Please reply to Jan Bruusgaard at the address below; not to SERIALST. -ed.
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Currently librarians are very interested in keeping
statistical track of media, especially electronic media. At
a recent meeting of the IFLA Standing Committee on
Statistics, Mr. Jan Bruusgaard, Norway, presented "Remarks
on compiling statistics on electronic media". It is an
excellent document, and Mr. Bruusgaard would like comments
from American librarians by December 15. His address is:
Jan Bruusgaard
Government Administration Services
Documentation Services
P.O. Box 8129
0033-OSLO
NORWAY
His paper will also be considered by the ARL Statistics
Committee at its annual meeting. Once he was received all
comments it will be published by the IFLA statistics
section.
Thank you for your assistance.
Frederick C. Lynden
Brown University
AP010037 at Brownvm
Remarks- Compiling Statistics on Electronic Media
I. Purpose
A. For libraries it should be a goal to document all
types offered as well as possible.
B. Electronic media may have a larger and larger part
of the library's acquisition budget. Statistics will
give grounds for the spending of these resources.
This can also explain the use of resources to
training and motivation.
C. Electronic media would partly be a supplement to and
partly a substitute for printed media. Probably the
part that substitutes printed material would bring
about a decline in the traditional statistics on
printed material.For this reason it is important to
document the corresponding increase in electronic
media.
D. Statistics on electronic media may make it possible
to estimate the value and benefit of databases in
relationship to:
1. printed material
2. other databases or electronic media
3. cost of the material
E. Statistics would give management information to the
library for planning and budgeting.
II. Background and concepts.
A.Parts
1. In the traditional statistics we only have one
part - the library itself. Because of the
complexity of the statistics of electronic media
it is natural to include:
a. database hosts, vendors and producers
b. Software producers and developers
2. If we succeed to make standards which are
acceptable to a. and b., with a view to which
kind of information that is relevant to
libraries, the compilation of data would be much
easier.
B. Products. Electronic media consists of different
products that have to be handled in different ways.
1. Databases are the most important. These can be
classified by medium:
a. Online-databases
b. CD-ROM databases
2. Databases can also be classified by type:
a. Bibliographic or reference databases
b. Fulltext databases
c. Factual databases
Reference databases may often be used as a tool in
retrieving printed material, while fulltext databases would
be used as a replacement of or supplement to printed
material.
3. A third way to divide databases are into:
a. textual databases
b. picture databases
c. (In the future) sound databases
4. Other types of electronic media that may be
important are:
a. software
b. multimedia-packets
C. Ownership. Electronic media differs from printed
material in the way that there is a more
complexstructure in the case of ownership.
1. Printed material would be the library's own
property. Some of the electronic documents would
also be. In addition electronic media may be:
2. rented
3. only the data owned by others are permitted to be
used, e.g. databases owned by the producer.
4. Different ownership leads to different placement.
a. The media can be placed inside the library
b. or it can be placed outside the library,
where only the terminal and
telecommunications network give the library
access to the data.
III. Measurement
A. How to measure electronic media?
1. Count
a. Manual counting. This is done by many today
and is the simplest way, e.g. number of CD-
ROM-records, number online-database searches
executed.
b. Electronic counting. A major tool may be the
development of software that count and give
printed repots. This software has to work
together with the other software that is used
in the retrieval process.
2. Sample tests may be another possibility of
measurement.
B. What to measure.
1. Collection.
a. Macrolevel.
(1) Number of CD-ROMS records, number of
diskettes
(2) Number of databases available. This would
give a picture of how a large part of the
electronic world the library has access
to On the other hand many database hosts
offer many databases where as a single
library only takes advantage of a few,
e.g. Dialog who offer hundreds of
adifferent databases.
b. Microlevel
(1) Number of bytes. One byte corresponds to
one letter. This measure may tell
something about the size of the
databases. (In the computerworld the
measures kilo-, mega-, giga-, and
terabytes are used.) One problem here is
that a database both consists of pure
data and indexes (overhead) which may be
2-10 times as large as the pure data.
(2) Number of records/documents in the
database. Together with an average size
of the records, in bytes, number will
give a good picture. The average size of
the records is important, because the
size of one record would vary much since
a pure bibliographic record is much
smaller than a record with abstract or a
fulltext.
2. Use
a. Number of loggins to a database will give a
measure of how many requests are solved by
each single electronic source.
b. Time. The spending of time is an easy
measure.Here we count number of minutes which
are used on connecting each database (online-
bases), or number of minutes on a terminal i
being active (CD-ROM).
c. Number of bytes fetched from disk (database)
would give a rather physical measure of use.
d. Number of records fetched from disk would
give the number of logical units that are
retrieved. This measure has to be used
together with the average size of the record.
e. Number of bytes/records printed to a printer
or file show what the user gets out of the
session.This measure removes the material
which is judged as irrelevant. This measure
can be seen as a parallel to loan, because
this is what the user can bring out of the
library.
f. If we presume that cost used on a single unit
reflects benefit, spending is a suitable
measure.Costs can be divided into:
(1) Once only costs
(2) Subscription costs
(3) Cost for use or pr minute
It is likely that a combination of the measures mentioned
above is the best to get a suitable picture of the use and
collection of electronic media. One possibility is to
develop an abstract measure which represent the different
factors with unequal weights.
IV. Problematic areas
A. The development of standard counting procedures
require some standardizing work done by the software
and database vendors. IFLA or ISO may take the
initiative in setting standards or guidelines among
these vendors.
B. Even if the library's own catalogue is a database,
and often the most used one, this should be separated
from other electronic media. Union catalogues makes
the border unclear.
C. Protection of individuals. This kind of measures
gives spin off effects that can be used to measure
the effectiveness of the single employee, and maybe
map the single person's use of the media. It is
important that this kind of measurement is done in
agreement with the users and employees.
V.More advanced possibilities - research.
There are two fields from where the knowledge can be
utilized to get better measures of electronic media.
A. Information theory. Using some information theory it
maybe would be possible to develop measures about
what is new knowledge and what only are duplication
of existing knowledge that also are located in other
sources. Many electronic media have a great deal of
overlap, often in a much higher degree than printed
material.
B. Information retrieval. It should be possible to use
knowledge and methods from this field to give a more
precise answer to what is retrieved and used,
e.g.compared to the principles of recall and
precision.
19.8.93
Jan Bruusgaard,
Government Documentation services
POB 8129 Dep
N-0033 Oslo
Norway
Member of IFLA's SC section of statistics.
