Library Talk

ST. CHARLES CITY-COUNTY LIBRARY MAKES TOP TEN LIST AGAIN
The St. Charles City-County Library District is listed as #4 in the country for libraries serving 250,000-500,000 population. Last year the District was rated as #3. Our library is one of the few in the nation that has been in the top ten libraries for each of the 10 years the Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings survey has been conducted. St. Charles City-County Library is the only library in Missouri to be ranked as a Top Ten Library.

The survey rates over 9000 libraries using 15 factors including:
· Expenditure per capita (3)
· Percent Budget to Materials (2)
· Materials Expenditure per capita (2)
· FTE staff per 1000 population (2)
· Periodicals per 1000 (1)
· Volumes per capita (1)
· Cost per circ (low to high) (3)
· Visits per capita (3)
· Collection turnover (2)
· Circulation per FTE staff hour (2)
· Circulation per capita (2)
· Reference per capita (2)
· Circulation per hour (2)
· Visits per hour (1)
· Circulation per visit (1)
The survey is weighted to give higher ratings to libraries that provide the most service and collection in a cost effective way and are heavily used by library customers. The focus is on circulation, staffing, materials, reference, and funding. Use of electronic products, use of Internet, audio or video collections is not included in the evaluation. The data used in the 2009 survey were 2006 statistics sent by State Libraries to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

The HAPL scores take into consideration inputs (ie expenditures, materials, staff) as well as outputs (circulation, visits, reference). The actual score a library receives is based on a formula that includes number of libraries in the category, ranking in the factor, and weight of the factor. The maximum score is 1000. In the 2009 survey, the highest score was Douglas County Library with 893. St. Charles City-County Library District's score was 855.

For more information, check out the article in the July issue of American Libraries.