Frances sent the Laser document to me
off list & the vast majority of it's recommendations are collected
by Leeds in addition to counting beans, indeed several of them are
collected by CIPFA. The problem with many of the recommendations is that
the qualitative data is often expensive to collect & few library authorities
have the budgets/staff for the survey activites involved. The appendices
showing how some authorities have attempted to collect this data are mainly
using very small samples but do show the value of collecting this data.
Lionel Aldridge
Performance Manager
Leeds Library and Information Services
0113 395 2350
National Year of Reading: I'm curently reading the late George MacDonald
Fraser's last work "The Reavers". This is very much in the style
of his "The Pyrates" & again proves that he was what he aimed
to be - simply a good story teller.
Thanks Lionel
What a helpful response, BUT the whole subject
and process seems to be one of little practical and sensible use, and is
still basically bean counting and not of the value added by public libraries.
Why, as a group, do Librarians not fight
for what they think would be a preferable, qualitative and more meaningful
way of judging the work that is done?
I refer again to the PwC (Laser) Libraries
Impact report
f
Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs PR6 7QR,
UK
tel: 01257 274 833. fax: 01257 266 488
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: Lionel
Aldridge
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: You cannot be serious?
Frances is correct at present on catching out & has been for many years
on the issues but has only just become correct on active borrowers. It
has many years since issues have been on the audit agenda but active borrowers
was part of CPA and subject to audit. Although Leeds was not audited on
it (probably because we had such a low figure) I was always conscious of
the possibility. (Andrew of course lives under a different regime in Scotland
& no doubt has been subject a different set of audits.)
CIPFA does tend to take statistics as given and my error on active borrowers
in 2002 went unremarked (I supplied a figure about 3x the actual one -
nor was the huge drop the following year noticed). There are problems when
using CIPFA to compare with other authorites, not only in the financial
figures as local practices and policies can affect returns (e.g. speed
of requests & policy on pre-publication requests). The guidelines accompanying
the return are a means of, as much as is possible, to create a level playing
field and work with varying degrees of success.
The situation has been made worse by the governments reducing of Indicators
to a single one for libraries & that being one libraries do not collect.
Whilst the PLSS & CPA were in place several of the most indicative
figures libraries provide to CIPFA were subject to audit (but not issues).
Leeds has just been audited on cost per visit & this process
endorsed Andrew's view - had I been cheating then I would have lost Leeds
top score and both my own & Leeds credibility would have gone. This
was also presumably true of all the parts of PLSS & CPA.
It is possible to cheat on all manner of library matters - for example
on the Plus overall satisfaction for adults you will get a far better score
if you skew your samples to older people & further improve it by concentrating
on women - & having been audited on Plus last year I am certain I would
have got this wheeze past them. Having said all this, fixing figures
may make you look good locally & nationally but they ain't much use
in managing your service.
If this fixing of issues is widespread the conclusion must be that librarians
are very bad at cheating as issues nationally have declined so consistently
across the board & over time.
The intention of my first posting was not to be comforting - I felt that
Frances was questioning the integrity of librarians in an almost unanswerable
fashion & that I could add some perspective to the debate which was
in danger of closing on a negative note.
Lionel Aldridge
Performance Manager
Leeds Library and Information Services
0113 395 2350
National Year of Reading: I'm curently reading the late George MacDonald
Fraser's last work "The Reavers". This is very much in the style
of his "The Pyrates" & again proves that he was what he aimed
to be - simply a good story teller.
I thought Lionel made some comforting and sensible points, and he is right
a lot of the respondents mentioned more than one library they knew of or
they had worked in BUT some were talking about regional groups, others
mentioned libraries that have a special word for the practice of upping
the issues (I wont quote it as it could lead back to an individual and
certainly to the labara), so it isn't isolated.
But how Andrew does a library get caught? If the 'fiction' is perpetuated,
who would check it out and how. Cipfa takes what it is given surely, and
what spot checks are there., it isn't as if it is money and audit trials
etc. as long as the 'fiction' is in reasonable bounds then I would have
though it was fairly simple?
f
Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs PR6 7QR,
UK
tel: 01257 274 833. fax: 01257 266 488
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew
Sandeman
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 3:09 PM
Subject: Re: You cannot be serious?
