Library metrics and selection management infographic

An infographic on library collection management metrics

Selection Management is an ongoing task for librarians that requires delicate balancing of competing factors. Ensuring your collection provides optimal value to end-users while remaining within budget is a challenge, and while there are a host of metrics that can help in making evidence-based decisions, the sheer amount of data available can make it difficult to pinpoint what is most important for your institution.

Our infographic aims to help, breaking down the different metrics you might be using in your decision-making, what they tell you, and how to interpret them.

Key metrics

To begin with, we take a detailed look at 10 key Selection Management metrics. Get to grips with what to measure when it comes to the following:

We also include the key insights you gain from each of the 10 metrics – why you should be interested in each one.

Actions and outcomes

Here we address what to do with the information the key metrics provide, broken down into 5 key actions. Insights from your key metric analysis can provide justification for taking one or more of these selection management decisions.

What type of metrics?

Of course there’s a different between analyzing cost data and evaluating internal faculty requests. We break down the metric types onto two scales. The key metrics cover both high-level information such as overall cost, and detailed granular data such as users hitting access denied messages. The same metrics span all the way from numbers-based quantitative measures such as usage statistics to more qualitative factors like impact factors and repository analytics.

What do they tell us?

Information gleaned from the metrics falls into three main areas – with a good deal of overlap. Learn about your expenditure, the value of your collection and what’s missing from it. Read more about Library metrics and selection management infographic