4. Fast-track replacement is a process where we
purchase replacements for missing books
before they are fully searched & declared lost.
Reason for study:
◦ time pressure; “niche” workflow
◦ Staff reporting that many books were “found” by the
time replacement arrived
◦ Growth of BD/EZB seen as replacing the need
5. Costs
Sample of 75 replacements over 3 FYs
Circulation data
Discussions with bibliographers
8. Couldn’t get report with all the factors that I
wanted to consider
So used sample for a deep dive
◦ Voyager searching
◦ BD/EZB reports
9. Nearly half of the sampled titles (46.7%) were
no longer missing
Replacement copies circulated fewer times
than originals
11 of the 75 titles (14.6%) had no charges for
either the original or replacement copies
58 of the 75 titles were never borrowed
BD/EZB
Bibliographers valued fast-track
13. Total salaries $ 77,216.00
current periodicals (est.) 5500
Annual cost per title $ 14.04
FY11 collection spending
Monograph: $ 3,686,338.19 24.82%
Serial: $ 1,507,453.46 10.15%
Electronic: $ 9,031,362.90 60.80%
General funds: $ 629,180.47 4.24%
14. 2 minute paper survey
The survey results indicated:
◦ Users found issues they needed on the shelves
(71%)
◦ Users consulted catalog first (64%)
◦ If not found: they equally either ask for help,
request an ILL, or use the online version
15. Two week period tracked patron questions
relating to current periodicals at various
locations
Total (in-person; phone; IM/Chat): 1,011
Questions relating to current periodicals: 38
(3.75%)
16. Value of check-in
◦ Collection integrity
◦ Fiscal responsibility
◦ Competence and service quality
◦ Vendor reliability and accountability
Also gathered info about current WF
problems
17. Voyager does not provide any data to track
staff productivity; time spent on check-in;
who did the check-in; etc.
Web analytics could not be gathered to track
patron use of current issue information
18. Report recommended continuing check-in
◦ Deciding factor: fiscal responsibility
Appendix documented a variety of workflow
and timeliness problems. Many have been
addressed.
19. This study looked at activity of returning books
to vendors, for both approval plans and firm
orders, and included a review of related
activities including bibliographer review of
approval books.
21. Cost of returns
annual cost cost per item
Staff time to process
returns $ 14,528.80 $ 23.97
Return Postage $ 2,500.00 $ 4.13
Total $ 17,028.80 $ 28.10
22. 30+ approval plans
3 years of data:
◦ Number received (up slightly over 3 years)
◦ Number returned (declining over 3 years)
◦ Calculated % returned for each vendor
Overall return rate declining 4%2%
24. Approval Return Reasons
damaged/defective 40 2%
duplicate 564 29%
no to series 13 1%
poor quality 21 1%
reprint 12 1%
scope 656 34%
textbook 3 0%
too expensive 56 3%
vendor error 1 0%
wrong format 2 0%
no reason 563 29%
25. LC Class Shipped Returned % Ret'd
A 12 0 0%
B 1828 21 1%
C 84 0 0%
D 1299 6 0%
E 637 1 0%
F 374 1 0%
G 449 28 6%
H 2937 36 1%
J 970 5 1%
K 460 54 12%
L 551 5 1%
LC Class Shipped Returned % Ret'd
M 335 0 0%
N 664 11 2%
P 3839 12 0%
Q 460 76 17%
R 184 14 8%
S 55 2 4%
T 357 55 15%
U 183 27 15%
V 35 5 14%
Z 47 1 2%
Total 15760 360 2%
26. Eliminated plan with high rate of return
Shared data with Coll Dev for updating
profiles
Not returning books costing $25 or less
Used data (reduction in returns) to justify
changing staff duties to union
27. Time consuming
Not all data available
Unexpected findings about related WF
Assumptions may/may not be proven
Other factors beyond data can influence
decisions
Determining the VALUE of a service is more
difficult than determining the COST
28. Driving With Data: A Roadmap for
Evidence-Based Decision Making in
Academic Libraries – Marcum & Schonfeld
Editor's Notes
Business definition (real money):
“Some people think ROI is only calculated in financial terms, but it more broadly refers to any positive or negative business outcomes that are the result of making a particular investment. The "return" might be measured by progress toward goals, positive impact on intangible assets, increased competence, improved morale, employee or partner satisfaction, and other non-financial benefits. Costs can be calculated in both financial terms and in non-financial terms such as risk or impact on intangible assets and resources.” http://www.valuenetworksandcollaboration.com/advanced/tipsforcostbenefit.html
