Libraries Included in the LJ Index
Ray Lyons & Keith Curry Lance -- Library Journal, 02/15/2009
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For the latest data, see America's Star Libraries 2009, Round Two |
If you don't find your library rated in the LJ Index of Public Library Service, here's why:
To be included, a library must achieve four criteria: meeting the Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS) definition of a public library, having $10,000 or more in total operating expenditures annually, serving a legal service area population of 1000 or more residents, and reporting all of the four service indicators used in this index.
(For an FAQ, go here.)
Library definition
According to the IMLS, a public library must have paid staff and be supported, at least in part, with public funds. A total of 280 libraries do not meet this definition.
Expenditures and population
The $10,000 expenditures and 1000 population criteria reduce the incidence of severe outlier values otherwise detectable only by an expensive and onerous process. While federal library data is reviewed rigorously, that rigor cannot be sustained perfectly; thus, such outliers remain. To take all such outliers seriously would be irresponsible statistically. These two criteria exclude 897 small libraries.
Full reporting
One or more of the four outputs were not reported by 919 libraries. Library visits were not reported by 712 libraries; uses of public Internet computers, by 668; total program attendance, by 314; and circulation transactions, by 271.
In this case, it is inappropriate to employ data that has been imputed—that is, data not actually reported but estimated based upon previous reports or peer averages. Imputation is meant to fill out national and state statistics, not to give specific insight into individual library performance.
Federal data on public libraries is like Census data—after the fact, people can question it all they want, or even wish to correct their own figures, but once the national file is closed, it is closed for good. Gaps in the required data will not be filled in on an ad hoc basis for purposes of this index. The only thing library administrators will be able to do is report better in the future.
We hope the opportunity to be included in the LJ Index provides an incentive for otherwise eligible libraries to participate fully in state and federal data collection. As new output indicators are added by IMLS and can be validated statistically, they will most likely be used by the LJ Index of Public Library Service.
Next: LJ Index Fact Sheet
