2023 Public Library Annual Report (PLAR) Overview

Charissa: Here we are. Welcome everyone. I'm Charissa Brammer. I'm the director of the Library Research Service and then we have Dana Petersen who is our data analyst person, but she's the one that has built out the survey. It does all the technical stuff, really brilliant work on that, so all of the improvements I think are hers.

Dana: Not, but thank you.

Charissa: I don't know. We can agree to disagree. So our first question is always why are we doing this, right? So the first thing is always that it fulfills the statutory requirement that is in two of the smaller parts of Library Law. Not that there's large and small laws, but they're there. It also gives you access to important information that you can take to leadership and to your communities and we're trying to build out dashboards and make it easier to do reporting so that you can do more of this using the information. It is also currently supporting the revision of the Colorado Public Library standards that Kieran and Sharon are doing, and it adds to some of our large data sets for library data. So the library search and compare is where IMLS, kind of this data lives, for the public library survey. We also have been keeping Colorado library data since 1997 which is super early I think as far as having a complete mostly complete data set. And then it feeds up into PLA Benchmark which is the Public Library Association, that's their analysis tool that some of you might subscribe to. There's also, um, I've been learning this year about a lot of really important research that's going on using the information from the public library survey. So this first one, and all of these links will be available, but this first one is IMLS's research brief. So they did a whole view of what libraries were doing during COVID-19. So you can see kind of that work that everybody was doing and the successes that they had there. This Gilpin, he is a researcher. He's an economist at Montana State and he's doing some really cool research where the returns to public library investment that found that investing in improving a public library did more to increase reading scores in a given area than building a brand new school so he was able to figure this out basically using the information that y'all are giving Nationwide because every estate does this survey um in slightly different ways but then we all feed up to the public library survey so that one's very cool because it's so rare that we can say pretty unequivocally that this that public libraries benefit literacy um we know it does but this guy has found a way to demonstrate that it does using the numbers um and then he also did this demand survey a few years ago about public libraries the next one is mapping the impact on youth in the Mountain West this is a Colorado local he works for um one of the space Grant Folks up in Boulder and so he was mapping how Public Library programming impacts the youth and did some really interesting work and one of his primary sources was the public library survey and then the final one is one that I found that is public health that they're looking at and um they were examining the impact that the presence of public libraries has on walkable neighborhoods and then drawing that out to health impacts so this information is super important not only for us but also for these kind of larger research pieces that are coming out over time and that was a fairly short small search that I did I know that there are more these are just the ones that I know about uh and then I am going to um I have a survey for you here actually hit from myself and it's got a couple questions on it and I'd like to you to just put your questions into the survey and that will allow us to kind of make sure that I keep I have them all so that if I have to parking lot a couple and come back to them that they'll be all in one place I am trying to find the chat there it

is so you can log into that and it just has these three questions and as I'm going through things you can go ahead and fill those out and it'll just populate up to to me

um and then I have created well Dana has created um we borrowed a lot of it from the state of Montana their State Library stole completely stole it thank you Rebecca we did Rebecca is a tableau goddess doing great work up in Montana um but this allows us to track the progress of the survey so this will be updated each morning as we're going through um you can see one little blue dot in there that is security Public Library who has already submitted and locked their survey um but it'll give you kind of it gives you just an overview of folks as they're working through this and also a little dashboard for the questions that I'm answering and things like that that um that information is mostly important to imls but that's there as well so and it'll keep counting down stuff like

that so then we'll get into the login screen I hope everyone has seen this if you don't have your login feel free to send me an email and I will resend the welcome email um it does come from an email address from our vendor Colorado Counting opinions.com so if you didn't get it it may have gotten gobbled up by your uh spam filter that does happen to that email address sometimes so if you email me I will send it from mine and that's less likely to happen um also on this login screen we have some reports that Dana's put together for us um there's the summary of key ratios that's I'll show you that on the next slide and then revenues expenditures summaries if you think of other things that you would like to see on these reports that you can kind of just grab and go for different groupings let us know and we can update this page as we go along this is sort of our starting point

