Real Measurements for Libraries in an Internet Age: A report on the Normative Data Project

1. Real Measurements for Libraries in an Internet Age: A report on the Normative Data Project Stephen Abram Vice President, Innovation Bob Molyneux Chief Statistician SirsiDynix Dec. 6, 2005

2. What are libraries most worried about? SURVIVAL • Sustaining Relevance • Millennial user behavioral mutations • Balancing print, electronic and new services and resources • Understanding Diversity • E-Learning and Distance Education challenges • Justifying growth and projects – Measures not Stats • Understanding mutating (not changing) usage patterns – info not data • Building community partnerships with authority • Building for the future and not repairing the present • Productivity and shifting staff resources • Budgets and Fundraising

3. Big Questions • How do we gain insights into changes in our ecology through our usability and user behavior studies, and our trend insights as shown through our statistics and measurements? • Can we really know the underlying reasons for users’ interactions with library services? • Can we easily and cheaply compare ourselves to other libraries, other agencies, or communities? • Can we back up our qualitative stories with quantitative measurements and data - proofs? • If we had the proofs, would it help our strategies, fundraising and tactical implementations? • Are we happy with the present?

4. Acting like a business but being a library • Knowing Customers like WalMart™ • Giving service like Nordstrom™ • Being as efficient as GE™ • Delivering an experience like Amazon™ • Having the budget of Google™ • Living the brand

5. The Virtuous Triangle

6. Usability Tests

7. Usability Tests Normative Data

8. Personas Usability Tests Normative Data

9. The Library World Personas Usability Tests Normative Data

10. The Library World Personas Usability Tests The Real World Normative Data

11. How do you persuade? • Data, charts and graphs – help but dry • Debate & Argument – a little confrontational • Conversation – a lot of effort, scales poorly • Narrative storytelling – captures the energy of the population and persists Read: The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations. by Steve Denning http://www.stevedenning.com/springboard_story.html

12. Personas • Start with understanding the users in terms of their real: • needs, preferences, and desires • goals and aspirations • expectations and assumptions • values and their beliefs • tolerance for risk and change 24

13. Personas • Personas are understood through discovery by: • Gathering data to identify possible “anchors” • Observing behavior • Pattern emergence in narrative 19

14. Personas 13

15. Personas 16

16. Personas • Personas are hypothetical representations of a natural grouping of users that drive decision-making for development projects. • They are defined by goals. • They focus on what is valuable to the user and subsequently on how he or she behaves. • They are not Stereotypes or Archetypes 14

17. Personas Goals: Help team build the base infrastructure for .NET products. Construct the base set of services that ship with the product and compose the core of a distributed framework for hosting distributed services. Add queuing semantics and associated locking, classification and routing of messages, subscriptions, efficient filtering, fan-out, etc., to the server. Integrate new distributed communication semantics to the existing SQL Server programming model. Demonstrate ability to communicate and work well with other teams. Usage Scenario: Henry has been around long enough to build a solid network of resources to call when he has specific questions about products or programs. He often learns about new technologies or processes through casual conversation with his friends and coworkers in the hallway. He uses Yahoo! for general information gathering because he likes the simplicity of the site design and the breadth of information available. The Portal is not his start page—he usually just types in the URL directly. He rarely reads the content on the first page because he doesn't want to know what's going on with general companywide PR information. He's somewhat cynical about "companywide" internal releases and dislikes company politics. However, on a personal level, he does want to know about the schedules that the applications are on so he can plan. He's frustrated that there's no place you can go to find product information all in one spot. Info-Seeking Behavior: When Henry needs specific information, he generally e-mails or phones a friend. He is a member of about 15 different DLs that used to be manageable, but now he finds it increasingly difficult to keep up. He typically uses the Portal to search for internal information across the companywide intranet or to find other internal sites. He comes to the portal about four-five times a week by typing in the URL and stays for less than 15 minutes at a time. He rarely, if ever, goes to there to find general information about the company or the industry as a whole. He uses internal databases to find internal information on products or code. If he's frustrated by something, he'll go there and find solutions rather than go outside to support or to a dot-com. "You used to have to drill down pretty deep to find personalized information, but now it's easier." He tends to bookmark pages in the portal because he hates having to go 5 levels down. He'll use that bookmark until it breaks, then he has to research it again. He would like to have favorites on the portal. Henry 41 Years Old, Software Design Engineer U.S. 12 Years at the company. Single, MS Comput.Sci 15

