Presented at SLA-MD's Leveraging Data to Lead

1. Library Support for Metrics:
What can and should we do?
November 5, 2015
Christina K. Pikas
Librarian
Information & Research Services
Manager

2. Management and other stakeholders want valid
and reliable metrics to use for allocation of
funding, making investment decisions, and
evaluation of current programs.

3. They may be happy to accept Invalid,
improperly applied, or unreliable metrics if
they are easier to come by or are hyped

4. Libraries and librarians are ideally suited
to help – but how?

5. Agenda
 How should libraries support metrics?
What services should we offer?
What are reasonable questions to answer and
for which strategic audiences?
 How can we (gently) steer our organizations
toward better, more ethical use of metrics?
 How can we build expertise before we have
the commissioned work?

6. Example services, questions, & customers

7. Benchmarking, Competitive Intelligence
Questions:
How do we compare to similar/peer/aspirational
organizations
Audience: C-level. Organizational or at least
departmental leadership

8. Tech Watch & Horizon Scanning
 Questions:
 Who is doing what research?
 What are the trends in this field?
 What research groups are using this methodology?
 Audience:
 Business planners
 PIs
 Tech Transfer

9. Internal/External Collaboration Patterns
 Are we siloed or is there collaboration across the organization?
 Do we collaborate with industry/government/academe

10. Collection Development
Questions: What are our users citing that we have/do not
have/want to cancel/want to put in off-site storage?

11. Promotion/tenure/personnel evaluation
 Ethics slides to come.
 Help prepare grant applications and tenure packages.
 Information on the venues and the attention their
work has gotten.

12. Ethical use of metrics

13. Impact Factor
 Popular because it’s widely available and well-established.
 Its calculation isn’t completely transparent and
reproducible
 Definitely field dependent
 Articles can be cited that are not included in the total
number of articles for a publication (editorials)
 …

14. h-index
 Adopted immediately because it’s easy but…
 Dependent on field
 Dependent on age (can only get higher)
 …
 Modifications take away from the easiness

15. For people
Don’t measure people with metrics intended for
publications
Don’t rely on a single number to place a value on
someone’s contributions.

16. Building the service

17. Offering services while you learn
 Doing bibliometrics and leveraging data requires
continuous learning.
 Real-world actual problems are necessary to work
though complicated steps.
 Best to work with trusted customers and iterate.
 Consider an internal review process.

18. Learn together…
 Join our Community of Practice (end of the day discussion)
 Read ASIST’s SIGMETRICS list
 Attend webinars and events
 ASIST
 SLA
 Vendor
 Teach us in future sessions

19. Contact
 Christina K. Pikas
Christina.Pikas@jhuapl.edu
 Blog: http://christinaslisrant.scientopia.org
 Twitter: @cpikas
 Slideshare: cpikas

20. Credits
Tim Lang. Collapsible ruler. https://flic.kr/p/57Vwyg
Biking Nikon SFO. Ruler - Wooden. https://flic.kr/p/4YkJYo
Tom Fassbender. Measure Twice. Cut Once. https://flic.kr/p/8HwCen
Bill Selak. Mouse Trap. https://flic.kr/p/DNbeu
Kenny Louie. The Computing Scale Co. https://flic.kr/p/bU9buv
Dennis Jarvis. New Lobster Traps. https://flic.kr/p/aaX9XE
Paul Stainthorp. Rat Trap. https://flic.kr/p/ay37Ug
Timlewisnm. Hanson Bros. Scale. https://flic.kr/p/6drn4X
Carolina Biological Supply Company Solution being stirred in a beaker
https://flic.kr/p/99MJmf
Kitty Schweizer. https://flic.kr/p/4jLN3F
Miguel Tejada-FloresToledo Scale. https://flic.kr/p/nJjaDt
Rafal ZychOld weighing scale. https://flic.kr/p/pZXTtL
Michael Allen SmithCoffee Scalehttps://flic.kr/p/76BgMY