Legal Research

The Value of Public Libraries

By admin

This week I’ll be posting my personal set of links to research studies about the value of libraries. I collect these links and studies since I think they’re so important and we must all be armed in the defence and promotion of libraries and our value to society. Today, it seems we need more ammunition than ever. I am not saying that data and research is enough. Stories matter too. More on that later.

Today, these are my links for public library value studies. I have checked the links but they are notoriously unreliable (it is the web!) so just report dead links in the comments and I’ll do my best librarian stuff to find them again. If you know of more, then just tell me and I’ll add them to the list!

The Value of Public Libraries

Selected (mostly free) Web References

Dividends: The Value of Public Libraries in Canada
http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/dividend/contents.htm

OCLC Community Advocacy and Awareness Site
http://www.oclc.org/advocacy/default.htm

Libraries: How They Stack Up 2003 (OCLC)
http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/librariesstackup.pdf

How Libraries Stack Up: 2010 (OCLC)
http://www.oclc.org/reports/stackup/default.htm

The Public Library: A National Survey
http://www.nyla.org/index.php?page_id=801

Placing a Value on Public Library Services
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/resresul.htm

Public Library Benefits Valuation Study Methodology and Key Findings
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/valuationg.htm

The Role of Public Libraries in Local Economic Development
http://www.ku.edu/pri/resrep/pdf/m260.pdf

Enhancing Economic Development through Libraries
http://www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/Rural/documents/ReadMoreAboutIt.pdf

National Arts and Economic Prosperity Impact Study: Executive Summary
Arts and Economic Prosperity
http://www.artsusa.org/information_services/research/services/004.asp

Library and Information Center Management, Seventh Edition
http://lu.com/management/weblinks.cfm

Making Book: Gambling on the future of our libraries (Kansas City)
http://www.haplr-index.com/Making%20Book%20KCConsensus%20Library%20report-execsum.pdf

South Carolina Public Library Impact Study
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/SCEIS/home.htm

Taxpayer Return on Investment in Florida Public Libraries
http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/bld/roi/publications.cfm

St. Louis Public Library: Placing a Value on Public Library Services
http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/rescbec.htm

Impacts of the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Sector
http://www.pano.org/economic%20impact%20study.pdf

British Library: Measuring Our Value
http://www.bl.uk/cgi-bin/press.cgi?story=1399
http://www.bl.uk/pdf/measuring.pdf

The Value of Public Libraries (IFLA)
http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/119e-Aabo.pdf

One Dollar In, More than Three Out!: New Study Asserts the Economic Value of the San Francisco Public Library System
http://www.friendsandfoundation.org/press_release.cfm?id=41

The Condition of Libraries: 1999-2010 (ALA)
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/january2010/outlook_ors.cfm
The full report is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/research/initiatives/Condition_of_Libraries_1999.20.pdf.
Individual reports by type of library are available at
http://www.ala.org/ala/research/index.cfm

Economic Value of Public Libraries in the UK
http://www.librijournal.org/pdf/2002-2pp78-87.pdf

Library Value Calculator(s) ? SAMPLES:

Maine: http://www.maine.gov/msl/services/calculator.htm
Denver: http://denverlibrary.org/news/dplnews/roi_calculator.html
New York: http://www.nyla.org/index.php?section=valuecalc
ALA: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/advocacy/advocacyuniversity/toolkit/makingthecase/library_calculator.cfm
Chelmsford: http://www.chelmsfordlibrary.org/library_info/calculator.html
Evanston: http://www.epl.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=518&Itemid=375
New Hampshire: http://www.nhlibrarians.org/calculator.html
Massachusetts: http://69.36.174.204/value-new/calculator.html

I hope you find these useful. Please reblog, (re)tweet and post as much as you want.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on April 06, 2010 (boomark / email).