WGPI Meeting Minutes - 18 September 2008
SOCIETY OF COLLEGE NATIONAL & UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Working Group on Performance Improvement
Minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 18 September 2008
Present: Toby Bainton, Pat Barclay, Angela Conyers, Susan Copeland, Claire Creaser, Tracey Stanley, Rupert Wood (Secretary), Jean Yeoh
1. Election of Chair
It was agreed that Rupert would chair the meeting in Stephen’s absence.
2. Apologies for absence, etc.
Apologies had been received from Philip Payne and Stephen Town. Pat Barclay (University of Westminster) was welcomed to the meeting.
3. Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the meeting held on 22 May 2008 were accepted as a correct record.
4. Matters arising from the Minutes
4.1. The process for recruiting a new member of the Working Group was in train.
Action: ST
4.2. Toby reported that the agreed changes to the Statistics on the Web service had been commissioned.
4.3. Various developments in the Performance Portal mentioned at the last meeting were being taken forward.
Action: ST
4.4. Toby reported that the latest HELMS (UK Higher Education Library Management Statistics) Report, for 2006-07, would be the first to be made available via the web pages.
4.5. Claire reported that some of the changes to the questions in the Statistical Return, mentioned last time, were incorporated in the 2007/08 return (on space, study spaces and IT enquiries) and others could be actioned for the 2008/09 return after consultation.
4.6. Claire reported that two more workshops for those filling in the return would be held in November 2008 (London) and January 2009 (Loughborough).
4.7. Toby reported that the helpful comments from the Working Group on HE libraries had been incorporated in the response to JM Consulting for their report to HEFCE on the student experience. He would circulate to members of the Group the ‘Background Paper’ version of the submission which the SCONUL Executive Board had requested.
Action: TB
5. SCONUL Statistics
5a. The 2006/07 and 2007/08 returns
Claire reported that the SCONUL Annual Statistics, the trends analysis, and the HELMS report for 2006/07 were to be published imminently. The data would be available in the web statistics soon.
The return for 2007/08 was now available on the website and the deadline for submission was 9 January 2009.
5b. The e-measures Definitions Table
Angela distributed the revised table, which had started as a list of resource examples to help respondents classify resources in their returns as either databases, serials or e-books, but which had grown and now incorporated information on the Counter compliance of sources. Pat said she thought that broad categories and exemplars with a concentration on oddities, exceptions, and so on would be more useful than a comprehensive list of sources; and the Group agreed that the table should not aim to be comprehensive.
It was thought the principal measure aided by the Table was the rate of change in e-source access. To this end it might be useful to refine the database / e-journal definitions so that the numbers of e-journals subscribed to could be measured irrespective of how their hosts were defined. It was thought such an approach wouldn’t be contrary to ISO definitions, and might be more in line with the needs of the users of the statistics.
A meeting of some interested parties to be held in October 2008 and a consultation with some of the users of the statistics would result in proposals for changes to the Definitions Table being made to the next WGPI meeting, and then, if agreed, incorporated into the guidelines for the 2009/10 statistics return.
6. Report on feedback from the Performance Portal Workshop
The Workshop, held at the 2008 Summer Conference, was attended by eight participants. Tracey reported on the feedback received, which had been very positive, and had suggested many useful developments.
Technical developments, refinements and additional content were needed before the Portal could become fully operational. The Working Group thought that the development of a Community of Practice was still the best way forward, and that the team of commissioning editors being recruited to oversee sections of the Portal and to elicit and encourage contributed content would play a vital role. It was thought a sub-group of the WGPI might be needed to oversee the Portal’s development, and a section by section approach to continuing populating it might be the best way forward given the resources required.
Tracey will be writing a piece on the Portal for SCONUL Focus and will send some text to Toby which could be adapted for inclusion in the Monthly Newsletter.
Action: TS / TB
Angela suggested that the summaries and data from surveys and consultations on the lis-SCONUL list could be usefully accessed through the Portal. Toby said that the SCONUL Office kept copies of past survey results from the list. Rupert will suggest to Stephen that this idea is taken forward.
Action: RW / ST
7. Report on the consultation about the National Student Survey
Tracey presented the results of the consultation on the NSS library / learning resources question. Respondents had been asked what the impact of the NSS had been, and their views on the wording of the library question. Responses had been received from 33 institutions.
A large impact on HEIs generally was evident, but there was a mixed response on the appropriateness and validity of the question, and on whether a position about it should be adopted by SCONUL. Options for the WGPI would be to make a case to the Executive Board: for trying to change the wording; for suggesting an additional question(s); or for ‘re-positioning’ the question(s) vis- a-vis IT (in which case UCISA would need to be consulted) and other learning resources. Pending the views of the Working Group on Quality Assurance who were also considering the feedback from the consultation, and whose views would be reported to the next WGPI meeting, the WGPI agreed it seemed unlikely that a sufficiently strong case could be made for changes to be recommended.
8. ARL (Association of Research Libraries) and international collaboration
Stephen’s report was received.
8.1 The ‘Using Results Effectively’ LibQual+ event had taken place in June 2008.
8.2 The University of York had participated in the ARL Effective, Sustainable and Practical Assessment Program with results judged to be very useful.
8.3 The survey on assessment and performance measurement approaches in UK academic libraries had been sent out to SCONUL members. At least a 50% response rate was hoped for.
8.4 Tracey and Claire also reported on the international statistical benchmarking meeting which had been held in June 2008. Although it had been a valuable exercise to compare the SCONUL and ARL statistics sets, all parties had agreed that changes to either set in order to facilitate alignment were unlikely in the near future, given the divergence in the aims of each set and the data collected.
9. The Publisher Deals Project
Angela reported that the project had been progressing a bit more slowly in its second phase than its first. 2007 data was now being analysed. The next phase of the project might see the project package and manuals being offered to participants along with a backup advice service. The work done on the publisher deals has fed constructively into the work of JISC Collections. Angela said that she would write something on the project for SCONUL Focus and would also provide some content on it for the Performance Portal.
Action: AC
10. The Action Plan 2008
The Plan was reviewed. Stephen will report on the recent SCONUL Planning Meeting in due course.
It was noted that a special issue of SCONUL Focus on performance improvement had been suggested by Antony Brewerton, the editor. This would be discussed further. The articles mentioned above on the Performance Portal (item 6) and the Publisher Deals Project (item 9) would be relevant.
11. Any other business
11.1 For information, Toby circulated papers on: a JISC usage statistics workshop held in Berlin in July 2008; and an article on measuring the value of investment in university libraries by J. Luther.
11.2 Tracey said that because she was changing jobs soon and her new position was outside the HE domain she had regrettably decided to resign from the Working Group, and also from the role of developing and managing the Performance Portal which she’d recently assumed. The Group thanked Tracey for her contribution to its work.
12. Dates of future meetings
15 January 2009 (12noon for 12.30 at SCONUL Headquarters)
21 May 2009 (12noon for 12.30 at SCONUL Headquarters)