here and these reports look like this so these are our key ratios I think we've been um calculating these for a lot of years this is just a different way of doing it and you can pull those I did everybody so it only shows a handful at a time some if you don't change the thing at the bottom you can change it but this is for the Statewide and then you can also do this for LSA population groupings so this is 1,000 to $24.99 so you can choose people that have libraries are a little closer to what you're at and then you get maybe more um useful numbers there um but it's pretty interesting how things vary it's just it's nice to have this information about kind of where you're sitting within groupings things like that so this is here um and we can generate a lot of a lot of different reports that will be similar to this based on whatever question that you have um Dana will is really good at figuring out these reports and getting you what you need just let us know um then our next thing has to do with um if you don't have a value and this is a place the staff expenditures is a place where lots of people have lots of blanks right because you may have a director but not an associate director you might have a department head but not a library clerk and so if you don't have something generally in the survey if there is a box that you can check that says unavailable check that if it's unavailable but if you're just not reporting because it doesn't exist don't enter zero enter nothing and we will calculate it that way because if you enter zero sometimes if we don't catch it it will mess up our graphs and things like this and our calcul ations because it drags the you know the mean down then another one this is a question does that make sense to everybody that one's yeah um the next one is a question I answered this week actually and it's where can you put notes to carry over from year to year um and this is in here so I kind of conceive of these things if you click on the number that's a note to your future self that'll carry that'll stay with your report until you go in and delete it so you can put you know where you found this information or if there was something weird that you have to do to find it things like that can go in there and that's totally your area to do the one with the little notebook with the pencil um is a note to me so that is one that if you have an edit check that pops up that says that you need to check a value that's where you'd put a note in whoops that shows that so that's where I go and check and fix those things so I've come up with in my mind I kind of think of them as notes to future self and then notes to me um as you're going through because last year there was I was I did a lot of going into one and putting in the other and moving those around to make it work for folks so that's clear um the next thing is also a question that I had actually today um which is how can I print out a of this report so that I can give it to other people and this is really nice because it gives you this little like thing that you can print out and each section is on a page I have one oh it's blurry I can't show you but there's a it just puts every section on a page so if you have like five different people filling this out you can just hand them the chunks and then bring them back and then it has the stuff that you can enter into the um

m not machine interface um so to do that you just go to print up here in the top right um and then you want to click the download PDF with breakes otherwise it gives just a PDF that sort of runs one page onto another so it doesn't have that nice ability to separate things out um you can also print any number of years prior by using this little thing circled in Orange where you can change the period so if you want to hand people last year's report and this year's blanks you can do that too there so that's a good way to kind of just check on those

things the next we have service outlets and this one is partially confusing just because of the way that the questions are set up and this is a federal question so we have less control over that but in 1.24 if you answer yes that's one added to your total number of branches so if you are Denver Public Library and you have they actually have 26 branches I think maybe they have 27 now but um and one Central Library you would enter 1.254 is yes and then you would do 1.25 26 so that would add up to the 27 does that make sense I think I wrote that kind of funny but so your total is 27 but one of them is Central if you have two co-equal branches and none of them are Central libraries then 1.24 you would say no and then enter those two into um 1.25 so out in Park County I think we have this situation where there's several branches but none of them is the central branch and so they would say no and then the number of branches and then if you have just the one location then you would put 1.24 as yes and then you don't have to do anything at 1.25 question Karissa um someone's asking we have Library kiosks do those count as separate Outlets they do but they are other outlets so a branch is defined as having Staffing whenever it's open set open hours and a collection so with a kiosk you would have the collection and potentially the set open hours but it's probably not staffed so that would count as an other

