This week I’ll be posting my personal set of links to research studies about the value of libraries. I collect these links and studies since I think they’re so important and we must all be armed in the defence and promotion of libraries and our value to society. Today, it seems we need more ammunition than ever. I am not saying that data and research is enough. Stories matter too. More on that later.
Today, these are my links for public library value studies. I have checked the links but they are notoriously unreliable (it is the web!) so just report dead links in the comments and I’ll do my best librarian stuff to find them again. If you know of more, then just tell me and I’ll add them to the list!
The Value of Public Libraries
Selected (mostly free) Web References
Dividends: The Value of Public Libraries in Canada
http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/dividend/contents.htm
OCLC Community Advocacy and Awareness Site
http://www.oclc.org/advocacy/default.htm
Libraries: How They Stack Up 2003 (OCLC)
http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/librariesstackup.pdf
How Libraries Stack Up: 2010 (OCLC)
http://www.oclc.org/reports/stackup/default.htm
The Public Library: A National Survey
http://www.nyla.org/index.php?page_id=801
Placing a Value on Public Library Services
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/resresul.htm
Public Library Benefits Valuation Study Methodology and Key Findings
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/valuationg.htm
The Role of Public Libraries in Local Economic Development
http://www.ku.edu/pri/resrep/pdf/m260.pdf
Enhancing Economic Development through Libraries
http://www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/Rural/documents/ReadMoreAboutIt.pdf
National Arts and Economic Prosperity Impact Study: Executive Summary
Arts and Economic Prosperity
http://www.artsusa.org/information_services/research/services/004.asp
Library and Information Center Management, Seventh Edition
http://lu.com/management/weblinks.cfm
Making Book: Gambling on the future of our libraries (Kansas City)
http://www.haplr-index.com/Making%20Book%20KCConsensus%20Library%20report-execsum.pdf
South Carolina Public Library Impact Study
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/SCEIS/home.htm
Taxpayer Return on Investment in Florida Public Libraries
http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/bld/roi/publications.cfm
St. Louis Public Library: Placing a Value on Public Library Services
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/rescbec.htm
Impacts of the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Sector
http://www.pano.org/economic%20impact%20study.pdf
British Library: Measuring Our Value
http://www.bl.uk/cgi-bin/press.cgi?story=1399
http://www.bl.uk/pdf/measuring.pdf
The Value of Public Libraries (IFLA)
http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/119e-Aabo.pdf
One Dollar In, More than Three Out!: New Study Asserts the Economic Value of the San Francisco Public Library System
http://www.friendsandfoundation.org/press_release.cfm?id=41
The Condition of Libraries: 1999-2010 (ALA)
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/january2010/outlook_ors.cfm
The full report is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/research/initiatives/Condition_of_Libraries_1999.20.pdf.
Individual reports by type of library are available at
http://www.ala.org/ala/research/index.cfm
Economic Value of Public Libraries in the UK
http://www.librijournal.org/pdf/2002-2pp78-87.pdf
Library Value Calculator(s) – SAMPLES:
Maine: http://www.maine.gov/msl/services/calculator.htm
Denver: http://denverlibrary.org/news/dplnews/roi_calculator.html
New York: http://www.nyla.org/index.php?section=valuecalc
ALA: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/advocacy/advocacyuniversity/toolkit/makingthecase/library_calculator.cfm
Chelmsford: http://www.chelmsfordlibrary.org/library_info/calculator.html
Evanston: http://www.epl.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=518&Itemid=375
New Hampshire: http://www.nhlibrarians.org/calculator.html
Massachusetts: http://69.36.174.204/value-new/calculator.html
I hope you find these useful. Please reblog, (re)tweet and post as much as you want.
Stephen
2 Responses
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Suggestion:
The value of libraries ….. and librarians:
Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries
http://impact.ischool.washington.edu/documents/OPP4ALL_FinalReport.pdf
2010 — specific — qualitative
I just posted my Value to Patrons spreadsheet for March 2010 here:
http://www.bccls.org/buckles/stats/
And here’s a link to my CIL 2009 presentation:
http://www.bccls.org/guy/cil2009/roi/