PUB TYPE Guides Non-Classroom (055)-- Reports Descriptive (141) Speeches/Meeting Papers (150)

This paper presents guidelines and tools for action research in the school library which will help the librarian justify expenditures and personnel and evaluate and plan services. It shows how statistics can be turned into meaningful knowledge about what is currently being done in the library, how well it is being done, whether it should be done, and what needs to be known to prepare for the future. The paper covers: what needs to be measured in school libraries; what can be measured; how to measure--types of data and measurement techniques; analyzing the data--quantitative and qualitative analysis; and reporting the data--who needs the data, what data should be reported, and how to report the data to a variety of audiences. All institutions, including libraries, need to assess their value and performance in order to justify funding. In an era of increased expenses and reduced funding, programs which are not highly rated can be deprived of even maintenance levels of funding, phased out, or placed on the ballot fo