Medical Library Association | Research : Value of Library and Information Services

Value of Library and Information Services

Project Update: September 2001

In the spring of 2001 the study team completed the interviews with LIS directors and institutional administrators in hospitals and academic health sciences centers.

The focus group of hospital administrators was held on June 8, 2001. Participants included senior administrators from five academic, teaching and non-teaching hospitals.

The study team has developed the preliminary version of the taxonomy of LIS contributions in hospitals and academic medical centers. This taxonomy is derived from the balanced scorecard approach, with revisions based on the data collected from the interviews and focus group. The final version of the taxonomy will include suggested measures for each LIS contribution identified.

The data collection will conclude in the fall of 2001 with two Web-based questionnaires administered to LIS directors and institutional administrators in hospitals and academic health sciences centers.

Both questionnaires will ask respondents to indicate their level of agreement about the LIS contributions to the larger organization. The instrument for LIS directors will ask respondents to consider all LIS contributions identified in the taxonomy, approximately 50 items. The instrument for institutional administrators will present the organizational goals identified in the taxonomy and ask respondents to indicate their level of agreement about LIS contributions to each, approximately 15 items. The original plan for both questionnaires was to collect data at the level of measures for each LIS contribution. Given the size of the taxonomy, this would have required approximately 125 items. Based on feedback from the study's consultants who pilot tested the original instrument, the team concluded that such a large number of items would have a negative impact on the response rates.

Links to the Web-based questionnaire for LIS directors will be sent in emails to all 121 academic health sciences library directors in the United States who have not participated in the study's interviews or pilot interviews. Each LIS director will be asked to nominate an institutional administrator who will be contacted by email separately.

The sample of hospital LIS directors will be drawn from members of MLA's Hospital Library Section. As with the academic LIS directors, an email will be sent to each with a link to the instrument and a request to nominate an institutional administrator who will be contacted by email separately.

Findings from the questionnaires may result in further changes to the taxonomy and may point to differences in LIS contributions across settings.

Following the analysis of the questionnaire data, the project will conclude with the preparation of the final report and deliverables, due on February 28, 2002. A presentation that reviews the study and highlights the principal findings will be given at MLA's annual meeting in Dallas in May of 2002.

Keith Cogdill, Ph.D.
University of Maryland, CLIS
kcogdill@wam.umd.edu