U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION/FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LIBRARY DATA COLLECTION NEWSAugust 14, 1998 Second Quarter of Data Collection Completed We have the second quarter data from many of the public libraries participating in our project Earlier this week, we sent summary reports of the data back to all those public libraries which got us their second quarter data by August 7th. As we discussed in the cover letter, we will be sending all of you additional data in the next few weeks breaking down the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress classification data that you have collected for us. Minor Changes to the Data Collection Process Based on the data collection experiences of the collective set of public libraries participating in this project, we have slightly modified a few procedures in the data collection process using the APEX II scanner. These changes were included as an attachment to the cover letter to the second-quarter summary reports for those libraries that have sent us their data. Click here to see an on-line version of the recommended changes. IFLA Poster on Project Christie Koontz and Dean Jue will be attending the International Federation of Library Associations meeting in Amsterdam from August 15th through the 23rd. They will be presenting a poster on the significance and results of this project to-date to international librarians. Welcome to Indian Trails Public Library District and the Santa Ana Public Library During the recent American Library Association meeting in Washington, D.C., we had several library systems indicate a desire to begin participating in this U.S. Department of Education project. After further discussions with the library systems, we are pleased to welcome two new public library systems into our study. These are the Indian Trails Public Library District in Wheeling, Illinois and the Santa Ana Public Library in Santa Ana, California. July 23, 1998 Second Quarter of Data Collection Completed The second quarter of data collection (April - June, 1998) should now be completed. If you are participating in our project, please arrange to have your data sent to us as soon as possible so we can incorporate those data into our database and send you back your summary data reports based on your data. Highlights of First Quarter Data Collection For the first quarter, we had approximately 25% of our library outlets provide us with library use within their library branches. Some of the highlights include:
The above statistics represent the findings from all libraries combined. Keep in mind that the actual data collected by each individual library outlet is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than the averages given above. ALA Presentation of this Project Well-Attended An estimated 100 individuals attended the presentation by Dr. Christie Koontz, Dr. Keith Lance, and Dean Jue on “Where Minorities Are the Majority (Performance Measures in Majority-Minority Library Markets)”, sponsored by the PLA Marketing of Public Library Services Section. This program described the rationale for this research project, the methodologies being used to collect the data, and a brief summary of the results to date (some of which were presented above). We were able to meet with several of the library systems participating in our project as well as make contact with several other library systems that wish to participate in our project. We gratefully acknowledge the support and help of each of you; without YOUR involvement, this research project would not be possible. Map of Your Public Library on the Web As part of this project, we in the process of developing a web page from which you can access basic library information and census statistics about ANY public library located in the U.S. The URL for this page is http://www.geolib.org/map.htm. Because this is very much a work in progress, please let us know if any errors or problems you may find as well as any suggestions or recommendations you may have for improving the information or the display of the information. E-mail us at djue@opus.freac.fsu.edu or at ckoontz@opus.freac.fsu.edu. March 6, 1998
Data Collection Is Proceeding!! We are in the process of calling all of the library systems that are participating in our study to make sure that everything is proceeding at least somewhat smoothly. From our calls, we know that most of you are starting to collect library data using the PDAs. Congratulations!! Upon request from several library systems, we have developed manual data entry forms for all three bar-coded data collection sheets. They are available for download over the Internet. Click here to go to the web page for downloading these forms. The forms are in TIFF format so you may need to download a plug-in application as well. If you have problems doing this, give either Christie Koontz and Dean Jue a call at (850) 644-2007 and we can fax the form(s) to you or send it through regular mail. Are You Attending the Public Library Association Meeting in Kansas City Next Week? Christie Koontz will be attending the PLA meeting next week in Kansas City. If you are one of the participants in our study project and are attending PLA as well, please leave a message at the message board for her. She will be happy to meet with you to discuss our project further or to help answer questions you may have. Are You Attending the American Library Association Meeting in Washington, D.C. this Coming June? We will be presenting an ALA program on this project. It is entitled "Where Minorities Are the Majority." It is scheduled for Saturday, June 27th, from 9:30 am until 11:00 am. We hope all of you can attend this program to network with some of your other colleagues and to find out the results of YOUR data collection efforts to date. Although time is limited, if any of you would like to make a SHORT presentation (i.e., five minutes or less) on your data collection experiences with our project, please give us a call at (850) 644-2007 or email us at either ckoontz@opus.freac.fsu.edu or at djue@opus.freac.fsu.edu.
