Sources of library data from outside the US

December 30, 2023–Links only

From previous iterations of their data, I know that they have data back to 1999 but in PDF and the survey questions were published back to 2006 so there are more data from BC if they chose to make them available. Here is a one-page summary Infographic.

In the 2018 data, there are about 235 variables and 71 public libraries reported this year. There are 1,207 observations in the complete dataset (an observation include the data for one library for one year.

Also a nice Google Map of libraries in the province: https://mb.countingopinions.com/locations.php?l=14702

The 1999 data have a good bit of data not included in the others and I have thought of it as an experiment which led to a better subsequent set of surveys. From 2000-2021, the data are in good order and were assembled into a longitudinal dataset from 2000-2020 annually under the aegis of the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries (FOPL) after which, it has languished. This Archive started because I discovered how librarians do not preserve their data. Having worked on this data series for years, I have started back to update these data.

The Ministry published these data with an “Open Government License.” In that spirit, FOPL also made the compiled series open source. The resulting dataset was used in a variety of ways, including Projects & Reports. I have added the 2021 data and will put them here and then add 2022 as I have time. These data are open source.

The data are in several files detailed at this link: Ontario Public Library Statistics. The data themselves in .csv format, a file of the variables ever reported, and a file of libraries ever reporting are in two formats: .xlsx and .ods.. And documentation file in .docx format. Please note that I did the work of compilation and it is a complex task. If you find an error, please let me know so I can correct it.

January 2, 2024

December 30, 2023–Links only

December 30, 2023–Minor typo corrected

The Council also published data for 1988 to 1998 but those data are no longer available on that Website. In October 2012, a reorganization dissolved the Council and its functions were moved under the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) in a new division: “Libraries Development.” The reporting of data seems to have ceased.

It a nicely done series and the publication of budget estimates along with the actual expenditures is an interesting idea. It is a sad fact that results from too many librarians not being numerate that we often have to rely on the kindness of strangers to collect our data and which they do for their own purposes, usually. When they lose interest in our data, the series may die. The library world is littered with discontinued data series.

There are indications in discussions on these sites that the library data collection/reporting was moved to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) but CIPFA does not collect the data from the Republic of Ireland’s public libraries. [That information came via an email communication with the Senior Data Analyst, CIPFA Analytics and Research, 03/26/2020.]

Before the series was closed, the old Website mentioned the databases extend back to 1978 for actual expenditure and to 1987 for estimated expenditure. It may be that this data set records annual public library data further back than any other series I am aware of.

On its membership page it mentions that it has 182 members and that it includes in its range of services “collecting and publishing statistics from our member libraries, enabling benchmarking and other comparative analysis.” Information on the data is limited to a SCONUL statistics reports page which includes links to “Analyses drawn from the SCONUL Annual Statistics.” At the bottom of the page we learn that data are available to members but only available to non-members for purchase.

The data are in annual files and available for paid subscribers. An overview was available here but as of Sepember 8, 2022, these links are gone.:
The then current survey questionnaire available (2019/20 Estimates and 2018/19 Actuals) at this site has a bit over 150 variables for the current ongoing survey.

The latest available annual data: Public Library Statistics 2018/19 Estimates and 2017/18 Actuals are available in an Excel spreadsheet for £450.
Background about CIPFAstats notes that CIPFA has worked for over a century “with local government services, currently undertaking 24 annual surveys of local authority operations.” Public libraries is [or was?] one of its local authority operations.
CIPFA also published “Profiles” of public libraries and since they are essentially assessment/report cards for libraries to compare their data to others, we discuss these in the Assessment section below

For German library data, go here: https://service-wiki.hbz-nrw.de/display/DBS/DBS+-+Deutsche+Bibliotheksstatistik Note that one collection listed there is in English. 1999-2011 (at least) were also issued in both languages. That looks like the way to match library terminology in German with English. These data no longer appear to be on this site.

