Public Library Data Research Articles

PyDataBibPub: script en Python para automatizar la descarga de datos de bibliotecas públicas de España desarrollado con ChatGPT 3.5

This paper presents PyDataBibPub, a Python script to automate the downloading of Spanish public libraries data available on the webpage Bibliotecas públicas españolas en cifras. The script was written using ChatGPT 3.5 and the papers includes an exposition of its parts and how it works. PyDataBibPub and its code are available in a project in Codeberg licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0, so that it can be reused, adapted and improved. For the future, it is proposed the installation of alternatives to ChatGPT 3.5, such as PrivateGPT, which works locally, privately and not depending on commercial companies, with the aim of developing more applications useful for the discipline of Library and Information Science.

The development of a public library data collection and analysis platform and its uses: a case study of the National Library Big Data Platform in Korea

Public libraries reflect the contemporary way of life. In the era of the digital data age, actions carried out through libraries can be traced and analyzed to monitor the demand for library services. This study presents the development and utilization of Korea's National Library Big Data Platform (NLBDP), which was constructed to collect operational data from public libraries in the country and to build national open data platform for the participating libraries and for public use. This study analyzed 17 application cases that utilized NLBDP in order to understand the way the platform has been used. The findings showed that the types of data analyzed so far have been somewhat limited. It suggests needs for further enhancing the data quality and for diversifying data sources, such as individual local library operational data, surveys, demographics, news, and social media. The results also revealed that NLBDP has been utilized for seven distinct purposes: library operations and strategic planning; social trend analysis; collection management; redesigning library space; recruiting new patrons; library marketing; and non-library applications. Building an infrastructure for networked data analysis not only enables evidence-based decision-making in public libraries, but also extracts timely topics that can be developed as useful services for their community. The findings of this study highlighted the necessity to formulate national library data policies and gather data capable of measuring the social impact of libraries.

Inflation and U.S. Public Libraries: Three Approaches for Measuring Inflation in Historical Data

Inflation is a perennial societal issue in the U.S., especially for third sector agencies like public libraries. This study finds three approaches that can be used to measure inflation in public library data. These approaches are distinguished by their degree of abstraction. They are (1) specific, (2) middle-range, and (3) general. Each approach is used for particular situations for certain tasks and knowledge. This study explains and illustrates the approaches by applying them to actual datasets. These strategies serve as important tools for those interested in examining inflation in the context of public libraries in the U.S.

The State of Ontario Public Libraries and Select Trends, 2000-2018: A Data Survey

ABSTRACT Canadian public library data are the responsibility of the nation’s various provinces and territories, unlike the US where there is a national-level data collection effort. Ontario public library data are collected and published annually by the province’s Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism, and Culture Industries. The data have been recompiled into a longitudinal file by the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries (FOPL) which has produced two main products from the resulting FOPL Dataset. One is a method for peer comparisons, but the focus in this article is on the second: an annual Report on the condition of these libraries as revealed in each year’s new data. This article highlights results from the latest FOPL Report on the condition of Ontario’s public libraries. In addition, there is an emphasis on the fact that these Ontario data are particularly strong in measuring new capabilities of libraries resulting from changes in the information environment of public libraries.

Data envelopment analysis in hierarchical category structure with fuzzy boundaries

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used for the performance evaluation of a set of decision making units (DMUs). Such performance scores are necessary for taking managerial decisions like allocation of resources, improvement plans for the poor performers, and maintaining high efficiency of the leaders. In classical DEA, it is assumed that the DMUs are operating in a similar environment. But in practice, this assumption is normally broken as DMUs operate in a varied environment due to several uncontrollable factors like socio-economic differences, competitiveness in the region and location. In order to address this issue, categorical DEA was proposed for the construction of peer groups by creating crisp categories based on the level of competitiveness. However, such categorizations suffer from indeterminate factors, for example, human judgment and biases, linguistic ambiguity and vagueness. In this paper, we propose a more realistic DEA approach which is capable of handling categories defined in natural languages or with vague boundaries and generates efficiency as triangular fuzzy number. The analysis indicates that if a higher degree of fuzziness is allowed while defining the boundaries of the reference set, it results in (1) a compromise with the accuracy, signified by the spread of the fuzzy efficiency, (2) degradation of the quality, signified by the centre of the fuzzy efficiency, of the decision. Finally, the applicability of this approach has been demonstrated using public library data for different regions in Tokyo city. The sensitivity of the optimal decisions to the changes in fuzzy parameters has also been investigated.

