Public Libraries Survey – Frequently Asked Questions

Some topics that have already arisen this year, in the order you’ll find them on the Survey. Topics that apply to more than one section are duplicated in each.

Identification Section

We have updated your Population of Legal Service Area with the 2020 Census numbers.

Library Governance

2.16, Annual report to local government. Many libraries submit this report every July. In that case, the question is about the one due in July 2021, not the one due in July 2022. In general, it’s whichever edition of the report was due since you last answered this question.

Branches/Hours

To qualify as a bookmobile, a vehicle needs to have material that can be browsed and checked out at the stops, and a regular route. If it is only delivering items that patrons requested ahead of time, it is an outreach vehicle and is counted under 11.1 instead.

If your bookmobile offers programming, you still count the stops and total attendance in the bookmobiles section (3.6). The programs with their attendance are counted in the programs section (9.9-9.12). Bookmobile programs count as Live Onsite rather than Offsite because the bookmobile is an extension of the library itself. If you didn’t record total bookmobile visitors separately from the number who actually participated in the programming, it’s fine to use the same number in both places.

Paid Staff

The Renewal & Development Conference hosted by the State Library does not count towards 4.16 (national or regional professional library conference) but it does count towards 4.17-4.19 (continuing education opportunity).

Webinars count towards continuing education opportunities for all staff.

Library Collection

For 7.1, Number of Print Materials, do not include magazine issues.

VOX Books count as print materials, not physical audio.

For 7.7-7.9, downloadable e-books, etc., this is the number of items available to your patrons, regardless of who paid for it. If you belong to OverDrive, the consortium sent those numbers in an email to the NDDR list. However, if you also have some titles that you purchased directly and do not share with the rest of the consortium, you will need to add those to the total.

For 7.11, Total Circulation of Children’s Materials, just count material for ages 0-11 when possible.

7.13, Total Circulation of Non-Media Physical Items, is circulation of everything in 7.4. Including the state park pass numbers you put in 7.12.

For 7.15, Total Electronic Circulation, the change from RB Digital to OverDrive means that many libraries will receive flags for a dramatic change from last year. If you did not sign up for OverDrive, your total will be much lower this year and you can just note that it’s because you no longer have RB Digital. If you did sign up for OverDrive, your total may be much higher this year and then you can note that it’s because you moved from RB Digital to OverDrive.

Hoopla and Kanopy are counted under Online Library Resources instead of under Total Electronic Circulation. They are not considered e-books, etc. by IMLS because you do not select the individual titles.

Online Library Resources

If you have NovelistPlus or Novelist Select, you will need to add those annual numbers to 8.7, Total Successful Retrievals of Electronic Information. The Novelist numbers in the OLR spreadsheet provided by the State Library only include basic Novelist usage.

Hoopla and Kanopy uses are included in 8.7, Total Successful Retrievals of Electronic Information. You don’t record number of available titles anywhere. Be sure to include the services in 8.1.

Public Service

9.8b, Interlibrary Loans Borrowed from Other Libraries, does include items requested from the State Library.

Programs

For programs by age, use either Children (age 0-11) -OR- Children (age 0-5)/Children (age 6-11). This is the last time that age 0-11 will be on the survey. For 2022 programs, you need to track ages 0-5 and 6-11 separately.

Beanstack challenges go under Live Virtual.

If your bookmobile offers programming, you still count the stops and total attendance in the bookmobiles section (3.6). The programs with their attendance are counted in the programs section (9.9-9.12). Bookmobile programs count as Live Onsite rather than Offsite because the bookmobile is an extension of the library itself. If you didn’t record total bookmobile visitors separately from the number who actually participated in the programming, it’s fine to use the same number in both places.

Technology

10.5b Total Website Visits. If you don’t have website stats this year, you have two choices in the dropdown: Not Applicable and Not Available. Please use Not Applicable if you don’t have a website. Please use Not Available if you have a website but were unable to get the data from it. (You will not be the only one!)

