Before I went back to school to study Library and Information Science, I was working in the mortgage loan department of a credit union. My reasoning for going back to school was, “I don’t want to work with numbers for the rest of my life.” Little did I know how vital working with numbers (specifically statistics) is in the Library world!
Luckily, spreadsheets will do a lot of the actual number crunching for me. The interpretation of those numbers and telling the story those numbers provide the basis for is the crux of that part of my job. At the suggestion of one of my staff, I did some fun number crunching the other day. Here are the results:
If we represent every question the Pryor Library staff answered in the last fiscal year as a book, the quick, “Informational/Directional” questions like “What are your hours?” or “Who wrote ‘To Kill a Mockingbird?’” are mass market paperbacks (4.25” tall) and the longer, more involved “Reference” questions like “Can you help me start my family tree research?” or “How do I print from my email?” are hardbacks (9.25” tall).
In this story of our services, we have 9,222 Info/Directional question paperbacks and 14,076 Reference question hardbacks. If we line each of those 23,298 books flat, top to bottom on the ground, we can place them from the Library on Graham Ave along roadways to Goldies and back (almost 3 miles)! I love the image of books lined up along the street as a path that leads to lunch.
We keep track of how many questions we answer, in part, to report our Reference numbers to the State, but also so we can tell the Library’s story and let the community know we’re so much more than just a repository for books. So, please keep those questions coming! I can’t wait to do the math to see how far your questions lead us next year!