Library Value Toolkit: Reporting

What do we think you should keep in mind?

Recommendation 1: giving more details here

Recommendation 2: giving more details here

Recommendation 3: giving more details here

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This section is dedicated to communicating the Library's value through

• What's Reporting?
• Example: Formal Report
• Example: Informal Report
• Example: Fiscal Report
• Top Resources: Documents
• Top Resources: Links

What's reporting?

Reporting can take on many different forms but it really is essential in the business world.  In health libraries,w e may not always see ourselves as a business, but we are in fact, like any other department in our larger organization.  We should be reporting our activities, finances, goals, successes and failures all of which should be framed always by the MVV of our parent institutions.  This section offers a few resources and tools covering formal reporting, informal reporting and fiscal reporting.  There are many additional forms of reporting that aren't covered here (e.g. you could have an annual report in an infographic format) as well but this is hopefully a start.  What's most important on this page is that Libraies need to be accountable and partake in whatever standard reporting is happening at their organizations but also perhaps be proactive about their reporting, where it might be considered a 'value add'.

A formal report can be many different things including a more common, annual report, a quality report, a fiscal report.  It usually comes complete with an executive summary, various standardized headings or sections, often the same format followed by other departments in your organization and can come complete with tables, diagrams, charts and various appendices.  It is usually a report of the previous year's activities or goals, that have been , in one form or another, measured. 

Below is an example of a spreadsheet that can be used to outline what goals and activities are being highlighted by your department, how they will be measured and a brief analysis of these results.  Once this is completed a more formal and lengthy report will easily follow.  You can even plug in the following year's goals that may continue or stem from the one's originally defined in the current year's report.  For a blank worksheet template see Top Documents.

Informal reporting can take many forms, from a simple regularly scheduled meeting, email, document submission to one's direct supervisor to an section in the corporate newsletter, or even an infographic!  Below is an example of a brief, monthly department update to the hospitals' Board of Directors.  It's considered informal because it's just a simple update (a departmental FYI), with additional proccesses, presentations, evaluations etc. attached. 

It's up to the idividual Library manager or staff to decide what might be fall into 'forma'l or 'informal' reporting at their own institution.

A budget report can be a simple excel spreadsheet or could include more in-depth explanations as well as some cost breakdowns.  In theis example you'll see a quick spreadsheet calculating Usage & Cost Per Use.  Not only do these reports help you assess what you should be purchasing, renewing etc.  but they often reflect the sort of hard calculations our administrators are looking for from any of their departments.

Usage & Cost per Use (CPU) report