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August 15, 2008
Oh dear- have library authorities been fiddling their performance figures for years?
The Lis Pub Libs debate about library fines has turned an ugly corner this morning into a discussion about the recording of how many book loans a library makes. If you lend a person a book, that is one loan you might think-- but it seems that for some libraries it can be counted as several loans. Oh dear.
A correspondent on their site writes:
"if a renewal by the same person is counted as a new issue to a different borrower, that is misleading. There has been an indication of this in the responses. Off line there have been far more worrying trends mentioned that inflate or massage the figures of use etc which have been
happening for many many years, and quite honestly astonishes and disappoints me. I know we live in a number crunching world (but these practices seemt to pre date that),where performance tick box data is the norm, but I just thought libraries were different and better."
Posted by Perkins at August 15, 2008 10:20 AM
Comments
In fairness, another poster points out:
The CIPFA guidelines for reporting loans of stock, which all library services complete, clearly INCLUDE renewals. I think their guidance is both clear and fair:
"Loans to final borrowers only are to be included. For issues to institutions, playgroups etc. count only the initial issues made by the library staff or computer system.
Include:
i) Loans of uncatalogued material, e.g. if a book is issued before a record is created...
ii) All renewals made in response to an approach from a reader.
iii) Inter library loans. Direct loans to own end users only."
It is not helpful to start saying something or other is wrong before checking what the position actually is. If you want to make a point please CHECK IT FIRST. Calculations of loans are certainly not "secrets" or "lies" and such suggestions bring the profession in to disrepute.
Bit selective in your quoting there Perkins!
Posted by: Claudia at August 15, 2008 4:05 PM
I was only, as you know, reporting exactly what is being said on the professional chat page. Just because CIPFA say something does not make it fair or right. However, it all misses the point which is that the real measures that matter are the ones that the public would expect to find and easy to understand.
I think those would be 'Can I find the book or a book that I want?'; 'is the library open when I need it?' 'is the library clean, tidy, smart and useable?-- and in the context of those kinds of questions I think the public would want to compare one library with another by measurement of the number of book loans it achieves. That is a reflection of the quality of the stock on offer. Of course it is not the only measure, nor is it perfect, but it is an interesting one. We have often said on this website, in contrast to the professional view, that book lending is an important measure: if it is increasing a library is doing well, if it is decreasing then the library is not in good shape. That is a perfectly sensible view to take on behalf of those who are paying for the library service.
Throughout this whole debate one notices how rarely the library profession reflect the public view of what they do. They are not used to doing that. It is one of the greatest weaknesses in the management of the service.
Posted by: perkins at August 15, 2008 10:19 PM
Never mind loans or renewals. The best measure of a library's book-lending capability is simply the number of books out on loan!
If CIPFA had thought of this parameter in the first place, we long-suffering borrowers wouldn't have had to suffer a reduction in the loan period from 4 weeks to 3 by almost every authority over the past few years JUST TO MAKE THEIR PERFORMANCE FIGURES LOOK BETTER ARTIFICIALLY!
All that extra travelling and telephoning we have to do doesn't show in any figures, except perhaps in the membership numbers as we are 33% more likely to be fined for forgetting our books are due.
Posted by: No Brain at August 17, 2008 6:17 AM
By the way, Claudia, the public library profession is already deeply in disrepute, on this blog anyhow.
Posted by: perkins at August 17, 2008 9:14 AM