Public Libraries Survey 2021 – Two Spreadsheets

Two spreadsheets were added to the Resources section of the Public Libraries Survey LibGuide this week.

If you have filled out the Public Libraries Survey (PLS) in the past, you are familiar with the first one: 2021 Online Library Resource (OLR) Usage. This is where you find your library’s calendar year usage for the online resources provided via the state, either from the North Dakota State Library or from ODIN. For directors who are newer to the Survey, online library resource is the formal term for database.

If you subscribe to any OLRs directly, such as TumbleBooks, CreativeBug, or Prenda, please remember to add those usage numbers to the total on the spreadsheet.

If you need to access your numbers from prior calendar years, we archive those on the Database Usage Statistics page of the State Library’s website, under the For Libraries tab. You can also see your library’s month-to-month usage numbers here.

The second spreadsheet is a new one: Legal Service Area (LSA) Populations per 2020 U.S. Census. The Legal Service Area population field on the PLS is prefilled by the State Library, but we would appreciate you reviewing the information on the spreadsheet for accuracy, particularly if you are not a county library.

There are two tabs to the spreadsheet. The By Library tab lists each library and our understanding of their service area. The second tab, By City, lists all North Dakota communities, sorted by county. If there are any small nearby communities for which you formally provide service, please let us know so we can update your total service population. Formally providing service means that you either receive some sort of revenue for granting cards to residents of that community (it does not have to be tax revenue) or you have a contract to grant them cards. If you simply serve everyone in your county, you can skip this step. This information assists us not just with this year’s PLS, but with State Library initiatives to identify all the areas of the state that are not currently served by a public library.

Please contact the new State Data Coordinator, Kristen Northrup, with any questions, concerns, or requests for future article content at knorthrup@nd.gov or 701-328-4681.

Public Libraries Survey 2021 – Edit Checks

The Public Libraries Survey (PLS) has built-in error checking. These flags are set by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the survey cannot be submitted until they are all addressed. Generally, you resolve an edit check by entering an explanation in the notes box. An alternative is that the original response is actually incorrect, such as a typo, and then replacing that number will resolve the issue.

Most edit checks are generated when this year’s answer is significantly different than last year’s. That can be a sign of data being entered into the incorrect box or a mistyped number. The second most common reason for an edit check is math errors – when a field is supposed to represent a sum of two other fields but does not, for example. We try to avoid as many of these errors as possible by building in auto-calculated fields and will be adding more of those for 2021.

337 edit checks were generated on 2020’s PLS, and only 42 of those (12%) were COVID­-related. Most were calculation errors that can hopefully be resolved proactively for 2021.

Once the State Library submits the PLS results to IMLS, their staff does review all of the edit checks and requests further detail on any vague notes, so please make your notes more specific than ‘This is correct’ when possible. We are required to follow up on those.

Staffing questions are one of the most common edit checks that are not in error. When the library has no paid staff or when salaries are paid by a central office, the edit check because staff expenditures equals zero is unavoidable, and I’m afraid you’ll just need to make that note each year. However, we do also see frequent cases where either the number of paid staff is zero, but there is a dollar amount given for salaries or vice versa, so please keep an eye on reconciling those areas.

Any significant change in collection size will trigger an edit check. Also, when there is no change in collection size. We recognize that some collections (such as physical audio or video units) can be small enough that you really don’t add or remove any titles from one year to the next, but it will still need a note to that effect. Adding a large number of items due to a collection development grant will be an edit check, as will joining Library2Go in 2021 or conducting a large weeding project. Because there are so many different reasons, we just need a quick note as to which reason applies to your own collection.

For programs, there will be an edit check when the total number of programs offered is greater than the number of program attendees. We recognize that this really can happen, but a note is required. Please do continue to include zero-attendance programs in your stats.

If you are a new director or otherwise filling out the PLS for the first time, submitting a note like “This is my first year, and I don’t know how last year’s numbers were generated” is completely acceptable.

There was a glitch last year with edit checks being triggered for prefilled fields, which the libraries cannot really provide an explanation for. That should be fixed for 2021.

