Telling Their Story with Data: What Academic Research Libraries Share on Their Websites

Abstract

Communicating library data with external stakeholders is a growing area of importance in the profession, and library websites provide an easy way of disseminating this information. Determining the types of data that will be most impactful in telling a library’s story is vital to an effective online data display. This research project reviewed the websites of 143 academic research libraries to determine if the libraries were publicly sharing general library data via a dashboard or other data display. For those libraries sharing data, information was recorded on the types of data shared, the types of data visualizations utilized, the age of the data presented, and whether multi-year trends were represented. The results showed that just under half of the academic research libraries in the study population had general library data displays on their websites. Most focused on traditional types of library data, such as collection size, reference and help desk interactions, instruction sessions, and circulation numbers for physically-held materials. Data visualizations were used infrequently.

Keywords:

• academic research libraries
• dashboards
• data visualization
• library data
• library statistics
• library websites
• stakeholder communication

About the author

Lori J. Terrill is a collection development librarian at the University of Wyoming Libraries. She manages print and electronic collections for social sciences, education, and select humanities disciplines. Her work also includes supporting the e-resource lifecycle and assessing collections.