Outlet okay we got an okay okay good um and there's a couple this does get complicated you can always email me and I'll just make a determination like the express library that is not staffed in the building but is staffed over the phone out in Arvada that one counts as a regular Branch because it is staffed it's just staffed in a new way so it can get wild feel free to email so uh what if we have four branches and no Central then you would be you would say 1.24 is no and 1.25 is

four that work

Rita okay and one more this is a good oh that was a good one to bring up um do book lockers count as an outlet

they are is that where you're going and you're like putting holds or something in or is it um feel free to unmute are you guys allowed to unmute yourselves have I set it up so that you can if you can hear me we are sure can yep yeah yes a book laer holds pickups that would not be an outlet just because it doesn't have like a well actually

I was so excited to answer that question and then I had to think about it so let me I I need to ask the other people in other states that do my work how we're defining that because I think it might be an other outlet but I'm not sure so let me that's Cecilia yeah yes we don't have one right now but I know some others do and we're considering one in the future cool I will get back to you on that one because I thought I had an answer and I was very confident and then now I'm

not

cool H one more question how are how are unstaffed selfs serve locations classified okay so if it's unstaffed um do you have if you don't have people like on the phone Staffing it or you know doing that then that would count as an other Outlet if you have dedicated folks that are you know at work because it's oh it's open for a certain number of hours even if that's not the full 24 then that would be the branch

libraries and Tyler feel free to unmute if that didn't answer and you need more clarification that may have sounded like

nonsense uh yes sorry I having trouble unmuting um uh but uh thank you um uh yes it clarified it mostly uh basically we have a location that is um uh patrons can just use their library card to access it it has computers they can Self Serve checkout and things there just no staff there but it is like a library branch where there are books to check out and things okay and you don't have any folks like at your processing center or anything like that or that are kind of back in that place up it's just out there on its own yes exactly people like like will uh you know uh serve like the collection stuff and uh you know transfer books and things there but there's not um you know most of the time there's no one there it's just patrons can access it with their library card okay yeah that would be the other outlets got it thank you yeah and if you need us to add anything in too um because I where which Library are you with I'm with a Jefferson County Public Library okay is that the Arvada Express Library exactly that's exactly it when I talked to someone about this I'm so sorry everyone but when we talked to someone about this last year they said there were dedicated staff that were like phone staff and so we had counted that as an outlet yeah our call center is not located there um might be what they're thinking of um I don't know if things have changed uh have to um I'll have to see so but but basically that would be the determining factor is whether or not there are uh if there are people there to answer phones then it would be a regular Branch if there are not it would be other El perfect yes exactly it's just about having Staffing and so in that model Staffing doesn't have to be in the building but it would have to be like dedicated in some way or made available in some way I see so even if we have an offsite uh call center it would that that supports it it would still count as a branch um even though the staff serving it or not on a location yes yeah those because it's still being staffed it's just being staffed in a new way got it perfect that that is uh clarifying thank you very much uh for the uh prolonged uh discussion of definitions oh clearly this is a this is a question because we have one more that's come in and the scenario is this if security not the location a security person if security was watching cameras in the main branch for that unstaffed location then that would count as staff time and a branch yes technically yes I think the the question is trying to get at like how do the folks in there get help if they need to that's where the staff comes in um but yeah that is applying staff resources to a branch and so that would make it a branch

