Too nerdy even for me… August 24, 2007
Posted by Ian in misc..1 comment so far
Fantasy Journals… kinda like fantasy football but with scholarly publication…
LibQUAL+ or Why it is important to understand statistical significance… August 24, 2007
Posted by Ian in QEII, academia, libraries.3 comments
Yesterday a session was held to go over the results from our most recent iteration of the LibQUAL+ library quality survey. For those of you not in the know LibQUAL+ is a massive survey put out by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The aim is to measure perceptions of the library in three broad categories: Service, Collections/Technical Services, and Library as Place (aka facilities). In the survey users are asked about a variety of functions and for each to give a number between one and ten to represent the minimum level of that service that the user would expect, then to give a number between one and ten to represent how the library is actually doing and finally, a number between one and ten to represent the users desired level for the item in question. Statistics are then gathered about the gaps between minimum and perception, as well as between perception and desired. Libraries are then supposed to go out and use these stats as indicators for what needs fixing, as well as use them to compare their situation with other similar sized universities. The survey is very broad and its usefulness is dubious at best but what really gets me is the sample size chosen when we completed our survey.
Memorial has about 17000 students add in faculty and administration and there are probably closer to 19000 users (probably even more than that). Now considering that most surveys get between 20-30% response rate one would think that you would want to send the survey to as many users as possible. But no, we sent the survey to 5500 users… that’s about 29% of our users in total. Our response rate was 18% or about 890. 890 out of 19000… That is 5% roughly of our user base and yet this is a tool that is supposed to be meaningful? You cannot base any decision on what 5% of your user base thinks.
Here’s something really depressing for the math nerds out there. For the most part the numerical data that is gathered in this survey is mostly ignored – or people will say “look our users gave us a score of 8 in [insert service thing here]” when the actual score is meaningless for comparison purposes.
Now some say that this tool is a good basis for historical comparisons. I say hogwash! For one thing you are not surveying the same people over time. The users you have now may have very different expectations from the users you have 5 years from now. Even if it were possible to survey the same cohort every year, I think you might find that the results would not be consistent as user needs evolved and changed.
If libraries and librarians want to do serious research more of us need to be more conversant in the language of statistics and we need to invest more time in thinking about experimental design.
Cataloguing standards: e-books and websites August 17, 2007
Posted by Ian in QEII.1 comment so far
This is an appeal for those looking at library cataloguing standards right now please in the future keep it simple! The nature of my gripe:
Last year we bought 12,000 Springer titles as e-books. Right now we have access to… 3,000… And why is our access so piss poor? Well that’s a good question. Apparently this is what vaguely transpired (I wasn’t here so I’ve had to piece this account together from others):
The Springer offer was quite reasonable buy all the 2006 titles get the 2004 and 2005 gratis. Springer said they would provide MARC records and everything would be fine. Well our cataloguing people looked at the records and deemed them unusable. So we took our business elsewhere. We bought the books from a different vendor with the express understanding that suitable records would be provided. Well they haven’t been provided yet because the company we bought the books from can’t get them. The original Springer records were rejected because they were mostly only skeletal records that our already over stretched cataloguers would have to go and edit afterwards to make them compliant with current cataloguing practice.
The problem is that we have paid for 12,000 books and as it stands we can’t really use any of them.
SO what do I want? Simple I want a skeletal record that contains the following information: Title, author, link. At least then the records would be searchable in our catalogue and our users could access the material.
For electronic resources I don’t need to know pagination of the equivalent paper copy, I don’t need notes and as a start I’m not sure I even need subjects since most people don’t bother to change their search options. But I do need access and presently I don’t have that. So for all you cataloguers out there in the world maybe it is time to start thinking about changing your workflow perhaps it’s time we started putting the need for a record ahead of our desire for perfect records. And on the reference side it’s high time we learned to live with imperfect catalogue records…
[some screaming goes here]
Talking sense on market meltdowns August 17, 2007
Posted by Ian in Uncategorized.add a comment
With all the hoopla about the recent downward trend in the markets its easy to lose sight of the big picture. Which in this case is that the market is undergoing a correction and that there will be money to be made in the near future.
Check this out to further my point.
Slow and steady wins the market race.
This will be popular with the Ecomentalist crowd… August 13, 2007
Posted by Ian in environment.add a comment
Check this out…
I think the global warming ‘debate’ is possibly the most retarded conversation going on in the public policy sphere. We have very imperfect knowledge about exactly what is going on and yet everyone is clammering to do something… because surely doing something (that may or may not work) is better than doing nothing.
If you want an environmental issue to grapple on to how about clean drinking water in the developing world – how about trying to clean the air of our cities (no that is NOT the same thing as reducing global warming). Check out this talk by Bjorn Lomberg on what could be done to save the world with only $50 billion.
