Introduction

The Annual Report covers the academic year 2008-09, and summarises key LISU activity. A brief financial statement is included.

During the year, LISU has further developed its ties with the Department of Information Science, with a number of new research collaborations, as well as providing statistical advice to postgraduate students. LISU continues its association with the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) and the Universities Computing and Information Systems Association (UCISA). Staff continue to present training sessions on a variety of aspects of statistics and performance measurement for libraries and information services, and offer a bespoke analysis service to all types of library. The copyright advice service for staff and students of Loughborough University is also hosted at LISU, and this service has been developed and extended to incorporate the requirements of the CLA scanning licence. LISU’s Director has continued her involvement with the development of national and international standards for library statistics and performance measures through membership of the relevant ISO and BSI committees.

There has been a discontinuity in the series of biannual academic book price indexes. Owing to difficulties with the data supply, the February 2009 editions have not been published, although we hope to be able to resume this valuable series for academic libraries during the next year. LISU’s web-based digest of statistics relevant to libraries, museums and archives in the UK, the LAMPOST, has continued to be developed and updated. The readers’ guides continue to be popular, and a new edition of the adult guide, Who else writes like…? A readers’ guide to fiction authors, has been published. An electronic version has been developed, and is about to be launched, following extensive discussions with staff from the University’s Enterprise Office. This will be an online, subscription based, version of the book, offered in addition to the print format, and considerable interest has been shown from the UK and overseas.

LISU had an exhibition stand at the University open day for members of the public held in June 2009, marking its centenary. The stand displayed posters about LISU’s activities, hosted a demonstration of the electronic version of Who else writes like…? and sold copies of both readers’ guides. Bookmarks promoting the books and website were also produced. This was the first time LISU has been involved in such activity, and we were pleased that considerable interest was generated.

LISU has been involved with a significant number of research projects during the year, both on its own account, and in collaboration with others. Some of these are outlined below; in many cases further details may be found on the LISU website - see Research.

Projects completed during the year

Study on open access to research outputs

This study, funded by RCUK, was undertaken in collaboration with SQW Consulting. The study aimed to identify the effects, and assess the impact, of open access to research outputs on pay to publish and self-archiving publishing models. LISU contributed desk research and survey analysis to the project.

Evaluation of Derwent Library

The Derwent Library in Derby was opened in 2007 as part of a Healthy Living Centre, funded by the government’s New Deal for Communities scheme. LISU was commissioned by Derby City Libraries to undertake an evaluation of the library service, to comply with the terms of the original funding agreement. This project involved a series of interviews, focus groups and a survey of users of the centre.

Successful primary school libraries

In collaboration with Sally Maynard in the Department of Information Science, LISU devised a project to undertake case studies in six primary schools, funded by Booktrust. Schools were selected on the basis of having some perceived disadvantage, in terms of catchment population or library resource, but which were thought to have ‘good’ levels of library use. A range of staff was interviewed at each school, and pupils invited to complete an online questionnaire.

Public library materials fund and budget survey

This survey was sponsored by Nielsen Book for the last three years. Reports from the most recent years are available to download free of charge from the LISU web site. Regrettably, Nielsen Book felt unable to continue their sponsorship at the previous level when the contract ended in 2008. No co-sponsor could be found to make up the shortfall, and it was decided to cancel the series rather than produce an inferior publication.

Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models

This JISC-funded project, in collaboration with the Department of Information Science and Department of Economics at Loughborough, and Victoria University, Australia, sought to inform policy discussion and enable stakeholders to better understand the institutional, budgetary and wider economic and social implications of the three emerging models of scholarly publication, i.e., subscription journals, open access journals and self-archiving in repositories. The project built on work carried out in Australia and involved identification of costs and benefits of each of the three models, followed by an estimate of the economic costs and benefits, to respond to gaps in data identified by the UK Scholarly Journals 2006 Baseline report.

Access to research information content

This project, funded by the Research Information Network, investigated how institutions manage the process of access to research information, both print and electronic, for researchers from outside their institution; the variation between different academic institutions, and between academic and non-academic research institutions, in the range of licensed e-resources available to their researchers; and the barriers and drivers operating in the academic library sector concerning the sharing of e-resources and ways in which the barriers might be overcome. A number of stakeholder interviews were conducted, a survey of research libraries completed, and four detailed case studies undertaken. It was one of four parallel projects taking differing viewpoints on this area.

Continuing projects

These projects were ongoing at the end of July 2009.