Library ROI:
-Public libraries: economic impact in a given community of library budget
“In the study of Florida public libraries, a total of 17 public libraries were analyzed to assess the benefits to adult users who were 18 years of age or older; this study also considered the economic impact on these users....The analysis showed that approximately $6.40 of the total value per $1 of the budget was created. “
http://www.ala.org/research/librariesmatter/taxonomy/term/129
-Academic libraries: focusing on student/researcher impact
Value of Academic Libraries Toolkit http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/value/valueofacademiclibrariestoolkit#Academic%20Library%20ROI
My approach
-Investment=Cost (Salaries; Collection $; Shipping; supplies; other)
-Return=Value
-Internal: impact on other WF; impact on other depts
-External: User impact—direct/indirect
Value is the hardest to measure
2011
Key: the collection cost was small as % of budget
Time consuming – especially for BD/EZB
So, BD.EZB assumption was not true
Bibliographers valued fast-track (low cost; no decision needed; not subject funds)
Single person study
Took a lot of time
Decision to use group for next study
Late 2011
“Pet” project of the library director
Note: Voyager can give us a count of subscriptions, but not a count of just periodical subscriptions which are currently received.
Serials budget includes all print serials (not just periodicals) and print+online
NOT MUCH DATA
distributed near the current periodicals area in 20 locations; 2 week period; 39 returned; chiefly from 3 locations ADD QUESTIONS
-results were small and somewhat skewed by a larger number of returns from one small library
-one key point: 64% claimed to check catalog first—USER VALUE of check-in information in the catalog
Very small % but PS staff give a strong emphasis on using check-in records to answer questions: “answer with authority”
Collection integrity—we won’t know what we own; we won’t be able to claim
Fiscal responsibility—audit trail; we prepay; if no check in no records of univ assets
Service –speaking with authority about whether we have an issue
Classic vs New Franklin
Group process for this study did not work well
-less open to change than we would like
Director not happy with result
-we will revisit at some point
Approach – small group of 2
2012/13
Tons of data available—Lots of funs to dig into it!
FY12 costs
One vendor with a 16% return rate – plan was cancelled even before we finished the study
Huge table with each vendor over 3 years
From dept annual reports
Voyager report (3 FYs)—note does not include all returns (we don’t add records for all approvals at the point of receipt); so not included in this table
No reason: YBP has discontinued slips with reason for return; so more recent returns do not have a reason
Dupl: w/ diff. plan; w/ e-resource; w/ firm order; w/ gift; w/ standing order
Scope: language; narrow geog.; out of scope; peripheral interest; too specialized; sufficient coverage; too narrow; too popular; wrong level
Both Dupl & Scope point to the need for better awareness of app profiles
From YBP report – FY12
Although the overall return rate is low at 2%, several of the LC classes show
a high rate of return, including several in the double-digits (K, Q, T, U, and V).
To clarify the picture further, we looked at returns rates by subclass.
22 subclasses had a return rate of 25% or higher;
several subclasses had a 100% return rate (chiefly in K).
An additional 18 subclasses had return rates of 10-14%.
These subclasses should be reviewed by bibliographers to consider moving
to the YBP slip plan. This would further reduce the number of returns.
In general, small numbers in a subject area lend to a higher return rate.
Also note that the classes with 0-1% are clear candidates for shelf ready (currently only Literature is shelf ready)
-considering moving to $50 cost as the cut off for returns
-path for position elimination not clear