February 6, 1998 Initial PDA Shipment Completed We have now made the initial shipment of PDAs to ALL the public library systems that we believe are participating in this project. If you believe you are participating in our project and have not received a PDA by the end of next week (February 13, 1998), PLEASE LET US KNOW. Both Christie Koontz and Dean Jue will be out of the office until Febrary 13th so please e-mail them or leave a message with their secretary at (850) 644-2007. How Many PDAs Do I Get???? We have had several inquiries into how many PDAs are being shipped to each library. The original intent of this project's researchers was to provide one PDA to each library outlet participating in this study. Thus, if a library system had four library outlets participating in this study, that library system would receive four PDAs. However, we pretested several models of PDAs with several library systems and the universal preference was for a simpler-to-use model that could be easily operated with one hand over a more basic PDA model that had a scanning wand that required two hands to operate. Of course, the preferred model was over twice as expensive. But, again, the librarians at those library systems told us they would prefer fewer PDAs that were easy to use over more PDAs that were difficult to use. Hence, the decision was made to deliver one PDA per participating library system of the easy-to-use PDA model, the Compsee APEX II that you received. At this time, we are re-evaluating how many PDAs we may have left (since not all libraries that agreed to participate in this study have returned their survey forms). After this evaluation is completed, we will be shipping additional PDAs to those library systems that would benefit most from additional units (e.g., those with the highest number of library outlets in our study). A Clarification on Ownership of the PDA We have also had several inquiries on ownership of the PDA. It is our intention to GIVE the PDAs to your library system as a sign of our appreciation and thanks for your participation in our study. Of course, we hope that you will continue to use them to collect data as well. Although our DOE funding for this project is scheduled to end in February of 1999, we plan on continuing to provide data summaries for the data files collected using the PDAs well after that date as long as libraries continue to send us their files for summary and analysis. In addition, we hope that we will be able to count on your participation in our future public library research that may utilize the PDA. Therefore, please take care of the PDA as you would any other piece of equipment the library system may own because YOU OWN IT. For insurance purposes, the retail price of the Compsee APEX II unit is $1695.
January 27, 1998 Portable Data Collecting Devices Are Shipping Now We are in the process of sending out the PDAs to all the public libraries that have committed to this project and that have returned our survey questionnaire for their participating library outlets. Approximately two-thirds of the PDAs will have been mailed out by the end of this week. Most are being sent UPS ground but those of you with post office box addresses are receiving yours through the US Postal Service. Please be sure to read your instruction manual and to experiment with the PDAs before you collect real-live data. If you have any questions or problems with the PDAs, please contact Dean by e-mail at djue@opus.freac.fsu.edu or by phone at (850) 644-2007.
Duplicate Page Numbers Found in Instruction Manual We knew it would happen!! Soon as you print up what you think is a perfectly good instruction manual, you find a glaring error. So, yes, most PDA instruction manuals we sent out have two page 16s. The first page 16 (i.e., the one on the left-hand side of the manual) is an OBSOLETE version. Please follow the instructions given on the page 16 on the right-hand side of the manual. Also, there are two loose addendum pages that may have been inserted into your instruction manual. The first one, Addendum No. 1, is ESSENTIAL for all program participants. The second one, Addendum No. 2, is of relevance only to those libraries that use the Library of Congress classification system for their materials. Both addendum are downloadable from this web site if you lose those pages. September 17, 1997
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