data analysis Archives | American Libraries Magazine

International Monetary Fund Consumer Price Index Manual

Beyond Inflation Data

October 1, 2025

The Consumer Price Index Manual: Theory, 2025 is the definitive global reference on the economic and statistical foundations of CPI measurement. Published jointly by six leading international organizations—including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations, Eurostat, and International Labour Organization—it updates and expands the landmark 2004 edition to … Continue reading Beyond Inflation Data →

Finding Funding

By Reanna Esmail | January 2, 2024

The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars By Betty S. Lai This is one of those books that accomplishes everything it promises. Divided into manageable tasks, the chapters provide practical advice, sample templates, and guided exercises to help applicants articulate their projects. Lai demystifies the grant writing process while thoughtfully reflecting on its … Continue reading Finding Funding →

A Measured Method

By Laura Bredahl | March 1, 2023

First, bear in mind that service models will depend on existing structures at your institution, but they are also fluid and can evolve. Your organization will have to consider both immediate and long-term needs. Second, be aware that bibliometrics services often take a long time to establish and even longer to become integrated into the … Continue reading A Measured Method →

Librarian's Library by Araceli Mendez Hintermeister

Demystifying Data

By Araceli Méndez Hintermeister | March 1, 2023

Fundamentals of Planning and Assessment for Libraries By Rachel A. Fleming-May and Regina Mays Part of ALA Publishing’s Fundamentals series, this book helps to build understanding of planning and assessment cycles in a way that suits all library workers’ needs, no matter their prior familiarity. Fleming-May and Mays detail different parts of the cycle, including … Continue reading Demystifying Data →

Crunching the Numbers

By Frank Donnelly | June 1, 2022

Total population counts for the states and the nation were released in March 2021 and launched the apportionment process to redistribute seats in Congress. Public redistricting files followed, released in August 2021. This dataset consists of six tables that include population by race, ethnicity, age above 18, group quarters (the population living in college dorms, … Continue reading Crunching the Numbers →

Gale Digital Scholar Lab allows users to do text analysis without writing code.

Digging Deeper

By Carrie Smith | May 2, 2022

Gale Digital Scholar Lab User: Hillary Richardson, coordinator of undergraduate research and information literacy at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus What is Gale Digital Scholar Lab? It’s a way for us to engage with some of Gale’s digital primary collections through text analysis tools. How do you use Gale Digital Scholar Lab? I teach … Continue reading Digging Deeper →

Gale Engage provides dashboard visualizations of library data.

Target Acquired

By Carrie Smith | May 3, 2021

Gale Engage User: Riti Grover, director at Farmington (Mich.) Community Library What is Gale Engage? Gale Engage is a marketing and analysis tool designed to optimize the library’s effectiveness through data analysis and dashboard visualizations that enable library staff to best focus their efforts within the community. How do you use it? We use Gale … Continue reading Target Acquired →

ACRL 2021 Closing Session speaker Mona Chalabi

ACRL Day Four: Humanizing Information

By Amy Carlton | April 19, 2021

Charts all have the same visual language—lines, bars, pies—but Chalabi said she tries to marry her illustrations with their subject matter to retain her viewers’ attention. A chart about candy sales uses bars of chocolate, for example, so that the meaning is clear even if the labels are removed. Chalabi described her two criteria for … Continue reading ACRL Day Four: Humanizing Information →

After the Census

By Emily Udell | March 2, 2020

“Census data is the mother of all open data sets,” says Jeffrey Lambert, assistant director of digital inclusion and workforce readiness at Queens (N.Y.) Public Library (QPL). “It’s a huge resource about people who live in the United States, and it’s accessible to anyone.” Libraries have an important part to play in accessing that data, … Continue reading After the Census →

Your Library’s Story

By Meredith Farkas | January 2, 2020

The idea that the library data we all collect and share could be used against us is troubling, and it has left me thinking about how important it is that library workers find ways to control the narrative about our own value. In an era of shrinking budgets, libraries must find ways to tell our … Continue reading Your Library’s Story →

Data Collection and Privacy

By Greg Landgraf | September 4, 2018

It’s an example of learning analytics, the use of data to understand and optimize learning and learning environments. The general concept isn’t new—the university’s announcement noted that student retention has been studied for more than 30 years—but the amount of data that is easy to generate with card swipes has exploded in recent years. And … Continue reading Data Collection and Privacy →

