a look where we focus & what we report – Pt 2:
• ARL website: http://publications.arl.org/ARL-Statistics-2013-2014/
– Collections and collection expenditures
– Salary data
– Overall expenditures
– Personnel counts
<sigh…again>

6. University Mission Statement

7. Provost Goals
Defined As:
P1. Student Success
P2. Faculty Impact
P3. Community Impact
P4. Brand Equity

8. Library Goals
The OU Libraries has set the following supporting goals:
• Creating Excellence in the Library Experience: Virtual &
Physical
• Building on Excellence in Special Collections
• Supporting OU Campus Research and Data Stewardship
• Charting a New Role for Scholarly Communications
• Strengthening Skills and Capabilities (the team)

9. When we need to show this…
This report began to move
us in the right direction.
“Not only do stakeholders count
on higher education institutions to
achieve these goals, they also
require them to demonstrate
evidence that they have achieved
them. The same is true for
academic libraries; they too can
provide evidence of their value.”
Available at:
http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/value/va
l_summary.pdf

10. When we need to show this…
Called for us to look at
(among other things):
• Determine what libraries enable
students, faculty…, and staff to
do
• Develop systems to collect data
on … user behavior, while
maintaining privacy
• Record and increase library
impact on student enrollment
• Link libraries to improved student
retention and graduation rates
• Track library influences on
increased student achievement

11. When we need to show this…
Michael Keller, University Librarian at
Stanford, has suggested we need to
measure:
1. Actual use of library resources &
services in teaching, learning and
research.
2. Engagement with professorial
research projects,
3. Responses to changing environments
4. Recruitment of new professionals
5. Re-training of existing staff

12. At OU we think we need to
show this…
• New initiatives/services started.
• Metrics used in measuring the impact.
• Positions created/eliminated in library staffing
• Alignment of positions with research and training
on campus
• How much content is purchased in digital vs
analog form? How much are they used?
• Library renovations & assessments used to
measure success?

13. • How well is the library growing its funding?
• What are the satisfaction ratings of communities
served?
• How many collaborations/partnerships are formed
& maintained? Outputs from same?
• How well are the collections of resources
supporting the mission/goals of the University?
At OU we think we need to
show this…

15. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tabor-roeder/5835126514 CC-BY

16. https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/5500714140 CC-BY
Library
Licensed
& DIgital
Content
Library
Service
Platform
Campus
Record
Systems
Course
Mngmnt
Systems
To do that, we need access to this…

17. Photo copyright: iStockPhoto. Not for reuse.
To do that, we need this…
• Infrastructure
• Connect all the silos
• API’s
• Tool to utilize value provided by connected silos.

18. Photo copyright: iStockPhoto. Not for reuse.
To that, we need this…
• Data Governance
• Must be backed at highest levels of organization
• Broad involvement in Governance Committee
• Institutional Reporting
• IT
• Libraries
• Finance
• Administration

19. Photo copyright: iStockPhoto. Not for reuse.
To that, we need this…
• Data Governance
• Create a website, be transparent!
• Publicize
• Create workflows – minimize delays!
• Create a Data Dictionary (this is slow work)
• Delegate
• Establish metrics to measure success
• Lots of time…

20. Photo copyright: iStockPhoto. Not for reuse.
To that, we need this…
• Create partnerships:
• Across entire campus
• With vendors for:
• Open API’s
• Standardized API’s
• Create/Buy Tools for:
• Reporting
• Analysis, for example…

22. www.exaptive.com

23. The road ahead…