Group Minutes

SOCIETY OF COLLEGE NATIONAL & UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Advisory Committee on Performance Improvement

Minutes of the meeting held on Monday 7 June 2004

Present:Chris West (Chair until item 6), Maxine Melling (Chair), Toby Bainton (notes for minutes), Claire Creaser, Angela Conyers, Pete Dalton, Andrew Martin

Apologies:Susan Copeland, Mike Day, Anne Hannaford, Philip Payne, Martin Price, Stephen Town, Jacqueline Whiteside

1. Minutes

The Minutes of the meeting held on 14 January 2004 were accepted as a correct record.

2. Matters arising from the Minutes

3c SSR: The Statistics Sub-Group would consider options for including some type of general satisfaction rating the next time it met.

Action: PP

4 User Surveys: The datafields summary in Excel format from a SCONUL template satisfaction survey carried out at Swansea had been sent to LISU. This was capable of manipulation and of benchmarking against similar surveys from other libraries. In view of the continued popularity of the SCONUL survey template, it was agreed that building a database of all responses would be the most helpful option. However, as this had some cost implications, then it would be best to gauge the demand from SCONUL libraries for a benchmarking database of this sort. Chris would circulate the SCONUL list, to see how many libraries would make use of this facility.

Action: CW

3. SCONUL Statistics on the Web

Web-based data entry forms for the SCONUL Statistical Return had recently been circulated to a sample group of respondents and had received a positive response. Andrew would also circulate the URL for the forms to ACPI members, who should return any comments to him as soon as was feasible. Andrew would also check with ILRT on firm timescale for delivering historical data to the new database and the development of report writing functions. Toby also agreed to write to ILRT insisting that the final version of the data entry forms needed to be ready by 1 July, so that they could be made available for data input to the SSR 2003-04 from 1 August onwards.

Action: AM; TB

4. SCONUL Statistical Return

Claire reported that the 2002-03 SSR was almost ready for the usual publication procedures. It was agreed that the better co-ordination of SSR and UCISA Survey timetables was very desirable and could improve response rates.

5. Impact measurement

The second round of the project was going well, with a viable number of participating libraries, who had suggested some new areas for measuring impact. A special issue of Library and Information Research, to be published in 2005, would report on the current projects. In response to LIRG’s request for a member of ACPI on the project team, Andrew Martin would speak to Philip Payne about the proposal.

Action: AM

6. E-measures project

The project had made excellent progress, with 23 returns from the 25 participating libraries so far. A feedback day for participants was being held on 16 June. A valuable range of suggestions and comments had already been received, which could be translated into a workable range of e-measures for the SSR. It was agreed that the following e-measures would be piloted in the SSR:

• Number of unique serial titles received by subscription (electronic only and print/electronic)
• Number of unique titles received in electronic form
• Number of electronic databases received by subscription
• Number of e-books purchased or licensed
• Number of successful requests for full-text articles
• Number of successful accesses to e-books
• Subscriptions to serials in electronic form (electronic only and print/electronic)
• Subscriptions to electronic databases
• Expenditure on e-books
• Expenditure on digital documents (HERON subscriptions, &c)

Angela would draft the revised sections of the SSR and would circulate them to ACPI members for comment. It was agreed that, once finalised, the new e-measures would be included in the 2003-04 SSR. Although the proportion of non-respondents was likely to be fairly high, an early inclusion would pick up on the experience of the pilot libraries and would test the measures further. Careful explanations would be needed for the e-measures: a brief explanation like the current SSR notes and a longer explanation with examples, which should be provided on the ACPI website from mid-September onwards. Andrew also needed to check with ILRT, to see if the new questions could be incorporated into the 2003-04 web-based SSR.

Action:AC; PD; AM

7. NESLi2 Usage Statistics

It was reported that evidence base would be co-ordinating the analysis of e-journal usage statistics for the NESLi2 initiative.

Action:PD; AC

8. National Student Survey

This HEFCE initiative was noted. It was agreed that Toby would write to HEFCE suggesting a rather more positive form of wording for the statement on library resources in the Survey.

Action:TB

9. Library companies

In view of the relatively low number of SCONUL libraries which had been set up as limited companies within their institutions, it was agreed that an additional question on this would not be added to the SSR.