Assessing the Economic Value of Public Library Collections and Services: A Timely Review and Meta-Analysis

1. Assessing the Economic Value of Public Library Collections and Services:A Timely Review and Meta-Analysis Dr. Jennifer Weil Arns, Associate Professor, Dr. Robert V. Williams, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Ms. Karen Miller, Doctoral Student School of Library and Information Science University of South Carolina A Research Project Funded by IMLS

2. Value Problem Source: http://espin086.wordpress.com/tag/supply-and-demand/

3. Initial Approach: Traditional Metaphors

4. Recent Response: Cost-Benefit Studies • South Carolina (carried out by the University of South Carolina as a service to the South Carolina State Library; 2003, 2011) Cost and benefit estimates were based on a business model and standardized Public Library Survey income and expenditure data. Examined both direct and indirect benefits. St Louis Public Library (Holt, et al) Carried out in 1994 and refined and replicated in 1999 and 2001-2003. Ten years of studies led to a manual for medium and smaller-sized libraries. State of Florida (Griffths, et al, 2004).Using a variety of estimation techniques, the report built on earlier work by Fraser, Nelson and McCure (2001,2002). http://www.libsci.sc.edu/MetaWeb/researchteam.html

5. US Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. Grant #: RE-04-08-0047: Assessing the Economic Value of Public Library Collections and Services: A Review of the Literature and Meta-Analysis (META) - a multi year research project designed to provide insight into these questions and a more robust model of the economic value of public libraries. Principle Investigator: Jennifer Weil Arns

6. Primary Researchers The information I’m going to share with you today represents the preliminary result of a nationally funded study conducted primarily by a small group of dedicated researchers who, perhaps unwisely, decided to tackle this problem, first reviewing the literature on this topic and then conducting an experiment .

7. Research questions: 1) Is there consistent and mounting evidence that public libraries contribute to the economic prosperity of the communities they serve 2) What steps might be taken in order to strengthen this assertion.

8. Approach and Methodology Meta-Analysis Meta-analysis is the statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies. When the treatment effect (or effect size) is consistent from one study to the next, meta-analysis can be used to identify this common effect. When the effect varies from one study to the next, meta-analysis may be used to identify the reason for the variation. Clinicians and applied researchers in medicine, education, psychology, criminal justice, and a host of other fields use meta-analysis to determine which interventions work, and which ones work best. Meta analysis is also widely used in basic research to evaluate the evidence in areas as diverse as sociology, social psychology, sex differences, finance and economics, political science, marketing, ecology and genetics, among others. Source: http://www.meta-analysis.com/pages/why_do.html

9. Cost/ • Benefit Analysis Phase 1: The User’s Perspective An initial corpus of 143 value related studies was identified using Dialog file 438 Library Literature and Information Science; and the results of this search were analyzed and extended using University of South Carolina search services provided by Wilson Web (HW Wilson), CSA Illumina, and EBSCO. Internet searches were also conducted using the Google advanced search feature (search terms “libr* valu*) and random searches to locate referenced citations.

12. Phase 2: The Institutional Perspective • Cost/ • Benefit Analysis For the purposes of analysis, the “treatment” of interest was considered to be an action: the expenditure of public funds. The intensity of the treatment was thought to be reflected in the size of the expenditure, and the effect of interest was initially defined as the benefits derived from these investments, all of which would be described in dollars.

14. Data Collection The Institutional Perspective IMLS Public Library Survey data were used for analysis. The full file includes elements that pertain to each of the over 9,000 public library systems located in the U.S., U.S. Territories, and the District of Columbia. The smaller State Summary file aggregates these data. These sources were attractive for several reasons: The variables were accompanied with operational definitions, the units of analysis were uniform, and the data were for the most amenable to analysis.

15. Preliminary Results 2009 State Summary File: Descriptive Statistics The Institutional Perspective

16. The Institutional Perspective Regional Analysis

17. The Institutional Perspective Regional Analysis

18. Preliminary Results: Phase 2 Regional Meta-Analysis The Institutional Perspective The results of the preliminary meta-analysis we performed using the updated USC formula and the IMLS state summary file data suggest that we can be 95% confident that the mean total value is between $5.69 and $5.91

19. Research Question 1. Is there consistent and mounting evidence that public libraries contribute to the economic prosperity of the communities they serve When the results described above are taken into consideration, the answer to our first research question appears to be yes – the analyses performed for this project suggest mounting and moderately consistent evidence that public libraries contribute to the economic prosperity of the communities they serve and that these benefits may be expected to range around $5.00 to $6.00 for every dollar spent.

20. Further meta-analysis • Better use of survey data. • Further examination of the intangible outcomes and benefits that are typically not taken into account in these cost benefit estimates. Research Question 2:What steps can be taken in order to strengthen this assertion? Three pathways to added value