then Joanna does that answer your

question okay yep she's good I love all these new kinds of branches are coming

up um cool any other Branch

questions all right thank

you now we have the ubiquitous programming um situation so nothing has changed this year in programming but we're just gonna celebrate that okay thank you we are so happy um and so we just want to remind everybody that we've created these buckets for programming one is live or synchronous and that includes traditional Library programming in the library offsite programming outside the library and then live virtual programming um so anything that you have happening in real time that's virtual counts as a live program then we have asynchronous which is recorded virtual programming this is one of the only times that something could be counted twice because if you have a live program that you then record and put out then it actually would count as a live program and then the recorded program would count as well um and this is I think the only time that you're that that happens within the survey we also have Outreach questions and that is for events that introduce people to the library but aren't programs so this is having a table at a basketball game or participating in a farmers market just handing out Library information to people that isn't necessarily a program but is out there Library work in the community um Carissa yeah hi I have a I have a question about the Outreach programs so in park we we actually collaborate a lot um and let them use our meeting space room for health programs like Rocky Mountain rural Health Public Health and Senior Coalition how does does so them and them of themselves we can't count the amount of people coming to that program but what if they did just come into the library and had never been there before because those people are there and end up getting a library card blah blah blah how does that work as far as counting those statistics I think those would be visits mostly if it's if it's a group that's totally on its own just using your space for an event then that's their event but they would still count as visits and then as Library C card signups okay thank you very much yeah if you had like if you were in there and there were like three minutes at the beginning where you got to like hype up the library I think that would also count as Outreach um but generally that would be visits just in that area and we have a similar line of questioning so if we have programs marketed as Outreach quote unquote at local parks those just count as regular programs yes so a lot of times the way that we use Outreach generally RIT large is very different than this very specific definition so if it's a program that you're going out and doing in the community even if it's for an Outreach purpose it's still a

program Tracy does that answer your question okay yep thank you and if you have specific situations on this too you can always send me an email and we'll we'll work through it my next slide is a fan favorite which is removed questions so things that have been taken out that you don't have to answer this year we have removed all of the covid-19 questions um we removed the number of awe early literacy stations that's something that um our library Development Group used to use but is not using anymore um I think it had to do with a grant about 10 years ago we are removing the number of public computers with access to commercial databases um and then the 2.3 and 2.4 were actually Co questions as well for when you had to remove a certain number of computers we also changed a question which was we updated the way that we calculate U Public Service hours this will primarily impact folks that have multiple branches um in that the public service hours are now going to be asked at the bottom of the survey in the branch information so you used to have to go in and you went to the calculator on ls. org and figured out how many hours you were open for your entire system and then put it in at the top this way you'll just put in the um number of hours you're open a week the number of weeks that you're open and then it will calculate it up for you and then if you have any significant variations um I will just reach out and we'll figure out how to get that updated there is a thing that says like how many was there a sign significant change and for how many weeks things like that but I think for those folks like if you have summer hours or things like that it's easiest just to do the calculation on our end did I accurately describe that Dana yep I believe so yes was one question about the a the removal of the awe um they're indicating they had so much usage they uh nice to track it would the number of those stations into public computer terminals entirely separate okay and it was partially because a like it's a brand um and those are we might consider um if you send me an email about that we might consider figuring out a different way to track that usage in the future um but this wasn't really doing what we

needed okay Veronica says yep she'll do it that way cool all right and then we did add some questions um we added because we added meeting rooms last year this this year we're adding study rooms so we are defining the difference between a study room and a meeting room as a study room is for four or fewer people and a meeting room would be more than four people designed um however you designate that in-house also works but we just wanted to be there was some request to capture both meeting rooms and study rooms because they're such important things services that libraries are doing um and then we have these three questions about languages other than English um and the first one is do you have positions that require the person in the position to be able to communicate in languages other than English um this should be like you know the Russian language librarian at Arapaho or if you have a security guard who's required to speak Spanish things like that this would be here that has to do with the position itself um then the next one is trying to capture those folks who are multilingual and using those skills at work but it's not a part of their job um so it's not an official part of their job description so these are folks that like if I were speaking you know Spanish with folks just on and off throughout the day as a way to help people but it wasn't a requirement of my job then you would answer yes here and then we can capture some of the languages there if you have them there's one other question here um that I did not add to this list um which is do you compensate people for having these skills do you give a stipend or any kind of um financial compensation to people for having the language skills so that's there and then we have the um does your library offer programs in a language other than English so same thing if you have programs and these are just straight up yes and NOS we're not counting them at this point we just want to know kind of where these things are happening and what that looks like we pulled some really interesting demographic information about um where languages are spoken and so this will help to kind of show not only where those languages are spoken but how libraries are responding to the need to use these

