This year’s Medical Library Association annual meeting in Chicago had several good sessions in which speakers presented experiences and approaches to assigning dollar values to library services and activities. These included:

• “A Calculator for Measuring the Impact of Health Sciences Libraries and Librarians” presented by Betsy Kelly and Barb Jones of the MidContinental Region, National Network of Libraries of Medicine–Their calculators include the Valuing Library Services Calculator and the Cost Benefit and ROI Calculator. These have the potential to be very useful tools.

• “Connecting with Administrators: Demonstrating the Value of Library Services” presented by Edward J. Poletti of the Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System in Little Rock, AR–He and VA Library colleagues conducted value studies of shared electronic resources, ILL, and literature searches. His presentation included a list of sources of dollar values such as Fortney’s “Price History for Core Clinical Journals in Medicine and Nursing 2003-2007″ and “Doody’s core titles in the health sciences 2007: list overview and analysis.” This paper received honorable mention for the MLA Research Award, and a summary is available at the MLA Federal Libraries Section blog.

• “Bridging the Gap: Using Dollar Values to Demonstrate the Value of Library Services” presented by Julia Esparza of Louisana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, LA–Her experience with assigning and tracking dollar values included analysis of copying/printing costs and article costs.

• “The Academic Library’s Perspective on Assessment and Institutional Role” presented by James Shedlock of Northwestern University in Chicago, IL–In comparative benchmarking, libraries should look at their “true peers” ie, institutions that are similar programmatically.

• “Quantum Physics and Hospital Library Assessment” presented by Michele Klein-Fedyshin of UPMC Shadyside, Pittsburgh, PA–Assessment must be locally relevant and there are various possible foci, such as the financial impact of local consortia, the impact of library services on nursing certification, prevention of hospital acquired infections, cost savings from library contributions to pay-for-performance, library as drug information center, etc.

• “University Investment in the Library: What’s the Return?” presentations at the MLA Elsevier exhibit reported on an Elsevier-funded case study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in which a model for calculating Return on Investment (ROI) was developed.

Back in May at the 2008 Medical Library Association meeting in Chicago, a group of health care administrators presented a panel discussion titled “Connecting with Leaders: What Do They Expect?” in which they provided their perspectives regarding their expectations for the health sciences library. This was a group of library supporters and their comments revealed their expectations that library leaders need to think broadly and creatively about their libraries’ roles. Suggestions included:

• Participate in community outreach to serve the greater good of the institution and its communities
• Work with IT to find ways that the library complements IT
• Develop allegiances; although forming partnerships isn’t easy, a fundamental component of administration is relationship building
• Stay connected and aligned with operational opportunities and priorities
• Participate! In the “journey” toward magnet status; in research to improve patient care; in the institution’s constant staff retooling and retraining; in instructional delivery; in grant proposal creation; in benchmarking to learn what similar institutions have and what admired institutions have
• Think in terms of dollars but remember other values

This session was on Monday, May 19 at 10:35am and, if you have access to the MLA ’08 CD-ROM, it’s definitely a worthwhile listen.

How can benchmarking, ROI, and other metrics illustrate value to users and stakeholders?  This standing-room-only session at the Special Libraries Association meeting featured analysts from Outsell shared benchmarking results and suggested combining such comparative data with “Market Penetration” (the ratio of your actual to potential users).  Panelists also discussed the difference between “Operational Metrics” (measures needed for daily library management activities) and “Strategic Metrics” (measures that show the library’s value to the organization).  They described strategic assessment–in which 6-8 strategic actions that support the organization’s critical strategies are identified through user and stakeholder research combined with group brainstorming.  After strategic actions are selected, metrics are determined, and ownership is assigned.  Stakeholder research includes needs assessment, client satisfaction studies, and return on investment/cost-benefit analysis.  Outsell panelists also advocated use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, since “numbers alone do not tell the story,”  and attention to organization-wide standards (such as Balanced Scorecard and/or Total Quality Management).

This bright and early morning session on 6/16/08 was hosted and organized by the Special Libraries Association’s Government Information Division.  Librarians in the audience shared their challenges and best practices for applying metrics to quantify and justify their operations.   The PowerPoint from Outsell should be available soon at the division’s web site.