Section C and Data Definitions

Section C. Data Element Definitions and Justification for Data Collection

The PLS consists of three sets of questions representing the states, the library administrative entities, and the library outlets.

A. State Characteristics

Reporting Periods

Item number 100-101 establish the fiscal year for the state.

Population

These two questions, 102-103 collect data on the total state population estimate, and the total unduplicated population of legal service areas.

B. Administrative Entities

Name/Addresses

These are identification items, 150-160, such as Federal-State Cooperative System (FSCS) ID (a unique identifier), Library ID, name, and address.

Other Identification

Items 161-207 include other types of identification such as telephone number, web address, legal basis code, administrative structure code, geographic code, and reporting period start/end dates.

Population/Outlets/Staff

Items 208-253, collects data on the library’s legal service area, and number of central offices, branches, and bookmobiles, FTE data on librarians with the ALA-MLS, librarians, other paid staff, and total paid staff.

Operating Revenue

This section, items 300-304, breaks out operating revenue by source: Local, state, or federal government, other sources, and total operating revenue.

Operating Expenditures

Items 350-352 collect operating expenditures for salaries, benefits, and total staff expenditures. Collections expenditures are collected in items 353-356, and are broken into categories by format: Print, electronic, other, and total collection expenditures. The last two items in this section, 357-358 collect other operating expenditures, and total operating expenditures.

Capital

Items 400-405 breaks out capital revenue by source: Local, state, or federal government, other sources, and total capital revenue. The last item is total capital expenditures.

Library Collections

Items 450-460 collect data on the numbers of items by type: Print, electronic books, audio and video (downloadable titles units and physical units), licensed databases (local/other cooperative agreements, and state and other), and current print serial subscriptions.

Service Measures

Items 500-553 554 collects data on a range of service-related items: Public service hours, number of library visits, reference transactions, registered borrowersusers, circulation (childrens and electronic materials, and inter-library loans.

Programs/Other Electronic

Items 600-605 breaks out programs and program attendance by children, young adult, and total. Items 650-651 concern the number of Internet computers used by the public, and the number of users users (sessions) of public Internet computers per year.

C. Outlets

These items 700-710 are basic identification items, such as name, address, telephone number, Metropolitan Status Code. Items 711-712 collect the square footage of the library outlet, and the number of bookmobiles. Items 713-714 collect data on public service hours per year (actual hours, collected and reported) and the number of weeks a library is open (actual weeks, collected and reported).