Director's Reflections... HSLS by the Numbers
Librarians love facts and figures. We keep track of all sorts of things: how many classes we teach, how many people enter the library, how many reference questions we answer, how many books we own, how many articles we photocopy, how much money we spend, and how many items are re-shelved after use. We share our statistics with organizations such as ARL (Association of Research Libraries) and AAHSL (Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries) so we can compare ourselves with similar libraries.
Before computers, these were often collected laboriously by hand. For example, before online catalogs replaced the old card catalogs, librarians figured out how many books they owned by measuring the cards in each drawer of the catalog: Every inch of cards represented 100 books. Happily, many of our statistics today are generated automatically by computers.
Some of the statistics are predictable, while others are surprising. Viewed as a whole, the numbers form a mosaic of the wide range of services, collections, and activities that HSLS supports.
• User population served: approximately 55,000 (includes UPMC employees and University of Pittsburgh faculty, staff and students)
• HSLS staff: 25.6 FTE (full-time equivalent) faculty librarians, 38.2 FTE paraprofessional and technical employees, and 6.6 FTE students
• HSLS Locations: 5 (Falk Library, WPIC library, Children’s Hospital libraries, UPMC Shadyside libraries, Lexington storage facility)
• Number of people physically entering HSLS libraries (2005-06): 469,996
• Weekly hours of operation: 110
• Number of attendees at instructional sessions, orientations or tours (2006-07): 9,400
• Number of attendees at in-house workshops, special topics classes, and Lunch With A Librarian sessions (2006-07): 1,028
• Number of database searches performed by librarians (2006-07): 1,998
• Number of print volumes (books and serials) in all locations (6/30/06): 480,215
• Number of page views of any part of the HSLS Web site (2005-06): 9,247,430
• Books borrowed or renewed from any HSLS library (2005-06): 38,525
• Number of active remote access accounts to HSLS e-resources (9/30/07): 12,421
• Number of print journal subscriptions received in all libraries (6/30/06): 652
• Number of electronic subscriptions for health sciences journals (6/30/07): 3,182
--Barbara Epstein