Getting to Grips with Data Literacy and Data-Driven Decision Making

UKeiG’s Members’ Day, held at CILIP’s London headquarters on the 16th March 2017, was a huge success and attracted a diverse range of delegates. It showcased the theme of information modelling using data and metrics: the analysis, exploitation, utilisation, management and visualisation of data in a number of settings, including the construction industry and public libraries.
 Keith Wilson, Construction Information Consultant, provided a fascinating insight into Building Information Modelling (BIM), a well-established integrated project information model and common data environment in that sector.
 Aude Charillon, of Newcastle City Libraries, presented on “releasing and re-using” public library data to engage and empower library visitors. She is a champion of open, shared content and data literacy; the need to educate people about their rights to utilise and customise creative works – images, sound, films and data - that are free of copyright.
 Jisc's Siobhan Burke gave the delegates an overview of Analytics Lab, a joint HESA (UK Higher Education data and analysis) and Jisc business intelligence research and development project. She also gave an overview of Heidi Plus, the Higher Education Information Database for Institutions. It encompasses the delivery of data sets through a data explorer tool, dashboards, visualisations, training and support materials.
 Data literacy is an increasingly important part of working life and ensuring that it is integrated into the knowledge and information skills set will future proof the profession. Nick observed that library and information professionals have often stood on the periphery spectating, watching things happen not making things happen, and allowing major developments in “big data” and “data science” to pass us by. Now is the time to respond more effectively to the challenges and opportunities that data has to offer.

Public Libraries Positively Impact Quality of Life: A Big Data Study

ABSTRACT A big data study examining 10 years of North Carolina public library data found that per capita print book circulation had predictive, positive, and statistically significant relationships with five quality of life factors including a community’s level of educational attainment, per capita and median household income, and number of jobs. Altogether, five public library factors were found to have positive impact on six community quality of life variables. These results support the role libraries serve as community anchors in positively impacting quality of life. The use of predictive analytics and the study’s findings can be used in advocating for the value of public libraries.

Post‐checkout (Non‐)usage of Library Digital Content

ABSTRACTThe present study analyzed a large urban Canadian public library's data (2013‐2017) from Rakuten OverDrive to identify patterns, trends, and potential implications related to post‐checkout non‐usage (material that is checked out by a user, but subsequently never opened and/or downloaded) of library digital content. It was found that over 12% of the more than 1.1 million checkouts of digital content via OverDrive in 2017 were never opened, causing a waste of over $10,000 USD on metered access eBooks alone; this figure will likely increase in the coming years based on the trends found in this study. Juvenile and non‐fiction eBooks are most likely to be checked out and go unused. These findings may shed light on ways libraries and digital content vendors might improve the efficiency of digital content lending, and serve to inform collection management and user‐targeted marketing and solutions.

Structuring an Action Net of Public Library Membership

AbstractThis article introduces a theoretical framework for conceptualizing public library membership and belonging as an ongoing action net of joint intention and collective action between individual members of the public and the library. It provides an analysis of how membership is constituted, observed, and documented by public libraries from a social-constructivist perspective. Drawing on social theory and philosophy, organizational studies, and secondary public library data sources, a high-level typology of public library member categories from the political and organizational modes of public library action is proposed. Member types are characterized using institutionalized structures of public library use, access, data, discourse, behavior, and social media applications. Implications of this framework for future research and public library innovation are suggested in conclusion.

Unsettling Scores: An Evaluation of Hennen's Annual Public Library Ratings

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the results of a study of the Hennen Annual Public Library Ratings (HAPLR). This study was conducted for the U.S. National Commission on Library and Information Science (NCLIS) as part of a larger survey of library assessment instruments. HAPLR ratings are based upon public library data available from the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The paper examines promotion of the HAPLR rating method and construction of its scores, summarizes literature on library input and output measures, reviews published criticisms, identifies other key shortcomings of the method, and explores selected statistical trends in NCES public library data from 1999 through 2004. The article concludes that imprecision in HAPLR scores renders the method unsuitable for quantitatively assessing comparative and individual library performance. Statistical validity of the method has never been demonstrated. Input/output data that HAPLR uses are inadequate measures of library performance and quality. The scores are susceptible to inaccuracies in the compilation of NCES data. Promoters of the HAPLR methodology should fully disclose the limitations and biases of the method. These limitations also need to be understood and heeded by the public library community, which has injudiciously joined its national library identity with a statistically unsound portrayal of its collective and individual institutional strengths and weaknesses.

