Project Outcomes
Project Outcomes
List any important outcomes or findings not previously reported:
Florida Electronic Library - Purchase Digital Content
The elementary eBook titles that the Division had purchased in FY 2019-2020 were some of the most used eBooks during the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year: Peace Dragon: Alphabetter was the most used title by public libraries and schools for several months. It was the third most used eBook out of all eBooks provided by the FEL (surpassed only by Everyday Finance: Economics, Personal Money Management, and Entrepreneurship and St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture). The fifth most popular title for the Fiscal Year, Club Safety: Help! I Can't Swim!, also was the eBook most used by public library users for several months. Other elementary titles came in at #8, #9, #11, #12 and #13 as the most used for the year out of all the eBooks provided by the FEL. Public library and school users accessed all of the elementary eBook titles consistently throughout the year. Due to the high popularity of the elementary eBook titles, we purchased another 64 elementary titles at the end of the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
Among the top search terms in FEL resources in 2020-2021: mental health, gun control, immigration, death penalty, human trafficking, depression, anxiety, racism and bullying. Many of these were also top search terms for the prior year. The most used title for schools in June was Got Issues?: Are You Being Abused?, while Essential Issues: Teen Self-Injury was a top title in March. The second most attended webinar was Build Better Mental Wellness with Gale Resources. With this in mind, the Division purchased 55 diversity, inclusion and mental health titles for high school, academic, and general interest users at the end of the Fiscal Year.
The overall use of the Florida Electronic Library has declined since the 2019-2020 Fiscal Year. The total number of sessions decreased by 6.15%, the number of searches by 17.5%. The number of full text retrievals decreased by 6.91%.
Looking at use by type of library: the number of academic sessions dropped by 9.43%, searches dropped by 33.31%, and full text retrievals dropped by about 21%. Alternatively, the number of school sessions increased slightly, though searches and full text retrievals decreased (-17.6% and 9.3% respectively). Public libraries show a very different change, however: The number of sessions increased by 3.83%, the number of searches dropped slightly (-1.83%) but the number of full text retrievals rose by 30.32%.
Looking at the BLD Services evaluation, the most common Florida Electronic Library related comment has to do with purchasing more materials. Sixty percent (60%) of those who answered the services evaluation survey question about the quality of the FEL’s resources indicated they were Excellent, with another 33% answering “Good.” One respondent provided a comment about the additional eBooks, and how they improved a local library’s service.
Training library staff and the public on Florida Electronic Library Resources
The Florida Electronic Library program offered 42 webinars that provided information about updates, new resources and how to use or implement FEL resources. Topics included in-depth looks into Elementary in Context, Microsoft and Google integration tools; using FEL resources in learning management systems, use analytics using the FEL Dashboard, mental health wellness, online reference, resources for academic libraries, and more. Three hundred and eight (308) people attended the live webinars, with another 85 accessing the recordings.
The follow-up survey had responses from academic, public and school library staff, as well as a few “other”. The top term describing the training was “informative”. Others included “helpful,” “interesting,” “useful” and even “wow!” In answer to “I learned something by participating in this library activity” 60% of participants strongly agreed while 31% agreed. In answer to “I intend to apply what I just learned” 64% of participants strongly agreed while 25% agreed. In answer to “Applying what I learned will help improve library services to the public”65% of participants strongly agreed while 25% agreed. The most suggested improvement was to make the training longer.
Some answers to the open-ended question “How will you apply what you have learned?” included:
"I will be able to help students with more confidence"
"better help patrons and other staff with accessing resources"
"Helping engage students in utilizing resources more effectively
"By Providing this information to patrons when asking about a resource that can help with health
or mental wellness"
"Helping patrons, family, friends and myself."
"I work as a reference librarian and this was a very good refresher course"
"Inform teachers and administrators of available content."
(Please see Attachment 2 – Post Webinar Survey for the complete survey results.)
Please briefly describe the importance of these outcomes and findings for future program planning:
Florida Electronic Library - Purchase Digital Content
As described above, searches in the Florida Electronic Library have shown that there is an interest in information about mental health, diversity and inclusion. The eBooks purchased during the Fiscal Year have yet to do a hard launch, so the outcome of those purchases is yet to be seen. The FEL Administrator will review the use of these resources during the 2021-2022 Fiscal Year and discuss the longer-term outcome in the final report.
Even though the overall use of the Florida Electronic Library decreased, the comments on the BLD Services Evaluation Survey showed strong interest in adding content to the FEL. Eighty three percent (83%) of the comments regarding the Florida Electronic Library requested additional resources on the FEL.
In FY 2019-2020, 31 out of the 73 library systems that completed the Annual Statistical Report for Public Libraries reported that they did not provide any additional electronic databases that year. This means the FEL is the only online reference resource for 42% of those 73 libraries. The eight libraries that did not complete the Annual Statistical Report are small libraries that have populations of less than 36,000 and are unlikely to have the collections budget to be able to provide additional resources. This potentially brings the total number of library systems in Florida that do not provide additional resources beyond the FEL to 39 library systems, or 48% of the library systems in Florida.
