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The American Library Association (ALA) has just published a useful report: 'Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report'. You can download the report from http://www.acrl.ala.org/value/ Whilst it has a US and academic focus UK public librarians should also find it useful ( there is a short exec summary available). I was particularly interested to see an issue close to my heart feature very high on the list of 'next steps': 'Develop systems to collect data on individual library user behaviour..' This is something that is most certainly relevant to academic *and* public libraries. I was involved in the JISC MOSAIC project (http://www.sero.co.uk/jisc-mosaic.html ) . It explored this potential 'goldmine' of data that sits in our systems but which remain almost wholly unexploited. Part of the value is to drive recommender systems which are still absent from most library catalogues. Dave Pattern at University of Huddersfield has shown us what can be done (without waiting for the LMS vendors to come up with solutions ). He is also doing work to relate *outcomes* to library usage. So the data can be used in all kinds of interesting and useful ways. Privacy is a key concern of course and there is a body of research on those issues and how they can be managed. Ken CEO, Ken Chad Consulting Ltd Tel +44 (0)7788 727 845. Email: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] <http://www.kenchadconsulting.com/> www.kenchadconsulting.com Skype: kenchadconsulting Twitter: @KenChad Check out the Higher Education Library Technology' website (wiki) <http://lglibtech.wikispaces.com/> http://helibtech.com/