SCONUL statistics workshops

Two successful workshops were held in London and Loughborough in November 2008 and January 2009. This was the second year in which these workshops were held, and they continue to be well supported. A further series is being arranged for the current academic year. The workshops are designed to bring together those who collect the data to complete the SCONUL return, and those who use the figures within their libraries, with the aim of increasing understanding, and promoting the value of the statistics.

Publication and dissemination behaviour of researchers

This study, funded by the Research Information Network, was carried out in partnership with the Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, and CERLIM, Manchester Metropolitan University. The aim of the project was to investigate the publication and dissemination behaviour of researchers, and the influence of research assessment on this behaviour. The project involved desk research, consisting of a literature review and bibliometric analysis, which was carried out at LISU, and a series of focus groups undertaken by CERLIM. The findings were triangulated through a survey of researchers, carried out by LISU. Collaboration between the teams is being maintained via regular real and virtual meetings, and a web-based file sharing and discussion board utility.

Publishing & the ecology of European research – behavioural research

This project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Department of Information Science, and is funded by the PEER Observatory; an EU funded programme of research into the impact of publisher deposit of stage-two manuscripts in open access repositories. It runs until 2011, and involves two surveys of researchers, a series of focus groups, two workshops and an extensive review of the literature. The first stage of the work, comprising four focus groups held across Europe, and a large-scale survey of researchers, is nearing completion.

ASA survey

LISU has been commissioned by the Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy (ISLP) at the university to assist in the conduct and analysis of a series of satisfaction surveys for the Amateur Swimming Association. Three surveys will be conducted over a period of five years; LISU will administer the surveys and provide initial analysis to the ISLP research team.

Publications

LISU publications

Average Prices of British Academic Books January-June 2008, Loughborough: LISU, 2008
Average Prices of USA Academic Books January-June 2008, Loughborough: LISU, 2008

White, Sonya, Public Library Materials Fund and Budget Survey 2007-09, Loughborough: LISU, 2008. Available at Nielsen Book

Huse, Roy & Jeanne, Who else writes like…? a Readers’ Guide to Fiction Authors, Loughborough: LISU, 6th Edition 2008

Moore, Chris, Sunday Opening: an investigation into accessible opening hours and Sunday opening in UK libraries, Loughborough: LISU, 2008.

Published reports

Greenwood, Helen, Creaser, Claire, and Maynard, Sally, Successful primary school libraries: Case studies of good practice, London: Booktrust, 2008. Available at www.booktrust.org.uk/Resources-for-schools/School-libraries-research

Houghton, John, Rasmussen, Bruce, Sheehan, Peter, Oppenheim, Charles, Morris, Anne, Creaser, Claire, Greenwood, Helen, Summers, Mark and Gourlay, Adrian, Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models: Exploring the costs and benefits, London: JISC, 2009. Available at www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/rpteconomicoapublishing.pdf

SQW and LISU, Open access to Research Outputs, Report to RCUK, Swindon: RCUK, 2009. Available at www.rcuk.ac.uk/news/090422.htm

Professional articles

Moore, Chris & Creaser, Claire, 2008, ‘Seven days a week?’, Public Library Journal, 23(4), pp16-19

Creaser, Claire, 2008, ‘A week in the life of the director of the Library and Information Statistics Unit (LISU)’ SCONUL Focus 43, pp72-73

Greenwood, Helen, Creaser, Claire & Maynard, Sally, ‘Successful primary school libraries – six case studies’, The School Librarian, 57 (2), 2009, pp76-78

Creaser, Claire & Moore, Chris, ‘Sunday opening in UK public libraries’, Youth Library Review, 39, Spring 2009, p16

Conference papers & presentations

Creaser, Claire, ‘UK higher education library statistics’, In: Heaney, Michael (ed) Library statistics for the twenty-first century world, Munich: K G Saur, 2009, pp 261-272

Presented at Library Statistics for the 21st Century World, Montreal, 17th - 18th August 2008.

Staff

Staff at 31st July 2009 were:

An additional research associate was employed for the duration of the Publication and dissemination of behaviour of researchers project.

Financial statement

LISU aims to cover its costs in any year by income generated within that year. However, owing to a variety of factors, including the length and payment arrangements for its research and consultancy projects, and the three-year publishing cycles for the two readers’ guides, this does not always happen.

Income

Income for 2008-09 was £379,000, compared to £155,000 in 2007-08. Two-thirds of this comprised grants for a variety of research projects.

Expenditure

Most of LISU’s expenditure is on salaries. Total expenditure in 2008-09 was £345,000, compared to £240,000 in 2007-08.