Libraries Support Data-Driven Decision Making: Report From OCLC Research Library Partnership (RLP) & LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries) Facilitated Discussion

From a Hanging Together Blog Post by Rebecca Bryant:

The OCLC Research Library Partnership (RLP) and LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries) hosted a facilitated discussion on the topic of data-driven decision making on 7 February 2024. This event was a component of the ongoing Building for the future series exploring how libraries are working to provide state-of-the-art services, as described in LIBER’s 2023-2027 strategy.

The OCLC RLP team worked collaboratively with members of the LIBER Research Data Management  and Data Science in Libraries working groups to develop the discussion questions. Like our earlier discussion on research data management, we tried to keep things practical, asking participants to share about current and future efforts, and to contribute their thoughts on the role and value of the library in supporting data-driven decision making. Small group discussions were facilitated by generous volunteers from LIBER working groups and OCLC.

The virtual event was attended by participants from 35 institutions across 15 countries from Europe, North America, and Asia. Despite many regional and national differences, there were several key themes that surfaced across the seven breakout discussion groups, which is synthesized below.

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How are libraries supporting data-driven decision making?

There are dozens of ways that libraries are supporting data-driven decision making. We heard from participants who described collective collections efforts, where a group of libraries is working together to manage their combined holdings, to support collection retention decisions, and more. Additionally, borrowing statistics can be used to inform both collection development and weeding decisions.

Beyond collections, participants described analyzing library building usage data (such as gate traffic and wifi usage) to measure the busyness of spaces, to inform space management decisions.

Participants also described the growing role of the library in research analytics, in support of institutional goals. In the UK, the library is usually responsible for managing data about the institutional scholarly record, for reporting to the national Research Excellent Framework (REF) assessment exercise. Elsewhere, library workers are supporting institutional efforts to understand research productivity, progress toward open research goals, and identify potential collaborations. And, of course, libraries are creating specific roles to manage a wide variety of data and make it available for reuse, the topic of a recent LIBER interview with Matthias Töwe, Data Curator at ETH Zurich Library.

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