Why do you ask?

5. Reference indicators

Questions/inhabitant

The only recoqnized indicator that has been established so far is the number of reference questions per inhabitant per year. In the year 2000 4,45 million Norwegians asked 3,5 million questions in public libraries. This gives an annual rate of 0,8 questions per person and year. Is this high or low?

We have only scattered pieces of information from other countries. But data from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and Norway are consistent: the population at large asks slightly less than one question a year.

In 1999-2000, public libraries in Queensland, Australia, with a population of 4 million, reported 3,6 million inquiries - or 0,9 per person and year (Queensland, 2000). In Canada, the National Core Library Statistics Program (1996) registered 23 million information transactions in public libraries serving 27 million persons - or a rate of 0,87 per person and year in 1996. Similar rates were found in 1994 and 1995.

In a 1996 U.S. survey of public libraries, 14% of the households had called a library for information during the last month (***). The average U.S. household has 2,6 members. The annual rate per person would be 14% * 12 months / 2.6 persons = 56% = 0,65. Since questions on "hours of operation or directions" were excluded from the survey, the total rate must be somewhat higher, maybe 0,7 or 0,8.

Grogan (1992) reports that "every year in England and Wales some 40 million reference inquiries are made in public libraries alone". With a registered population of 51 million in 1991, this gives an annual rate of 0,8 per thousand per year.

Questions/Visit

The amount of library use varies substantially between countries, and also between libraries in a single country. Library systems that collect data on visits, would get a clearer picture of reference use by separating two aspects of behavior:

1. the frequency of library use - measured by visits/inhabitant

2. the frequency of reference consultation among library users - measured by questions/visit

Evidently,

Questions/Person = Questions/Visit * Visits/Person

which we could also write as

Visits/Person = Visits/Question * Questions/Person

For Norway, with 22 million library visits in 2000, the numerical values are:

5,0 V/P = 6,2 V/Q * 0,8 Q/P

The typical interval between questions (V/Q) is about six visits.

Questions/Employee

Since we also have statistical data on library staff, it is easy to calculate some aspects of the reference work load. In Norway, the number of public library staff in 2000, converted to full-time equivalents, was 1 900 persons. The total reference load of 3,5 million questions, corresponds to 1 800 questions per full-time staff member per year:

Questions/Employee = 3.5 million/1 900 = 1 800

But only 57% of the staff time is spent with the public (SB, statistics 2000). Since the Norwegian working year is about 1 700 hours, the average time with the public is 970 hours per year. We can write:

Q/E = Questions/Hour * Hours/Employee

which gives:

Q/H = (Q/E)/(H/E) = 1 800/970 = 1.9 questions per hour

During the time staff is available to the public, they can expect a reference question every half hour, on the average. Norwegian reference statistics are supposed to exclude administrative and orientational questions. We know from British surveys (***) that such questions may constitute 30-40% of all inquiries. If we add orientation questions, we find an average question load of three rather than two questions an hour.

In small libraries with just one or two persons at the public desk, staff would normally take care of all user oriented services at the same time. In bigger libraries, specialised information desks are normal.

Transaction times

Libraries or library systems that want to know more about their reference activities, could measure transaction times. Once we know the time distribution of queries, we can calculate several informative indicators.

In a British study of reference work, which included data from four public libraries, most transactions were quite brief. The average time was around two minutes

The reference output (in minutes) could be measured by:

Transaction Time/Inhabitant

If we know the number of library visits, the ratio:

TT/Visit

is more intuitive. On the input side we can measure the reference work load by:

TT/Staff hour

With about two reference questions an hour, it is clear that most transactions must be brief. Only a few questions take more than a couple of minutes and demand trained professional skills. We know that difficult questions easily take ten minutes or more. But the average librarian cannot afford to spend twenty minutes every hour on reference. The pressure from other tasks is too great.

The percentage of "information service time" that is spent on longer questions - those that take more than three minutes, say - would normally indicate the difficulty or complexity of the queries.

Table F. Proposed reference indicators.

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