The Status of Public Library Funding 2003–2005: Impact of Local Operating Revenue Fluctuations

SUMMARY There has long been concern about the status of public library funding. Although libraries annually report revenue and expenditures to State Libraries, and to a federal library system for public library data, it was difficult to ascertain the extent of mid-year increases and reductions. Also, lags in access to national data about the condition of public libraries increased the need for this study. The preliminary findings of a national study of funding issues in U.S. public libraries during fiscal years 2003–2005, and expectations for funding in fiscal year 2006 are presented here. The complete report, released by ALA in spring 2006 (ISBN 0-8389-8372-3), is available by contacting the author.

U.S. Public Library Data: A Unified Field Theory

ABSTRACT As librarians adapt to managing and reporting in an accountability culture, their need for reliable, accurate data has increased. The author's premise in this paper is that the library data analysis establishment is not sufficient to provide the data needed for libraries to make solid statistical case for their operational decision making or to construct statistical rationale for their funding. This paper outlines the numerous pieces of the public library data puzzle and how those pieces might be assembled into an analytical statistical framework useful to practitioners and researchers. The pieces are the different consumers of library data, who have variety of uses for data, and the different official collectors of library data, who have variety of purposes in collecting data. The author hopes that if all these different groups understand the landscape of public library data, they can work towards creation of system that better supplies usable data to everyone.

Salaries: Part Two–A Ten-Year Snapshot

ABSTRACT Using data from the 1992 and 2002 editions of Public Library Data Service, published by the Public Library Association, a snapshot of average (median) total expenditures, salary and benefit expenditures, plus dollars spent for library materials and “other” elements is taken for libraries in the various population ranges. A comparison of the increase in these different elements over the ten-year period, in terms of both dollar changes and percentage gains, reveals that in the largest and the smallest libraries the expenditures for “other” costs have increased more than salaries, benefits, or library materials. It also reveals that the largest libraries, those serving a million or more, have fared considerably better budget-wise than their smaller counterparts. Those libraries serving between 5,000 and 99,999 have fared the worst.

Salaries: Part One–A Ten-Year Snapshot

ABSTRACT Using data from the 1992 and 2002 editions of Public Library Data Service, published by the Public Library Association, a snapshot of median salaries of directors and beginning librarians is taken for libraries in the various population ranges. A comparison of the increase in salaries over the ten-year period, in terms of both dollar changes and percentage gains, reveals that in the larger libraries the salaries of the directors rose at a sharper rate than that of the beginning librarians.

The Use of National Public Library Statistics by Public Library Directors

U.S. national public library statistical programs have provided information on library activity for over half a century. Utilizing statistics to describe and assess the comparative operation of library activities has become a part of library tradition and has received growing attention in the past two decades from researchers, policy makers, library managers, and professionals. However, studies about how statistics are used in libraries have been scant. We conducted a survey to investigate public library directors' use of the Federal-State Cooperative System for Public Library Data (FSCS) and the Public Library Data Service (PLDS) reports. We highlight the uses directors made of statistics and the aspects of statistics that they found particularly useful. The study's results are intended to provide library administrators with insights into ways that library statistics are used in the managerial process as well as to provide national statistical program administrators with information on the characteristic...

Automatic recognition of title page names

The general question addressed by the study concerns the feasibility of developing automatic name recognition algorithms to distinguish character strings representing names from other character strings occurring on English language title pages. To answer the question, two name recognition algorithms were tested: one to recognize personal names and the other corporate names. The algorithms involved matching title page names with names in authority files and identifying postname markers. The success rates for the corporate and personal name algorithms were 85.8% and 84.5%, respectively, with a precision rate of 89.3% for the latter. The corporate name algorithm worked significantly better for public as opposed to university library data. The personal name algorithm worked significantly better for names deemed to be useful access points in retrieval. The personal name algorithm, further, resulted in significantly higher precision for the public library data, as well as for names that were useful access points. It is anticipated that the algorithms could be even more nearly perfected by increasing the number of names in the authority files, especially names of publishers, colleges, and universities. The findings offer cautious promise for alleviating some of the labor intensive work of cataloging by providing a means for automatically recognizing names on title pages.

THE NEW NATIONAL DATABASE FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES: An Interview with John Lorenz and Lawrence LaMoure

Q: John, as a representative from the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) and as the Chair of the Task Force on Federal‐State Cooperative System for Public Library Data (FSCS), and, Larry, as Coordinator of the Library Statistics Program at the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), you have both played major roles in the creation of the new national database of up‐to‐date, comparable statistics on public libraries. The idea has been around for a long time. What do you think brought it to fruition now?

Federal-State Cooperation for Public Library Data

Federal-State Cooperation for Public Library Data

Validity and Comparability of Public Library Data

Validity and Comparability of Public Library Data