From the Director's Desk

June 18, 2008
Beverly J. Obert, Executive Director, Rolling Prairie Library System
Beverly J. Obert, Executive Director

Telling the Library Story - Part 10

This year, I have discussed the various audiences that need to hear your library’s story, suggested ways to spread the story, and encouraged you to reach out to everyone when telling the library’s story. This time I am going to give you a little tip on how to make the story more interesting, especially when dealing with numbers and statistics.

What is that tip? Graph them! Words and numbers mixed in a narrative get lost and lose their impact. A chart will give the numbers in a concise manner. However, a graph is a picture and tells the story. It doesn’t matter if it is a bar graph, line graph, or pie chart.

Now you are probably saying, “I don’t have the software or skills to draw graphs.” Well, if you have Excel (or any similar spreadsheet program), you don’t have to worry. First you put the numbers into a spreadsheet. Then you click the graph icon and pick the type of graph you want. There are many choices: bar, stacked bar, (either vertical or horizontal) line, pie, and many others. The hard part is to pick the right graph for the information that you have.

Here is an example: Last spring, we conducted a Continuing Education survey. (Thank you all for participating.) The results were interesting and are very useful to us as we plan for the coming Continuing Education calendar for FY 09. One of the questions asked was what is the best month for RPLS to hold events for your type of library. Here is the spreadsheet showing the results.

Month

All

Academic

Special

Public

School

January

51

55.6

53.3

63

34.5

February

59.4

55.6

80

64.4

48.3

March

71

77.8

73.7

82.2

55.2

April

70.3

77.8

86.7

78.1

55.2

May

43.2

33.3

66.7

57.5

20.7

June

43.9

55.6

66.7

34.2

48.3

July

43.2

44.4

93.3

31.5

44.8

August

36.8

44.4

60

39.7

25.9

September

60

66.7

73.3

71.2

41.4

October

79.4

77.8

80

84.9

72.4

November

63.9

77.8

60

69.9

55.2

December

22.6

11.1

26.7

30.1

13.8

Interesting but can you pick out easily the best month for each type? Is there a large discrepancy between the average of all libraries and a single type? Having trouble answering these questions from the chart? Look at the graph below. Graph of Months Convenient for CE by Types

You can easily see the best month for each type. Look at that green line indicating the special library members of RPLS. They like July the best as their month for CE -- a big difference from all the other types and the average. This piece of information may have been missed in a chart or lost in a narrative, but it jumps out when put into a graph.

So the next time you have to report statistics to your administrators, corporate authorities, or the public about what is happening at the library, think about using graphs. Try a few. The results can be spectacular.

I hope that you have enjoyed “Telling the Library Story” front-page essays. Starting in July the topic for the Director’s Desk will be “Web 2.0, the Library, and You.”

 

Rolling Prairie Library System
A Library for Librarians
Helping Libraries Serve Illinois Citizens