Panelists (from left) Susan Wengler, Claudia McGiveny, Kristen Woodward (online programs and instructional design coordinator, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries), Kelly Diamond, and Moderator Molly Mansfield (online learning and instruction librarian, Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois)

Failure Analysis: Online Instruction

By Samuel R. Putnam | June 24, 2017

Failure analysis can be applied to librarianship as well. Several brave librarians shared their failures—and the lessons they learned from them—during “Visibility and Engagement: Design, Develop, or Refresh your Online Instruction.” Kelly Diamond, head of the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support at West Virginia University’s Evansdale Library, told of being hired in an online … Continue reading Failure Analysis: Online Instruction →

Latest Library Links

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Janette Wright writes: “I was appointed to a leadership role in local government during a period of corporate change and budget constraint. Staff had a low level of trust in leadership, a history of conflict and incivility, and low expectations of the opportunity for service improvements or development. In this article, I’ll reflect on the leadership challenges inherent in such transitions, drawing on my personal experience across the library sector and applying a theoretical framework to offer practical insights for leaders navigating similar terrain.”

Katina, Jan. 8
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Hong Zhou and Hiba Bishtawi write: “For decades, discovery has revolved around keywords: carefully chosen terms, Boolean operators, and increasingly sophisticated relevance ranking. Today, generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems are introducing a different interaction model altogether. Instead of asking how to search, researchers are starting to ask what they want to know and expecting the system to figure out the rest. When does natural language outperform traditional approaches, and what do current AI-powered discovery tools actually do well? We conducted a comparative analysis of four widely used AI-enabled research discovery tools.”

The Scholarly Kitchen, Jan. 6
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Hillel Aron writes: “The estate of legendary author Kurt Vonnegut, three authors, and two unnamed high school students sued the Utah Board of Education on January 6 over the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries. Among the books that have been effectively banned from certain school libraries are Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Utah’s so-called “book removal law,” H.B. 29, was updated in 2024 and automatically removes books from all school libraries that have been banned by three or more school districts.”

Courthouse News Service, Jan. 6
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Kelly Jensen writes: “On January 12, the first day back on campus for many universities following winter break, at least eight college and university libraries received bomb threats. Campuses received the threats via email. None resulted in the discovery of a physical threat in or near the targeted area.” At least 15 universities faced similar threats in August, believed to be made by the swatting group Purgatory and mostly directed at library buildings. In January, universities in Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky, and Massachusetts received the threats. The Association of College and Research Libraries and Core offer a LibGuide on safety and security.

Book Riot, Jan. 13; Inside Higher Ed, Aug. 26; Center for Internet Security and Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Aug. 27; ACRL, June 25, 2024
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ALA has officially launched its 150th anniversary year, marking a century and a half of empowering library professionals, advancing access to knowledge and protecting the freedom to read. The association will celebrate year-round in 2026 with key flagship events, kicking off with the 2026 Youth Media Awards, honoring outstanding books, videos and materials for children and teens, on January 26 at the Hilton Chicago. ALA President Sam Helmick marked the anniversary with an essay at ala150.org, and ALA has produced a new anniversary video.

ALA Communications and Media Relations Office, Jan. 8; ALA150.org, Jan. 5; YouTube, Jan. 8
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On October 21, Penguin Random House and United for Libraries announced a 2026 grant program for rural and small libraries across the country. Grants of $500 and $1,000 (totaling $25,000), will be awarded to support libraries in need. Specifically, grant funds will assist Friends of Library groups, or nonprofit groups that support and fundraise for libraries in their communities, with priority projects. Applications for the program are open until January 21; learn more in the FAQ, which includes a link to watch a recording of the grant information session.

United for Libraries, Oct. 21
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Sam Suber writes: “Libraries are swimming in data, but raw numbers rarely lead directly to good decisions. To move from a messy spreadsheet to a defensible strategy, you need a process to refine that raw material. In this post, we will walk through the entire data pipeline, which is the structured process of transforming raw data into decision-ready information. We will be using the example of a new video subscription where the vendor’s reporting server crashed in June, leaving a hole in your data. We are going to take that messy data set and turn it into a solid prediction.”

Choice 360: LibTech Insights, Jan. 7

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