A Tale of Two Outliers: Evidence-Based Management in Non-ARL Research Libraries and Pre-NARA Presidential Libraries

Administrators in libraries of all types face the challenge of managing and planning in times of static or declining funding and rapidly changing technology. What tools do they use to gather and employ data for decision-making and evidence-based management? Are the same tools and techniques useful for all types of libraries? Although there are established measurements and metrics for academic libraries, there are few, if any, for others such as hybrid presidential libraries which are not part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) system. This column identifies the metrics used by the pre-NARA presidential libraries and compares them to metrics used by a subgroup of Carnegie Research 1 and Research 2 libraries, those that do not participate in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics program. It identifies similarities and differences.