State Survey Update

From Tim Rohe, NH State Data Coordinator

     I’ve gotten a few questions about the Public Library Survey over the last week and I wanted to do my best to address them.

     One of the main questions I’ve received is, “Is this the same thing as the state report?”  The answer is, yes.  I apologize for the confusion; it seems that it’s known by lots of different names: the ‘state report,’ the ‘federal report,’ the ‘Public Library Survey (PLS)’ and, my personal favorite, ‘that survey thing some newbie over at the State Library keeps bugging me about.’  They are all the same thing, just the annual reporting of statistics you have done every year.  Same report, new vendor; that’s all.

     Also, I think I’ve finally updated everyone’s contact info in the system and you should all have received your login information by now.  (If you have not received your login info yet, let me know and I will get it to you.)  Remember to check your ‘Spam’ folders.  It also may have been sent to the library’s general email address, not your personal email, if that’s the only one I had on file.  I cross-referenced everything with the NH Library Directory, so I should have the most up-to-date info, but I did notice that people were still editing that online when I left work on Thursday.

     Another question I’ve received a couple of times is, “Can you get my ILL statistics out of NHU-PAC?”  Unfortunately, no, I cannot.  My best recommendations would be to either extrapolate based off of whatever numbers you have in-house or to make a good-faith estimate.  If neither of those scenarios work for your library, let me know and we can come up with a solution.

    The last question I’ve received a lot recently is, “These edit checks are driving me crazy!”  Not really a question, but (trust me) I hear you!  I have reached out to the vendor and there is an issue with the way it is displaying error messages; more specifically, it is not displaying the correct error message for what triggered the edit check.

     Example: You get a message saying, “The number of VIDEO MATERIALS has a large change from last year,” when they are clearly the same.  What it should have said is something like, “The number of VIDEO MATERIALS is the same as last year.  Is that correct?”  I have been told that they are working on the issue.  In the meantime, the best way to deal with the situation is to add a note saying, “No change.”

     It was brought to my attention that I have made an error regarding the statistics for the Summer Reading Programs.  The numbers asked for are, in fact, attendance and not number of programs.  I have since updated this in the system and do apologize for any inconvenience. For those libraries who have already submitted their data, I can either unlock it and you can change it or (since it’s my mistake) you can email me the numbers and I will fix it for you. Again, I do sincerely apologize for the error and am happy to do anything I can to help going forward!

     Finally, I cannot stress this enough, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns that come up while filling out the survey before it reaches the point where you get frustrated and want to throw your computer out the window.  Let me get frustrated for you; I’m really, really good at it! :)