Just briefly (after all I am on holiday): I've been perusing the latest issue of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP). First I enjoyed Marcus A. Banks' final theory in Friendly Skepticism about Evidence Based Library and Information Practice that differences in decision-leading preference, or tendency to wait for evidence versus willingness to play or experiment, stem from hard-wired personalities (ie Myers-Briggs S .v. N: data-driven .v. intuitive) and that both have value.
However I was triggered to blog by a quote in the letter to editor by Judith Siess Commentary on a Library Non-Use Study upon which Siess applauded the concluding statements (of the study: Non-Use of Library Services by students in a UK Academic Library, by Lisa Toner in EBLIP 3:2, 2008) for recognising the value of further evaluation, which followed after Siess' surprising evaluation of 14% as a 'quite acceptable' response rate. I'll have to read the study she was commenting on to check the nature of the data it studied, but I'm guessing that a major gap was missing in the study: Patron NEED. From the commentary it appears that the study examined only why people don't use the library, not whether their perceptions & decisions impacted positively or negatively on their outcomes. I wonder: if students do not use the library and succeed quite happily in their studies, do they really NEED the library?
That wondering was triggered because the commentary earlier mentioned that the study showed that non-users not only didn't use the traditional (?physical) library, but didn't use its electronic resources but most did use the Internet; later mentioned that some 4% of respondents expressed a lack of need for libraries; finally highlighted that the studying library concluded with deciding to increase marketing, publicity and promotion; all without telling me if the study examined whether patrons who don't use the library actually DO need it (or not). Surely data related to that part of the equation is relevant? That is: what are the outcomes for students who don't use the library? Is it significantly different from those who do? If it isn't, then I'm guessing we have some really interesting questions to investigate and answer.
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