{"id":1157,"date":"2021-09-30T10:33:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T14:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/?p=1157"},"modified":"2021-09-30T10:34:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T14:34:04","slug":"what-counts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/2021\/09\/30\/what-counts\/","title":{"rendered":"What Counts"},"content":{"rendered":"

To count (verb):<\/strong> to tally, to add up, to total, to recite numerals in ascending order<\/p>\n

To count (verb) :<\/strong> to matter, to be considered, to be included, to have importance<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have posted multiple times in this space about metrics<\/a> \u2013 the challenges and the seemingly arbitrary decisions we make when quantifying the libraries’ work for surveys like ARL, IPEDS, AASHL and ACRL.\u00a0 Given my ambivalent feelings about counting, I appreciated a recent Curious Minds<\/a> interview with Deborah Stone about her book, Counting<\/em>. A social scientist, Stone reminds us:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no such thing as a raw number.\u00a0 At least in human affairs. Every number is the result of a decision about what is important; what is worth paying attention to.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stone’s book <\/span>is an exploration of the ways this plays out in the social world,\u00a0with vivid examples of how seemingly precise figures for \u201cunemployment\u201d and \u201cethnicity\u201d are replete\u00a0with\u00a0value judgements, arbitrary decision making, and\u00a0historically based\u00a0judgement about what is countable\u00a0and how.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Counting forces us to classify things, to categorize them. Because being countable is a value statement, counting is a way to exert power. We are familiar with how this impacts voting and in census-taking. To be “accountable” is to take responsibility for counting that is fair and honest.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Libraries are big counters, and hence classifiers, asking “<\/span>Is this a reference question or a directional question?” The former counts, the latter does not, at least as far as the NISO (our information standards organization) has dictated.\u00a0 \u00a0Asking a library staff person an \u201cinformational\u201d question counts, but receiving help to find a book on the shelf or assistance with placing an item on reserve, those transactions are not counted as reference. <\/span>\u00a0Reference transactions, that special kind of service,\u00a0 are valued in a different way.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, isn’t the service of helping a patron to access resources on their own at least as much value as that transaction that provides the answer? It seems that helping a community user log on to a computer in order to apply for a job should count for something. Our standard surveys don’t ask about those transactions. What patrons ask of library staff is changing rapidly, as are the skills required to provide those services.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge is finding measures that truly gauge the value we provide to our communities. These metrics need to be applicable over time and relevant to libraries of many types. And measurable with systems (or less reliably, people) that apply them accurately and consistently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stone’s final words remind us of the dangers of equating numbers with facts:<\/p>\n

When we decide what to count, we frame an issue as surely as the painter composes a scene. Our numbers embody the concerns, priorities, and values that guide us as we decide who or what belongs in the categories we’re counting …We should count as if we’ll soon be infected by our own numbers. For in the end, what numbers do to others, they do to us as well. (Stone, D. <\/em>Counting. New York: W.W. Norton, 2020)\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To count (verb): to tally, to add up, to total, to recite numerals in ascending order To count (verb) : to matter, to be considered, to be included, to have importance I have posted multiple times in this space about … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4680,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77],"tags":[28,76],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statistics","tag-metrics","tag-statistics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4680"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/assessment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}