Austrian library data are here: https://service-wiki.hbz-nrw.de/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=99811359

“BIX consists of 17 indicators for academic and 18 indicators for public libraries. They were divided into four dimensions: services, usage, efficiency and development. BIX-results showed the situation of each library in each of the four dimensions: it is situated either in the top, middle or lower third of all libraries in Germany. The results are represented by a colour code and aggregated to a ‘star’-system, four stars being the maximum result.”

“On 23 July 2015 the board of the German Library Association (dbv) and the management of the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center (hbz) decided that this year’s BIX, the 16th publication of the index, would be the last one.”

This effort was designed to rate libraries by explicit criteria but not to present the raw data. However, the method is what we focus on here and it uses similar methods to other such ratings. That is, the use of dimensions of library activities and summary rankings of those dimensions.

He developed the Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings (HAPLR 1.0) method in 2010. Hennen’s American Public Library Research (HAPLR 2.0) dates from 2017.

Tom and Valarie Hennen are retiring or have retired. The related notes that the sites are being closed and the HAPLR site has been folded into https://hennenlibrary.org/. Unhappily, it appears that Tom’s analysis is disappearing. It is often thoughtful and original thinking on library data by a practitioner.

The Website had a great deal of information on rankings with an explicit acknowledgement of the BIX in his thinking of the design of HAPLR, how HAPLR is constructed, and also on the LJIndex. The discussion of the on the HAPLR site and the HAPLR Index in the discussions of the LJ Index’s construction was interesting, thoughtful, informative, and gone. There was a good bit of heat over this question but also a bit of light. See below.

The index uses star rankings which are assigned to US public libraries in a system similar to the BIX. The tenth edition included a list of all-time stars—libraries that had earned five Stars as well as any Stars all 10 years.

This index was developed by Keith Curry Lance and Ray Lyons. The earlier article contains a discussion of the thinking behind the construction of this index. Ray’s blog Lib(rary) Performance has an article that touches on a methodological issue between this Index and HAPLR: “Ain’t Misbehavin’! Uneven LJ Index Score Ranges Are More Informative.” The LJIndex has been published by Library Journal annually.

January 2, 2024

The oldest modern honors must go to Adriano Balbi who wrote A Statistical Essay of the Libraries of Vienna and the World. There are two sources for this seminal work. One is a 1986 translation published by McFarland Publishing and available at Amazon. The second is Public Libraries in the United States of America, Part 1, [The 1876 Report.] Turn to page 745:
https://archive.org/details/publiclibrariesi04unit/page/744/

Balbi’s point was that he wanted to prove that the libraries in Vienna were the best in the world. He thought he would collect data and those data would show that Vienna’s libraries were the biggest and, hence, the best. To that end, he collected data from what I have referred to as “unsystematic” sources. Author A wrote of his travels and in 1820, was in Vienna, visited the library and reported it had X volumes and Y manuscripts. Then, later, Author B came by in 1828 and said there were Z volumes, etc. etc. Most of this article is tables of the various values reported by many different authors of major European libraries over a bevy of years. This is what happens when you don’t have systematic sources—sources that collect data regularly—typically year after year for libraries.

Now, look to page 756 for what I think is one of the signal observations in all of LIS data analysis. After surveying the mess and being no closer to his goal after all that work, he said:

Disheartened by this surprising disparity of opinion, we have more than once been upon the point of abandoning so difficult a subject…

Read on for the rest of that paragraph. I always chuckle at that because anyone who works in data is prone to being disheartened on occasion. I also know that Antonio Balbi walked the walk.

The technology used to collect and publish the data varied and the early years are typed. Then came mimeograph. These early typed and mimeograph distribution copies in archives show handwritten ranking by the various variables. In other cases, there are copies retyped locally mostly in order by volumes held. In time, these Gerould data were taken over by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) which to this day publishes tables with its member libraries in order by the various variables.