GOBI

Comparing libraries
Navigation page

This page is published as a guide to the paper Tord Høivik: Comparing libraries. From official statistics to effective strategies. The paper will be presented at the IFLA Satellite meeting in Bergen, Norway, August 9-11, 2005. The theme of the meeting is:

Management, marketing, evaluation and promotion of library services, based on statistics, analyses and evaluation in your own library.

The meeting is arranged by IFLA Management & Marketing Section and co-sponsored by the Public Libraries Section and the Library Theory and Research Section. A full set of abstracts is available on the web,

The lecture version (HTML - Word) is about fourteen pages in print. The full web paper, in HTML, runs to about thirty pages. The print version, in Word, to about twenty-five. I have also put the original proposal and a small link collection of statistical links on the web.

The goal of the paper is to improve the way we use statistics:

Today, library institutions spend too much effort on repetitive data collection and too little on data analysis. Libraries provide many different services to many different users. But official statistics only reflect certain aspects of library use.

At the national level, we need a better understanding of the services that libraries provide - or could provide - in knowledge oriented, multicultural and highly complex societies. Within libraries we need better tools for planning and managing services. (Høivik, 2003).

The paper builds on ideas and data from:

  1. Høivik, Tord. Why do you ask? Reference statistics for library planning, Performance measurement and metrics, vol. 4. (2003), no. 1, pp. 28-37. Web version.
  2. - . Wide enough for libraries? The library function in a web-based world. Published as: Czy wystarczy miejsca dla bibliotek? Funkcje biblioteki w sieciowym swiecie. In: Kocojowa, Maria (ed.). Professional information on the internet / Profesjonalna informacja w internecie. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press, 2004, p. 13-25.
  3. - . Når statistikk blir politikk. Om KOSTRA og norsk bibliotekstatistikk [When statistics turns into politics: on KOSTRA and Norwegian library statistics]. Bok og bibliotek, no. 3, 2004.

Tord Høivik is an associate professor at the Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science, Oslo University College: Contact - CV. See also my IFLA 2005 navigation page.


Tord Høivik - 2005/10/24