Charles R. McClure cmcclure@lis.fsu.edu

Director, Information Institute, and Francis Eppes Professor.

Introduction

Objectives

A number of research and development efforts are underway at the Information Institute that have the objective to:

• Determine the degree to which licensed databases and distributed resources provide comparable and compatible statistics;
• Develop strategies to work with the database vendors to assist them to better understand the issues and approaches in coordinating the definitions and procedures for the collection of these data;
• Assist statewide database systems to better understand the issues and approaches in using the vendor-based data to produce integrated and meaningful reports describing database use, users, and uses;
• Explore the development of existing software such as WebTrends and Webtracker as well as the development of new software to assist statewide systems manage and report use, user, and uses data related to the statewide system;
• Provide training sessions for users of the statewide databases for obtaining the necessary statistics and information to assess the use and other factors related to the database system; and
• Participate in cooperative efforts and standards efforts (e.g., NISO, ISO) to develop standards for library statistics in the networked environment.

The Information Institute has worked with the state of Maryland, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC), the Florida Electronic Library (FEL), the Federal State Cooperative System (FSCS), and the Association of Research Libraries on projects broadly related to the above objectives. These efforts have identified specific approaches and tools to develop a comprehensive statewide approach to collect, normalize, and report such statistics in a meaningful manner.

Approaches

Development Efforts