Statistics day

At the end of the month, all of the library's departments scurry around collecting numbers and statistics to quantify what we do - and interlibrary loan is no different.

At CCPL, we are fortunate enough to have Clio (http://www.cliosoftware.com), an Access-based program that compiles our requests and helps us turn them into statistical reports. It is much easier for us than counting a large pile of forms or entries in a notebook. The Access platform enables us to generate all kinds of statistics, including average delivery time (9.8 days for 2007).

So how did we do this month? We had 836 requests, counting requests for renewals. We were able to fill 573 of them (69 percent), including 23 items that CCPL already owned. We have 105 requests still outstanding, which means no library has shipped the items as of today. If all of those requests are filled, we will reach 678 requests filled (81 percent).

On the lending side, we received 312 requests to borrow or renew items, of which we filled 156 (50 percent). Our most common reason for not lending an item is that we do not own it (despite what OCLC may say about our holdings).

Over the last three years, our total requests on both borrowing and lending sides have increased close to 10 percent each year. We are busy, busy, busy and we like it!