Original Post (March 20, 2012):

Ann Reed (OR)

Hi All,

I’m sorting out reporting confusion about figures of downloadables purchased by our state’s independent Overdrive consortium.

Here is my quandary –

For Physical items, the definition is for “units” – e.g. the number of things.  So if half of a library’s 1,000 books are the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, the library would record owning 1,000 printed materials.

For downloadables, the definition indicates titles –

“453 Audio – Downloadable Titles

These are downloadable electronic files on which sounds (only) are stored (recorded) and that can be reproduced (played back) electronically.

 Report the number of titles. Report only items the library has selected as part of the collection and made accessible through the library’s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) or through a physical library catalog.

It seems that most my libraries ignored titles, and reported units.  It does make quite a difference and I’m wondering if we should be counting units for downloadable items as well.  The way these downloadables are licensed, only one user can use a copy at a time, just like hardcopy.  The libraries had to buy multiple copies of popular titles.  It would put this element on the same counting basis as hardcopy.  When I look at the report I finally wrestled out of the consortium, there were 8,569 titles of downloadable audio books, but 15,252 total units of same.

What do you think?

SDC Comments:

Lisa Hickle (OH)

I agree.  J   

Janet Eklund (NH)

If we count print titles, including duplicates, why would we not count duplicate downloadable titles?

"Printed materials are hard bound or softbound. Report the number of physical units. Count duplicates. INCLUDE government documents. EXCLUDE periodicals, books-on-tape, and microforms

Lauren Miklovic (RI)

I agree with Janet.  All those downloadable books were purchased individually (for the most part), so they should be counted as same.

IMLS Response (3/23/12)

Kim Miller

SDCs,

The PLS Census and IMLS folks had a teleconference this morning to discuss Ann Reed’s question and SDC comments on units and titles for “453 Audio – Downloadable Titles.  There was discussion of what the states had reported in FY2010 (all but 15 states were able to report data for the data elements that passed in 2010 for audio/video downloadable). 

IMLS will be receiving the unimputed data files from Census in the next few weeks.   Along with the findings on #453 from Census and IMLS we will send information to the Library Statistics Working Group (LSWG) for further discussion before and during their meeting June 7. 

We also will know (by April 16^th  - ballot will be sent out Monday, 3/26 in the afternoon) if the proposed data element for change on numbers 453 Audio – Downloadable Titles & 455 Video – Downloadable Titles will have passed. 

#453 & 455 Definitions s for change

Currently reads:

Report the number of titles. Report only items the library has selected as part of the collection and made accessible through the library’s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) or through a physical library catalog.

Change to 2^nd paragraph to:

Report the number of titles. Report only items the library has selected as part of the collection.

Thank you all!

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See:  Data Elements Definitions - FY2012