Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Statistical Assumption-Making In Library Collection Assessment: Peccadilloes And Pitfalls, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

Assessing library collections in the Semiconductor Age necessarily involves a heavy use of quantitative data. The assumptions made during the process of gathering, manipulating, and reporting library statistics may or may not be valid ones. Objective and vigilant scrutiny, therefore, can make the difference between an assessment that adds to a greater knowledge of the collection and one that only adds greater bulk to The File. Among the areas affected by statistical assumptions are (in lay terms): the sample, the survey, the percentage, the average, the degree of accuracy.