Experiences using national statistics while researching in 22 libraries in five countries

There is a growing need for libraries to use reliable and accessible data in order to show how good they are and perform in comparison to other libraries, since there is a constant reduction and closing down of libraries all over the world. One resource for assessment are national statistics. However while doing research in five countries, comparing 22 public and academic libraries, researchers had difficulties in finding key performance indicators they could use in national statistics. Therefore, another research project started which compared selected indicators from these five national statistics, describing the indicators, contrasting their quality and analysing which indicators were missing in some countries. Some other aspects are analysed as well, such as: which questions cannot be answered by national statistics, although they should, and what does it mean that not all libraries are participating and delivering their data for their national statistics. As the importance of comparing data of libraries grows, it will also be realized a short exploration of IFLA’s Library Map of the World.