Library Impact Data Project II: digging deeper into data

Phase I of the Library Impact Data Project (LIDP) showed a statistically significant relationship across a number of universities between library activity data (specifically the number of items borrowed and logins to e-resources in the library) and student attainment.

Phase II of LIDP seeks to deepen our understanding of this relationship by investigating additional data from the University of Huddersfield in order to understand better how library activity relates to student attainment, including causal relationships.

This paper will highlight some of the results from our quantitative data analysis including:

• demographic factors and library use, examining whether there is a relationship between demographic variables and all measures of library use, and to see which factors carry the most weight in such a relationship

• retention vs. non-retention, to see whether there is a relationship between patterns of library use (including increasing or decreasing intensity of use and time of use) and retention.

Finally the paper will recommend further study and suggest strategic aims and objectives that could result from the project.