About the statistics

1. Administrative information

1.1. Name

Special and research libraries

1.2. Subject group

07.01.40 - Libraries, museums, archives, and other dissemination of culture

1.3. Frequency and timeliness

Yearly

1.4. Regional level

County

1.5. Responsible division

360 - Division for Education Statistics

1.6. Legal authority

Not relevant.

1.7. Legal document(EU)

Not relevant.

1.8. International reporting

Not relevant.

2. Background and purpose

2.1. Purpose and history

The purpose is to show statistics from activities executed during the year by the special and research libraries. The statistics intend to give useful information to central and local authorities and others that in some way or other are involved in the running or financing of a library. The library statistics has been published once a year since 1980 in co-operation with the National Office for Research and Special Libraries and The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority. From the publication year 2011 in co-operation with the National Library.

2.2. Users and applications

Users of the statistics are: Ministry of Cultural and Church Affairs, Ministry of Education and Research, the library sector, and individuals interested in various documents related to information, research, education and recreation.

3. Statistics production

3.1. Population

The statistics cover special and research libraries in universities and state colleges, in public and private special libraries and the National Library. The National Library updates a list including all the libraries. The statistics include figures of collections, increase and decrease of books and periodicals, printed and electronic. In addition figures are given on expenditure and persons employed.

3.2. Data sources

Sources are the libraries themselves. However, the statistics are prepared in order to make it available through professional library systems such as BIBSYS.

3.3. Sampling

The survey intends to cover the whole library field.

3.4. Collection of data

Questionnaires are dispatched and collected by the National Library. They are also responsible for reminding and for updating of the population. A great part of the libraries deliver their data electronically, by filling in the questionnaires which they can find on an Internet website. Statistics Norway receives a prepared data file from the National Library based on collected data. This file forms the basis of the official statistics.

3.5. Control and revision

Logical addition and coherence is checked. Besides, a comparison with the questionnaires from previous year is made in order to uncover great deviations.

3.6. Estimation

Not relevant.

3.7. Confidentiality

Not relevant.

4. Concepts, variables and classifications

4.1. Definitions of the main concepts and variables

Non-local loans: loans from one library to another or loans to private persons/institutions

Databases are divided in following groups:

- Reference databases; a collection of bibliographic references in a database

- Full text databases; a collection of original texts

- Other databases are for example surveys/catalogues, dictionaries, e.t.c.

4.2. Standard classifications

Based on international standard ISO 2789 (Information and documentation - International library statistics)

5. Sources of error and uncertainty

5.1. Measurement and processing errors

Some libraries do not answer all questions. The reason might be that they do not have data to report, wrong interpretation of some questions, or respondents might also unconsciously have given erroneous data, influencing the statistics.

5.2 Non-response errors

Not relevant.

5.3. Sampling errors

Although the response rate is nearly 100 per cent, dropouts would cause small errors comparing with years before.

5.4. Other sources of error

Not relevant.

6. Comparability and coherence

6.1. Comparability over time and space

Not relevant.

6.2. Coherence with other statistics

Data, based on reports from the National Library, are useful for LIBECON (http://www.libecon.org). The reports are based on international standard ISO 2789, Information and documentation - International library statistics.

7. Availability

7.1. Publications and other links

http://www.ssb.no/ffbibl/

7.2. Microdata

The National Library is the owner of the data and compiles statistics of their own.


2011 © Statistics Norway