I would agree with Lionel; even if you were inclined to cheat, just a moment's
thought & you would realise that it would only take one slip
for your credibility to be destroyed forever ... in short, its a mug's
game !
Andrew
Andrew Sandeman,
Project Officer, Performance & Quality,
Level C3, Desk 071,
Waverley Court,
4 East Market Street,
Edinburgh. EH8 8BG
Tel. 0131 469 5866
Fax. 529 6203
From: lis-pub-libs: UK Public Libraries
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lionel Aldridge
Sent: 18 August 2008 14:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: You cannot be serious?
No-one can tell you it's not widespread because virtually all the list
readers will only know what goes on in between 1 & about 4 authorities
& may not be able to speak for all of them because their role didn't
include this area. I for instance can say categorically that it doesn't
go on in Leeds & I'm fairly certain it didn't go on in Hackney in the
1970's but cannot speak for other authorities.
Several of the wheezes you mention are specifically excluded in the CIPFA
guidelines (notably the leaflets ploy & the active borrowers one) while
the member of staff variations are unlikely to have a significant effect
at the authority level unless there is a widespread ethos of dishonesty
within the library system. This is certainly not my experience of libraries
(back in Browne issue days we had suspicions about a couple of branches
figures but they were never proven). If a member of staff created 20 spurious
loans each working day this would only be 5,000 in a year (bank & annual
holidays + weekends reduce the number of days worked to about 250). This
is only going to a very minor effect on annual issues of over 3 million
for the authority but could have a significant effect on the distribution
of funds/new books within the authority & therefore possibly make the
effort worthwhile to the individual.
I do expect a very few authorities have regularly massaged their figures
& this is more likely to happen when under extreme financial pressure,
but the way these wheezes have been shared with you makes me think the
sharers were appalled like yourself at the practice. I'd also expect a
few to be hoist on their own petard like the university you worked for
& be too embarassed to correct their own error.
But this does not make me think the practice is widespread - my experience
of librarians both locally & nationally suggests that in general librarians
are honest & are generally honest about their statistics. In
fact I believe this list endorses this view in the way the fines debate
took place with honest exchanges of both opinion & practice.
Lionel Aldridge
Performance Manager
Leeds Library and Information Services
0113 395 2350
National Year of Reading: I'm curently reading the late George MacDonald
Fraser's last work "The Reavers". This is very much in the style
of his "The Pyrates" & again proves that he was what he aimed
to be - simply a good story teller.
Oh Dear
please some one tell me all this isn't as wide spread as it would appear?
I have been told over the years that numbers of current borrowers
of a specific library has been a matter of fiction (for instance not removing
very lapsed users etc), to an extent (so nothing like as many people are
users than we would be led to believe), but some of the stories I am getting,
like the one below fills me with despair:-
At meetings I attend in (XXX), libraries discussed
how to inflate and massage usage statistics
One practice to attract lapsed borrowers back to the
library, was to print leaflets which were posted off to the
lapsed borrowers. The the leaflets had
barcodes and were added to the library management system. Prior to
posting each one out, the leaflet (which didn't have a due date) was
checked out to each of the lapsed borrowers. The result? The
library no longer
had any lapsed borrowers and several hundred more active borrowers, and
the
leaflets were counted in the borrowing stats!
At a local University , they implemented pre-overdue email
notices some time ago. Fine income decreased around 5%, but
the feedback
from students and staff has been 100% positive.
However, One can only hope that the pay off for the lapsed borrow leaflet
was a huge and genuine return of lapsed borrowers., would be good to know?
The tactics may have worked, and if the inflation of usage stats was legit
then that would be fine., i.e. strategies to increase usage.
f
Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs PR6 7QR,
UK
tel: 01257 274 833. fax: 01257 266 488
email: [log in to unmask]
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