Library "Census" Data

[Leslie Christianson]

Good morning,

I hope everyone's semester is off to a good start! I have a couple questions around how you gather and define your data: 

• Do you have a "census" date for your library data? What I mean is an agreed upon date that you "freeze" your data every semester or year? 

• Do you have internal definitions that differ from the ARL or ACRL definitions that you use for planning, demonstrating impact, and/or decision making?

Thank you for your help!

Best,

Leslie Worrell Christianson

Assessment Librarian

Johns Hopkins University

[Jeannie Hoag]

Hi Leslie,

Our "year" runs from July 1st through June 30th. 

For ACRL and, formerly, IPEDS data, we have some shared spreadsheets that multiple departments contribute to. I lock those usually by mid-August or the start of September at the latest--always with plenty of warning and clear communication.

We tend to stick to the ACRL definitions for simplicity's sake, but we do collect more data than is required for the ACRL survey.

Wishing you well,

Jeannie Hoag

Fordham University

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[Martha Kyrillidou]

Hi Leslie,  based on my decades of experience - financial data usually follow the FY of the library cycle.

In some libraries, the usage data are collected on a different cycle (annual/calendar year instead of FY) - it would be useful to hear from the libraries that do follow a different pattern for their usage data compared to their FY as I am not sure how widespread this approach is among all academic and research libraries.  

For trend analysis of course as long as the library is consistent in the way it captures its cycle, we should have consistent trends from them.  And typically the footnotes libraries provide should capture some of these idiosyncrasies (but who reads the footnotes, right?)

Hope this is helpful.

Cheers, Martha

Kind regards, Martha

Martha Kyrillidou, PhD, MEd, MLS | QualityMetrics, LLC | Helping Libraries Achieve Success

Silver Spring, MD | mar...@qualitymetricsllc.com | 202.251.9829 | qualitymetricsllc.com

I work flexibly - so whilst it suits me to email now, I do not expect a response or action outside of your own working hours.

Research Associate, iSchool, U of Illinois, kyri...@illinois.edu | orcid.org/0000-0002-1937-653X |

marthakyrillidou.org/

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 10:22 AM Leslie Christianson <lesl...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Lindsay Ozburn]

Hi Leslie,

All our major, external reporting follows the Fiscal Year (July 1–June 30). We (mostly) use that for internal reporting, as well. 

Many of our data sources are updated on routine schedules, such as:

• Patron interactions logged continuously in Springshare
• COUNTER reports uploaded to Usage Consolidation, monthly
• ILLiad transaction data fed into Panorama, monthly
  
  Each month, I pull and aggregate certain high-level “watch metrics” for library leadership. Staff are notified in advance of the monthly data pull on systems where they hand enter data (i.e., Springshare), which I always do at the beginning of each month.
  
  

For ACRL reporting, I work with a small team to gather data from each functional area, complete quality checks, resolve discrepancies, and then set a firm deadline for final submission.

 

We use ACRL definitions for consistency with peer institutions, but we expand them when needed to support our internal assessments. For example, in our tracking processes, we track more detailed data points under “information services to groups” to better account for outreach activities.

 

We also collect additional data to capture work that falls outside the standard ACRL categories.

Happy to chat with at any time if it’s helpful 😊

Cheers,

Lindsay

___________

Lindsay Ozburn
(she/her/hers)
Assessment Librarian

University Libraries

Affiliate Faculty, Data Science and AI Center

Office: (435) 797-0202
ORCiD

 

My working hours may not be your working hours.

Please do not feel obligated to reply outside of your normal work schedule.