languages for go ahead sorry to interrupt I'm just doing that uh question back on the study room uh should we guesstimate our study room use as we don't track throughout the year you can do the thing um with study rooms oh i' I've I've lost my mind um you can do the thing with study rooms where you track for a week and then extrapolate that out over the year like you can do with um reference questions or visits you can do that so um just let us know if you've done that extrapolation but that's totally fine we don't expect that you have the whole year every single usage is a typical week I know that's what a lot of the libraries do for reference transactions specifically is the typical week and then extrapolate it

out

all right and now we're to the part where we ask for questions and we have a survey here for yall to take there's a QR code and then the link for and this is our survey for how effective the presentation

was and then if you have any other questions that I didn't cover or say anything else this is our time Carissa hi I I have a question that I don't know if I should direct towards you or not um but like Cara just sent out the stats on um overdrive and Libby and that kind of stuff that um I'm a little bit confused if those are personal to our libraries or if they're an overall statistic of ACDC and Libby can you clarify that I would have to look I mean Cara would be the one to answer this for sure I'd have to look at it but I think that it is it is available to um I think those statistics are all the things that are available to your population and so that is your statistic as far as that in the that's the kind of collection number but I'm not sure how it is impacted by or how it's showing your actual specific usage how many times those things are actually checked out I don't know how that looks okay I will get a hold of Kira thank you thank you and that's always something that every year I have to do like a refresher on that because that part is very

confusing Pressa I had a question about um like Patron context versus reference if we need to track those separately or if those kind of are considered the same we do currently track them separately but I didn't know if that was worth like separating them by term let me um I W have to look at that how we're asking that because it is somewhat that's that feels like one of the things that's a local decision okay I think on the survey from what I remember it just shows reference so that's why I'm asking if if it's worth us even tracking both if it's just going to be you know compiled onto the survey yeah so the primary thing that we're looking at is reference and however however you Define reference um so the question is whether like the what do they call it directionals are getting in here um let me

look oh yeah it is specifically reference okay um but it it also is counting information and referral services so if you're giving any kind of information then they are counting that as reference okay all right that makes sense um and then kind of not related to that but should we um I don't know if there's a spot on the survey but should we be tracking our volunteers

hours there's not a place for that on the survey and also yes you should absolutely be tracking those well right but I mean there's nowhere to report it so you know is there is there any reason to do it for the survey not for me um no there's nothing on here about volunteer hours at all um I think that's something we should think about in the future but I think that's a good you know service to the community statistic it just doesn't make it into the survey yeah yeah that makes sense thank

you um Carissa yep okay um I have a question that would come under um Capital revenue and operating Revenue so our Bailey Branch this past year received a really really large donation where would I enter that amount of money in the pl um the question of whether it's capital or operating is how is the money going to be used operating okay then put it into your operating revenue and it'll probably make you um um fill out a little note about that so you can just note how much that donation was and that's why it's so much more than it was the year before um so just put in a side note it's only specifically to the Bailey Branch out of all four branches that's why I'm really confused how to enter that money in it would still go into your local operating um but you're right it doesn't right it's into any of it's not being used for any of the other branches it's only should I actually just omit it and not worry about it let's don't omit it but I would it probably goes into other operating and then leave a note for me about that that it's just for the Bailey Branch okay all right that's perfect thank you because I want you to get credit for having gotten that as far as like revenues but it is yeah we want to be clear about what it is as well well to to be honest with you it's been a nightmare and I wish we would have never gotten it so oh no that's really sad I know I know um people who like to microcontrol funding anyway um okay so I will I will be sure to put it in other operating revenue and then give you a note that this monies the monies were specifically to the Bailey Branch not to be used by any other Park County Branch correct yes yeah okay all right thank you