In other news, there is now a spreadsheet on the PLS LibGuide under Resources that illustrates the differences between 2020’s questions and 2021’s. We’ve received requests for a preview of the official 2021 survey, but that won’t be fully formatted and available until February 1. The questions themselves are set, however, and can be viewed in this file: https://library-nd.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=64958036  

Please contact the new State Data Coordinator, Kristen Northrup, with any questions, concerns, or requests for future article content at knorthrup@nd.gov or 701-328-4681.

PLS 2021 – The Money

The most common error type of the 2020 Public Libraries Survey was Operating Revenue. Specifically, where to count funds received via the State Library. This section is frequently completed by a city or county auditor, so please consider sharing this information ahead of time with them.

Funds received from the State Library are entered under State Revenue. This includes Library Vision grants and COVID assistance. The State Library did not distribute any federal funds in 2020 or 2021.

Additional notes on financial categories
Enter both operating revenue and capital revenue for the year you receive it, even if you spend it the following year. Your revenue numbers and expenditure numbers do not need to reconcile.
Capital revenue and expenditure categories are:

• Site acquisition
• New buildings
• Addition to or renovation of existing building
• Furnishings, equipment, and initial collections for new buildings or new areas
• Computer hardware and software
• New vehicles
• Other one-time major projects
• Do not include replacement furnishings or equipment

Patron donations and library fines/fees are entered under Other Revenue, not Local Government Revenue. Even if those fines are set by local government. However, only count the fines or fees that the library actually keeps. If it is all passed along to another local government office, do not record it. Do not include the value of any in-kind services or non-monetary gifts.

Do not count funds carried over from the previous year as revenue.

Employee benefits include employer-paid FICA taxes, unemployment, Social Security, etc. If a dollar amount is entered under Salaries, this question should not be zero.

If a position was vacant for part of the year, still include the budgeted salary for the entire year.

Collection Expenditures include anything leased or licensed, not just purchased. But do not include charges for interlibrary loan or document delivery. Book repair supplies, binding costs, and the operation of the online library catalog all go under Other Operating Expenditures instead.

Most edit checks (the messages that pop up and ask you to double-check your answer and enter an explanation if it is correct) are set by IMLS, just like the questions. For revenue and spending questions, you will generally only see them if a field had a dollar amount last year and is zero this year, or vice versa. When this happens, a brief “We did not spend any money in this category this year” is an effective note. The State Library does get pushback from IMLS when too many notes are just “This is correct.”

Please contact the new State Data Coordinator, Kristen Northrup, with any questions, concerns, or requests for future article content at knorthrup@nd.gov or 701-328-4681.

PLS 2021 – Changes to the Collection and Circulation Sections

Questions on both the number of items in your collection and the circulation of those items have been generally simplified this year.

For e-resources, there were up to four different collection questions last year. For example, for e-books, there was:

1. Number of Library2Go/OverDrive e-books in library’s collection,
2. Number of RBDigital e-books,
3. Number of e-books purchased from other sources, and
4. Total e-books.

This year, there is just Total e-books. Ditto for total e-audiobooks and total downloadable videos.

Free electronic resources are still not counted. Digital magazines, such as those from OverDrive, are still not counted.

The questions on physical items in the collection have not changed:

1. Number of print materials (excluding serials)
2. Number of physical audio materials (both music and audiobooks)
3. Number of videos
4. Number of other circulating items.

Although you are not required to identify the Other Circulating Items in the notes field, we always appreciate seeing what each library has. Along with untraditional items like board games or cake pans or life jackets, this is where you would put microfilm or fiche. Maps and sheet music, however, count as print materials.

Circulation questions never exactly align with collection questions. IMLS focuses on different aspects of each.

One question unique to circulation is children’s items. Although this question hasn’t been changed, it is worth reviewing.

