PL 19/08: Physical and virtual traffic

Libraries depend on their users.

Libraries are text providers rather than temples. Governments and politicians are increasingly watching traffic - or usage - rather than buildings and collections. They speak the language of economy and look for tangible benefits from their investments in libraries and other public services.

We may call this NPM - New Public Management. Some embrace it. Others oppose it. But nobody can avoid it. In the industrial economy culture was insulated from the market. In the post-industrial economy, culture IS the market.

The production and consumption of symbolic or cultural goods - media, education, research, entertainment, travel - is our new economic core. Libraries are moving towards the centre, losing their sacred status “beyond the market”.  The time of reckoning - and library statistics -  has arrived.

I hve prepared two studies of library traffic - one based on physical, and one on virtual statistics - for IFLA 2008 in Quebec. The relevant links are here:

Count the traffic

This is an empirical study of visitor behavior in Norwegian public libraries in 2007-08 - with Drammen Public Library (at “Papirbredden”) as the main case.

• Slide set. Forty-eight slides as a Google Docs presentation.
• Slide set on SlideShare.
• Paper in PDF-format on IFLA web site
• Paper in HTML-format at Google Docs

How much is much?
Developing and interpreting national library visitor statistics

This is a conceptual study - with empirical illustrations - of web traffic to national libraries.

• Slide set. Eighteen slides as a Google Docs presentation
• Paper in PDF-format on IFLA web site
• Paper in HTML-format at Google Docs

Resources

• Traffic papers for IFLA in Quebec

PL 17/08: Students gather in Porto

In January 2009, the next BOBCATSSS conference will be arranged in Portugal.

The Lello bookstore in Porto …

The conference is organized by library students. As their web site shows, they are getting more sophisticated year by year.

I hope to go - and have submitted a workshop proposal, which is registered as paper no. 76. Plugging for LATINA in 2009 is also part of the plan. Top secret, of course.

Resources

• PL 2/08. BOBCATSSS opens. Report from Zadar, Croatia.
• PL 1/08. Librarians in the knowledge economy. Background paper for “identitty” workshop with Kari Frodesen.

PL 7/08: Traffic papers for IFLA 2008

Canada beckons - and I am happy my two IFLA papers have been completed.

Both deal with library traffic. The first reports on an observational study of library users in the new public-com-academic library in Drammen, a city of sixty thousand inhabitants forty kilometers south of Oslo - on the west side of the Oslo fiord. The second looks at web traffic to national libraries.

PL 4/08: Observing the traffic

In Quebec, The IFLA Management & Marketing Section; Statistics & Evaluation Section; and Library Theory & Research Section arrange a joint session with the theme

Managing Libraries in a Changing Environment - Legal, Technical, and Organizational Aspects.

I have proposed a paper on how to measure visitor traffic and activities inside the libary:

PL 3/08: How much is much?

In Quebec, the IFLA Statistics and Evaluation Section are holding a joint session with the IFLA National Libraries Section.

They have sent a call for papers and I am trying my luck with this proposal:

How much is much? Developing and interpreting national library visitor statistics