The Ins and Outs of Incorporating External Data

In September, we took a hiatus from The Public Library Blueprints to explore the 2023 Public Library Technology Survey Summary Report – an extensive analysis of technology services in public libraries throughout the United States. Although much of the information within this report expands beyond what is collected in the Public Library Annual Report (PLAR), it also gathers a baseline of information similar to Colorado’s PLAR data. Certain data, including that on hotspot lending, were collected in both 2023 surveys. Examining these data sets together can help us understand how technology in Colorado (CO) public libraries compares to the larger landscape of public libraries across the nation. 

Incorporating external data sources into an analysis can illuminate strengths or weaknesses of a data set that were otherwise hidden. There are, however, important practices to keep in mind when doing so. In this post, we’ll discuss a few things to watch out for when comparing data sets from different sources and learn a thing or two about technology in CO libraries along the way…

Continue reading this post on LRS.org and check out more posts on research in a library context from Library Research Service.

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