18. The Future • Public Library Pilot Project • Libraries in rural, urban and suburban Northeastern U.S. and Canada to start • March through May, 2005 • Leveraging proven techniques for understanding complex markets (Cynefin Centre) • Follow up to cover the broader U.S.A. and global marketplace • Follow through for Academic (ARL, ACRL, LibQual and COUNTER, etc.) • K-12 School personas can follow later 23

19. The Future • In summary, by seeing the world through the lens of the customer, we create an: • Opportunity to increase customer satisfaction and return visits • Opportunity for everyone in the organization to work to achieve the same goals, efficiently, and an • Opportunity to have a clear, and achievable direction. • Pandora’s Box – Exciting but a little dangerous 25

20. Sneak Peak SirsiDynix Personas

21. Summary Findings Emerging groups of archetypes, themes and values from the five workshops

22. Good Citizenship Archetypes Well-Rounded Citizen (13 attributes)

23. Good Citizenship Archetypes Strong Community Leader (6 attributes)

24. Patron Archetypes Frustrated Patron (12 attributes)

25. Patron Archetypes Inquisitive Power User (12 attributes)

26. Patron Archetypes Disengaged Seeker (9 attributes)

27. Library Staff Archetypes Ultimate Tour Guide (7 attributes)

28. Library Services Archetypes Out-of-Date IT (6 attributes)

29. Library Services Archetypes “Something for Everyone” Resources (4 attributes)

30. A perspective on developing better measurement and communication tools for librarians

31. What Problem do we want or have to Solve ?

32. Our Objective • Empower our Clients to Thrive – our success is dependent on their success • Get the Measurement Tools into the Right Hands • Directors and Management • Supervisors • Collection Developers • Librarians • Library boards and trustees • and also the regular folks in Finance / IT

33. Our Design Goals • Follow the BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) model • Present a more holistic view of the enterprise • Focus on underlying message in the data • Incorporate a “dashboards” format for quick access • Create a metrics monitoring tool for decision support • what-if analysis • Alert threshold triggers • Shift the dynamic from static reporting to fluid analytics • Create a “Discovery” Environment

34. Results: • Improved support for “Customer” Understanding • Encourages informed, data-driven decisions • Provides data to support the Stories • Closer alignment of library services to the customer • “Board Ready” output for effective presentations (the power of persuasion!) • Finger-tip access to management level data for deep collection use analysis • Supports strategic development of your institution’s mission

35. Director’s Station

36. Quick Peak Dr. Data and the NDP

41. Normative Data Project http://www.libraryndp.info

42. http://www.libraryndp.info

43. Normative Data Project • Potential: • 300+ library systems • 2,500 library service outlets and branches • Over 1 billion annual circ transactions for up to three years • Today • Already 30,000,000 items • Already 52 systems • Already almost 500 libraries • And more…

44. Normative Data Project • Includes: • Harvested, privacy-safe data on almost everything that is tracked in a library: • Circulation • Backroom: Technical services, cataloguing • Acquisitions and budgets • Web site traffic • Licensed content usage • Currently Unicorn and Horizon datasets but more will be considered • Harvested semi-annually, reported quarterly

45. Normative Data Project • Includes: • Amazing extra features • NCES statistics • Budget and expenditure data • U.S. Census data • Detailed GIS Maps from FSU partnership • All FULLY integrated • Current focused on Public Libraries. • Future Projects include Academic, College and Schools.

46. Change in Circulation by Format

47. Kids will be kids • For example: • 3 Branches in Fairfax County • Great Falls Community Library • 52% college grads +, 2% no high school • 87% white • Woodrow Wilson Community Library • 27% college grads+, 18% no high school • 53% white • Thomas Jefferson Community Library • 29% college grads +, 13% no high school • 62% white

48. Study Usage by Call Number Range

49. Over-used books by Dewey Class

50. Under-used books by Dewey Class