Starting in 2005–06, ARL is calculating a Library Investment Index (previously named Expenditures-Focused Index and now commonly referred to as "the ARL Ranking") as an alternative to the historical index known as the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Library Investment Index replaces the public availability of the ARL Membership Criteria Index and is retroactively calculated for the 2002-03 to 2005-06 data. The Library Investment Index is highly correlated with the Membership Criteria Index and less affected by changes in the collections variables. The methodology behind this new index is described by Bruce Thompson in his October 2006 paper, "Some Alternative Quantitative Library Activity Descriptions/Statistics that Supplement the ARL Logarithmic Index."
The principles and procedures for academic library membership in ARL are based partly on quantitative data that provide a view of the range of resources deployed among the existing members of the Association. However, the ARL Index does not attempt to measure a library's services, quality of collections, or success in meeting the needs of users. Rather, it is a summary measure of relative size among the university library members of the Association.
The ARL Library Investment Index calculates principal component scores and the analysis is based on all university member libraries' data. The variables used in the Index were determined by factor analysis. These variables are:
Total Library Expenditures (totexp)
Salaries & Wages Professional Staff (salprf)
Total Library Materials Expenditures (explm)
Professional plus Support Staff (totstf)
The ARL Library Investment Index Index was proposed as an alternative index by Bruce Thompson, Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and CEHD Distinguished Research Fellow, and Distinguished Professor of Library Science, Texas A&M University, and Adjunct Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine (Houston). It was incorporated into the recommendations of the Task Force on New Ways of Measuring Collections, chaired by Brinley Franklin (University of Connecticut) and approved by the ARL Board in February 2007. A presentation on these changes was made by Colleen Cook (Texas A&M), Chair, Statistics and Assessment Committee, at the May Membership meeting in St. Louis in 2007. It replaces the public availability of the historical Membership Criteria Index. A detailed description of the historical Membership Criteria Index is available in The ARL Library Index and Quantitative Relationships in the ARL, by Kendon Stubbs (Washington, DC: ARL, 1980).
Although similar to the ARL Membership Criteria Index in reflecting the investments made in research libraries, the ARL Library Investment Index is less affected by the electronic availability of content and, as a result, by the rapidly changing context of library collections. Collections and content is made available in many new ways to library users and ARL’s historical descriptive statistics are being re-examined and adjusted to reflect the changing context of collection access and ownership. The ARL Statistics and Assessment Committee is engaged in defining additional variables and is developing new quantitative and qualitative indicators and indices to describe research library collections and services and their contribution to research, teaching and learning.
For additional details and background on the development of the ARL Library Investment Index, see:
Bruce Thompson, ‘Some Alternative Quantitative Library Activity Descriptions/Statistics that Supplement the ARL Logarithmic Index,’ October 6, 2006. See: http://www.arlstatistics.org/documents/admin/2012/Thompson_2006_Some Alternative Quantitative Library Activity Descriptions.pdf
Brinley Franlin, Colleen Cook, Martha Kyrillidou and Bruce Thompson. Library Investment Index-Why Is It Important? Proceedings of the 2008 Library Assessment Conference: Building Effective, Sustainable and Practical Assessment, August 4-7, 2008, Seattle, Washington (Washington DC: Association of Research Libraries, 2009): 147-154. See: http://www.arlstatistics.org/documents/admin/Franklin_etal_ 2008_Library Investment Index why is it important.pdf
This section is based on the four variables used to determine the ARL investment index scores for each institution (total professional plus support staff, total materials expenditures, professional salaries & wages, and total library expenditures), and the ARL investment index score. Use this part of the site to create a report displaying all of these variables for individual institutions (2003 forward); to display a ranked report of any one of the five variables for any number of institutions for a single year; to produce a graph of the variables for one institution from 2003 to the current year; or to graph one variable for up to nine institutions.
Data of Individual Libraries
Select one library to display the following variables from 2003 forward: total professional plus support staff, total materials expenditures, professional salaries & wages, total library expenditures, ARL investment index score, and rank in ARL investment index. (Note: Institutions which entered the ARL during this period have data for only some years.)
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ARL Investment Index Data
To produce a report of all Library Investment data for individual years from 2003 onward, select a year, an index variable, and any number of institutions. To make multiple selections, hold down the control key while clicking on your choices.
To find the ARL Investment Index Ranking, use the Ranked Lists section and choose the ARL Investment Index Rank variable and sort ascending.
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Graphs of Individual Library Data
Select one library at a time for graphs of the following variables: total professional plus support staff, total materials expenditures, professional salaries & wages, total library expenditures, ARL investment index score, and rank in ARL investment index. (Note: Institutions which entered the ARL during this period have data for only some years.)
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Graphs of Multiple Libraries
Select one of the following variables to be graphed. Then select up to nine libraries for individual graphs by holding down the control key and clicking on library names. To see multiple libraries on the same graph, go the the Graphs tab and choose the "Multiple Institutions, One Variable" option at the bottom of the page.
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