The question then is why is the overall use of FEL resources dropping, when public libraries rely on the FEL, and K-12 schools, colleges and universities moved to online learning? Looking at the changes in use of the FEL between the Academic library users, the K-12 library users and Public library users, there are some very interesting patterns emerging. These, combined with the digital divide and decreasing enrollment in colleges and universities, may give some reasons on the changes in FEL use.
One expectation in the pattern of use when education moved from in-person in classrooms to online from home would be a major change in the location of the access authentication. Students would no longer need to authenticate through the school resources to access the FEL, but could log in from home on their family computers. This would be true for both K-12 and college/university students. This would be a reasonable explanation for the increase in public library use of the FEL during the FY 2020-2021 Fiscal Year.
However, the increase in use of the FEL by public library users does not make up 100% for the decrease in use by those authenticating via K-12 or Academic access points, as the overall use of the FEL resources decreased. This decrease could be due to the digital divide. A recent Pew survey and study showed that the digital divide in the U.S. affected the ability of K-12 students to access the Internet. Six out of ten lower income parents and three out of ten middle income parents felt their children faced digital obstacles to being able to accomplish their schoolwork, whether it was lack of Internet (high speed or other) or having access to a computer. (Auxier, Brooke. “How Americans View Tech in the Time of Covid-19.” Pew Research Center, 18 Dec. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/12/18/what-weve-learned-about-americans-views-of-technology-during-the-time-of-covid-19/). With libraries closed or open with limited access, these students could no longer count on library computers and Internet to help with the gap. Even though more students were required to attend school from home, those with limited resources at home would not have the same level of use as they would have had accessing the FEL from school.
This is true for college students as well as for K-12. In a recent study, between 16% and 19% of college students reported having inadequate hardware or Internet connection), with lower-income students and rural students being more affected by the digital divide. (Jaggars, S. S., Motz, B. A., Rivera, M. D., Heckler, A., Quick, J.D., Hance, E. A., & Karwischa. “The Digital Divide Among College Students: Lessons Learned From the COVID-19 Emergency Transition.” Midwestern Higher Education Compact. 2021, www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/2021The_Digital_Divide_among_College_Students_1.pdf) Again, even though more students were required to school from home, those with limited resources at home would not have the same level of use as they would have had accessing the FEL from school.
Another factor in the decreased use of the Florida Electronic Library by academic users could be due to the decrease in student enrollment into colleges and universities. Florida’s enrollment fell in 2020 over the prior year, which showed an overall decrease from the year before. Enrollment at Florida’s two-year public colleges dropped .9% between Spring 2019 and Spring 2020 and 10.2% between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021. Enrollment at Florida’s four-year public colleges fell .4% between Spring 2019 and 2020, and .1% between Spring 2020 and 2021. (“Term Enrollment Estimates, Spring 2021” Tables 8a and 8b, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/CTEE_Report_Spring_2021.pdf)
The number of public libraries that depend solely on the Florida Electronic Library for their electronic databases has increased over the prior few years. In 2018-19 FY, six libraries reported in the Annual Statistical Report (ASR) that they did not purchase any licensed databases in addition to the Florida Electronic Library, with an additional seven small libraries that did not respond to the ASR. In 2019-2020, the number of libraries that reported they did not purchase additional content rose to 31, with eight small libraries that did not respond. This means that in 2018-19, 9% of reporting public libraries depended on the FEL for their resources in comparison to 42% in 2019-2020. If one considers the size and budgetary constraints of the non-reporting libraries, the likelihood of their being solely dependent on the FEL is extremely high, bringing the percentages from 16% in FY 2019-2019 to 48% in 2019-2020.
With nearly half the systems in the state depending on the FEL, there is a great need to continue the resource.
Training library staff and the public on Florida Electronic Library Resources
As shown by the extremely positive survey responses, the Florida Electronic Library training was well received and informative. With many suggestion of making the training longer, we will be offering some training at 45 minutes and an hour next Fiscal Year and evaluate the response.
Explain one or two of the most significant lessons learned for others wanting to adopt any facets of this project:
Access to virtual research materials has always been an important service provided by the Division of Library and Information Services, and the past year or two has shown this to be even more true.
The Florida Electronic Library has provided access to the FEL through various widgets, search tools, the FEL portal, and now through Learning Management Systems, single sign on portals (Open Athens, for example). When other states have seen the use of their electronic resources go down, Florida usage has not. It has remained relatively level through the past few years, with a slight shift in patterns - the use from schools dropped somewhat, while access through local public libraries went up. This may be from the number of students accessing the FEL from home rather than through the school portal.
Do you anticipate continuing this project after the current reporting period ends:
Yes
Do you anticipate any change in level of effort in managing this project:
No
Explain:
Do you anticipate changing the types of activities and objectives addressed by the project:
No
Explain:
Was an evaluation conducted for this project:
No
Was a final written evaluation report produced:
No
Can the final written evaluation report be shared publicly on the IMLS website:
No
Was the evaluation conducted by project staff (either SLAA or local library) or by a third-party evaluator:
Third-Party
What data collection tools were used for any report outcomes and outputs:
Did you collect any media for the data:
What types of methods were used to analyze collected data:
Other:
How were participants (or items) selected:
What type of research design did you use to compare the value for any reported output or outcome:
