Information Institute Staff Present Two Papers at the 9th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services

Lauren H. Mandel, Research Coordinator, and Jeff Saunders, Research Associate, of the Information Use Management  & Policy Institute (Information Institute) at the College of Communication and Information, Florida State University, presented two papers at the 9th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services, held August 22-25, 2011 in York, United Kingdom. 

Mr. Saunders and Ms. Mandelco-authored the paper entitled “Broadband and Libraries and Information Organizations: Measuring Levels of Broadband Access and Perceptions of Broadband Impact and Value” with Charles R. McClure, Francis Eppes Professor and Director of the Information Institute.  This paper covers two projects currently underway at the Information Institute, broadband needs assessments at rural anchor institutions for the North Florida Broadband Authority (NFBA) and for the Florida Rural Broadband Alliance (FRBA).  The NFBA and FRBA service areas include the North Central, Northwest and South Central Rural Areas of Critical Economic Concern (RACEC) in the state of Florida.  More information on these projects is available at the NFBA project website and the FRBA project website.

Ms. Mandel co-authored the paper entitled “Designing a User and Usage Database to Promote, Market, and Demonstrate the Value of Selected Statewide Databases: The Florida Electronic Library as an Example” with Charles R. McClure and Lynnsey K. Weissenberger, Research Associate of the Information Institute.  This paper discusses the most recent project related to evaluating the Florida Electronic Library, which focused on collecting and analyzing Florida Electronic Library usage and retrieval data evaluating outputs, using those outputs and datasets to create an outline for a database that would allow cross-dataset queries, and using the resultant data for providing recommendations to guide marketing efforts to end users.

A PDF version of the presentation slides is available here.  The papers will be published in the conference proceedings.