Focus on Assessment - Feb 7, 2011

At their April 21, 2010 meeting the Association for Research Libraries (ARL) Statistics and
Assessment Committee decided to follow the recommendations detailed in Visiting Program
Officer Lars Meyer’s report to change the kind of information collected in the preservation
statistics gathered annually. Meyer’s report, “Safeguarding Collections at the Dawn of the 21st
Century,” responded to the recommendation of the 2006 ARL Task Force on the “Future of
Preservation in ARL Libraries” to look at preservation efforts in ARL libraries and outline how
data can be better collected.

The ARL Statistics and Assessment Committee decided not to request ARL members to collect
and submit preservation data using its current survey tool until a more defined ARL preservation
agenda is developed. The committee and most members have known for years that the current
statistics survey instrument does not capture preservation activities very well in such areas as
conservation treatments, preservation of non-print materials, collecting data from consortial
preservation efforts such as LOCKKS, Portico, etc.

The ARL Preservation Statistics started as a pilot in 1984 to measure the preservation efforts and
activities of ARL member libraries. Quantitative data on personnel, expenditures, conservation
treatments, commercial binding, and preservation reformatting in both analog and digital means
were captured annually. An in-depth analysis of data by size of library was also provided. With
their 2010 decision, ARL stopped collecting Preservation Statistics as of 2008-09.

Preservation and conservation professionals for years have expressed frustration and concern
with the ARL survey instrument and the way in which data was counted. As early as 2006 the
Committee on Institutional Cooperation Preservation Officers (CIC POs) took it upon
themselves to re-design and expand the ARL survey tool. The goal of this effort was to
“regularize categories, provide a method to capture more detailed data on conservation,
reformatting, treatments funded internally and/or externally, and personnel involved in
preservation activities.”(1) Furthermore, the CIC Preservation Officers identified the section on
personnel as the most problematic. While much work was accomplished by the CIC POs to
‘redefine’ the ARL survey instrument the work languished and was eventually dropped.

With the news that ARL was suspending Preservation Statistics in 2010, the CIC POs agreed to
continue the statistics gathering just the same. In October 2010 a call was made to collect
pseudo-ARL preservation statistics for 2009-10 on a voluntary basis. Penn State and six others
counted, collected and reported quantitative data by December. The data was analyzed by the
CIC POs at their ALA San Diego meeting held on January 7, 2011. Those institutions that had
not collected data were encouraged to submit as much or as little data as they wished to report.
The CIC Preservation Statistics master spreadsheet for 2009-10 resides on the CICme site.

While ARL may have suspended preservation statistics gathering for the time being, this was not
an end but a new beginning to refocus and restructure the annual statistics collecting activities
and improve the survey instrument. The preservation community got its chance to voice its
concerns to ARL at last month’s 2011 ALA Preservation and Reformatting Section’s forum.
There three ARL members met with preservation professionals who offered advice and
articulated concerns on how to revise the survey instrument. The point was made that today’s
preservation activities span far beyond traditional care and repair treatments to include digital
content, collaborative strategies and ensuring the preservation of content for current and future
access.

In addition to holding meetings with members, ARL formally responded by establishing a new
task to review all annual surveys. This new group, the ARL Task Force on Reviewing ARL
Statistics, ARL Supplementary Statistics, and ARL Annual Salary Statistics is currently
investigating new methods to collect data on issues that are strategic and important in today’s
changing environment. It is expected that by 2011 new surveying methods and instruments will
be devised and distributed for 2011 statistics gathering.

Like all preservation colleagues, I am looking forward to having an assessment tool that will
accurately capture the range and balance of preservation activities found in libraries today. For
more information on the University Libraries preservation activities, please see the Digitization
and Preservation Department webpage at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digipres.html.

1) Minutes of the CIC Preservation Officers meeting, Friday, January 20, 2006.