Transatlantic Free Trade? August 13, 2007
Posted by Ian in policy.add a comment
As the author says at this point a free trade deal that excludes farm products is better than no free trade deal. Maybe free trade would convince all the participants that farm subsidies are evil… of course that has about as much chance of happening as me being struck down by a massive comet.
Oh and the government shouldn’t sign any deal that commits us to any kind of Kyoto-esque boondoogle…
A Strike in my future?? August 11, 2007
Posted by Ian in academia.5 comments
Disclaimer: I came to MUN for the experience of living someplace different not for the money because I could be making a hell of a lot more just about anywhere else.
Since July 22 my union has been in a position to strike. As reported here the talks between the Faculty Association and MUN have broken off with money being the sticking point. The Faculty Association thinks that we should be paid at a level comparable to faculty at other institutions of our size around the country. MUN thinks that we should be paid in line with other civil servants in Newfoundland.
The big obstacle is salary; the faculty association is proposing an increase of 10 to 15 per cent over three years while the university has offered six per cent over four years.
…
Karen Hollet, director of faculty relations, said the offer made by the school is fair.“It’s consistent with what other employees at the university and within the province have accepted and we think it’s a good offer in light of that,” Hollet said.
I have two points here:
1. The administration offer is insulting in that it doesn’t even keep up with inflation. I’m not sure if the union request is over the top but we are paid poorly compared to others doing similar work (some of my library peeps are doing similar work to me and making $15K more a year and that’s not in Ontario or Alberta)… Obviously, I am not impartial – I want more money – [union zealot] I want the union to squeeze every penney they can from the administration. [/union zealot]
2. The administration is being very small minded about the offer in general. By saying their offer is in line with what other university staff have gotten misses the point. University staff can be hired from amongst the general population. The people who would be university staff could conceivably be doing similar work at any number of different firms in the province. How many other agencies in Newfoundland hire English PhD’s to do research? Academics are not just people you hire off the street, they are specialists who are looking at jobs all around the globe. MUN is not competing with other employers or government agencies in province for talent they are competing with universities, think-tanks, and research laboratories all over the world. Right now MUN is not competitive in Canada let alone the world.
It will be interesting to see how all this pans out. I hope against hope that this can be resolved without a strike but from where I’m sitting now I would be amazed if we were not on the picket line come September.
The two solitudes… August 10, 2007
Posted by Ian in policy.add a comment
Tim Denton discusses bilingualism:
History is passing a daily judgment on every language, with every person’s decision to speak. The key to language acquisition is “what do you get when you get there?” What benefit do I get from speaking French? How important is it for me to be able to speak 6.5 million French-speaking Canadians? I have been expensively educated in the language, and so my costs of acquisition have been sunk. But I could not really recommend learning French except as strictly required by economics and getting a job in the federal government of Canada. There is no superiority of the French language to, say, Spanish, of German or any other language. Nor is there merit to learning English apart from its value as a means of communication. The ruthless competition for people’s attention in everything means that people have limited time to learn a language unless they have to. Devoting years to the acquisition of a language of a people who have effectively separated from your country, in fact if not yet in law, is of doubtful benefit to outsiders. Besides which, French Canadians have a bilingual elite who does the talking for them, and that elite has created those linguistic-political conditions to their own advantage.
This leaves French increasingly in the position as a language that a privileged group of English-Canadians speak as a password into the higher reaches of the federal public service and national politics. It becomes a badge of class distinction. Fraser’s policy prescription against teaching French to federal civil servants has the effect of further cementing the role of French as the entree into a world of legal and social privilege, even as the language declines in relative use worldwide, and in Canada, to something that once upon a time mattered, in a different world long since past.
Read the whole thing.
As the West gets more political power I would expect that French will become less relevant, of course given how things typically work in this country there will probably be an increase emphasis on French and more money will be transferred to Quebec to ‘make sure French survives’…
Environmental Hypocrisy August 9, 2007
Posted by Ian in environment.add a comment
Very good piece in Radar (h/t instapundit)
It’s always galling to be exhorted to curb your consumption by people who are living the poshest lifestyle imaginable. But the problem here goes beyond aesthetics. Eco-hypocrites undercut the very message they’re trying to peddle. How desperate could the planet’s plight be if the people who present themselves as most concerned about it consider flying first-class commercial an unacceptable sacrifice? Why should anyone bother to carpool when Streisand requires her own convoy? Or forgo A/C for a fan when Edwards is chilling in the largest house in his county? The implication of the hypocrites’ behavior is that we must take all measures to fight global warming short of those that would reduce our quality of life. But a reduction in quality of life—or at least a redefinition of it—is exactly what Americans are going to have to accept to make a meaningful dent in greenhouse gas levels.
Read the whole thing… As the author says perfection isn’t necessary but admitting your faults isn’t that difficult either…