• By Circulation of Children’s Materials, they want circulation of all formats – physical and electronic. 
• This includes children’s audio-visual materials and serials IF your catalog breaks those out. This also includes renewals. 
• Children’s is defined as ages 0-11. If you have a separate Young Adult collection, do not include those numbers. But don’t try to break out anything that isn’t in its own category in your catalog. 
• Do include interlibrary loan children’s items borrowed for your patrons, but not those lent from your collection via interlibrary loan.

The only remaining questions on circulation of physical items are for:

1. State park passes
2. ‘Other’ physical items (not books or audio-visual)
3. Total physical items.

There is no question for circulation of print materials, etc.

Electronic circulation, like electronic collections, has been simplified with the removal of RBDigital. There is just one all-encompassing Circulation of Electronic Materials question.

Because the North Dakota State Library paid for and administered the RBDigital service, we were able to provide inventory and usage numbers for each library. The State Library does not in any way administer OverDrive, however, and thus does not have access to those numbers. Please contact Library2Go with any questions.

Interlibrary loan hasn’t changed but is worth reviewing.

• The questions are still Items Loaned to Other Libraries and Items Borrowed from Other Libraries. 
• Loans to and from libraries within a consortium or a shared catalog do count as interlibrary loans. Only items moving from one branch of the same library system to another are omitted. 
• Only physical items qualify as interlibrary loans. Electronic items loaned to other libraries via OverDrive’s Advantage programs are not counted.
• Items borrowed from other libraries are counted both here and under Total physical items circulation. If they are children’s materials, and your internal reports easily break them out, they are counted in all three places. Items loaned to other libraries are only counted here.

Please contact the new State Data Coordinator, Kristen Northrup, with any questions, concerns, or requests for future article content: knorthrup@nd.gov or 701-328-4681.

Synchronous (Live) Programming Questions

This week is all about live library programs, now known as Synchronous on the survey. Beginning this year, the same programs are tracked two different ways – by age and by location.

As previously mentioned, the age groups have been expanded. They are now Children Ages 0-5, Children Ages 6-11, Young Adults Ages 12-18, Adults Ages 19 or Older, and General Interest.

After the age-related program questions, there are now also location-related program questions for both the number of programs and for the program attendance. The categories are In-Person Onsite, In-Person Offsite, and Virtual. 

Onsite programs take place at library facilities, including on the library grounds or in front of the bookmobile. Offsite programs occur at places like nursing homes, public schools, or farmer’s markets. If there is no programming element, like a library card sign-up booth at a fair or a float in a parade, that is outreach instead. Virtual sessions are live-streamed.

Let’s say a program is offered simultaneously In-Person Onsite and Virtually. People can attend at the library or live-stream from home. For the Number of Programs questions, you would count it as one for In-Person Onsite but NOT for Virtual. You only count a synchronous virtual program when that is the only way it is offered. For the Program Attendance questions, however, you would enter the In-Person Onsite attendance in its box and the Virtual attendance in its box. If you record that live-stream and share it to your website or on social media, you will count that as an Asynchronous Program. There are a lot of IF-THENs in these changes, and I will be happy to work through them with individual libraries. We’ll have some visual aids for the webinar too.

If a program was scheduled and no one showed up, you still count it as an offered program.

Do not include programs facilitated entirely by outside groups on library property. Either library funds or library staff time must be used for a program to count as co-sponsored by the library.

I’m including a table that many other states have adopted to help with tracking the new program types in 2022. It looks overwhelming at first. The only things you will be reporting are the grey boxes. But for day-to-day tracking purposes, it may be easiest to use the one sheet to capture everything, rather than tracking by age and by program type separately. An important reminder to include for a tracker like this is that all program attendees go into the box for that program’s age range, regardless of the ages of the attendees. If it’s a program for children 6-11, for example, everyone who attends goes into the Attendees box on that line, even the adults and children younger than 6.

As a reminder, the 2021 PLS will have boxes for the previous Children 0-11 category as well, for libraries that do not have 0-5 and 6-11 breakouts for 2021.

Please contact the new State Data Coordinator, Kristen Northrup, with any questions, concerns, or requests for future article content: knorthrup@nd.gov or 701-328-4681.