Data & Analytics

ARL gathers and disseminates data and analytics on research library practices, effectiveness, and impact.

Our Research and Analytics program pursues a research agenda for the Association. We collect and analyze data on all aspects of research libraries’ roles in scholarly and scientific production, learning facilitation and learner success, and knowledge access and sustainability.

The program supports an active community for librarians interested in library assessment, evaluation, and improvement. This community shares approaches and solutions to problems through two activities:

• ARL maintains an online email community, ARL-Assess, that is open to all who are interested in joining.
• The Library Assessment Conference, co-sponsored by ARL and the University of Washington, is a biennial event that gathers practitioners and researchers. The conference provides a mix of invited speakers, contributed papers and posters, and workshops.

Contact Kevin Borden (kborden@arl.org) with questions.

Johns Hopkins Libraries Explore Impact of Collections on Students’ Mental Wellness

Can library spaces and collections—both physical and digital—foster a sense of well-being and engagement with the community? Like many college students in the United States, students at Johns Hopkins University...

Research Library Impact Pilots

Research Library Impact Pilots can be a research project (a formal, original research study, facilitated by ARL and its members) or a practice brief (a short document designed to support...

ARL Salary Survey Statistical Trends

The following papers, reports, and presentations highlight demographic shifts in the ARL workforce over time based on analyses of demographic data collected as part of the annual ARL Salary Survey....

ARL Statistics Survey Statistical Trends

These graphs highlight trends emerging from data collected as part of the annual ARL Statistics survey. Click on the links below to download the graph or data table....

• 2019 Survey Schedule

  ARL Annual Survey Data Collection 2019 2018–19 ARL Statistics Survey Opens: August 15, 2019 Survey Due to ARL: January 15, 2020 Tentative Publication Dates: Summer 2020 2019–20 ARL Salary Survey...

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  ARL Annual Salary Survey

  This survey gathers data on salaries for more than 14,000 professional positions in ARL member libraries and tracks minority representation in ARL US libraries. The data collected includes the average,...

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  ARL Statistics® Survey

  This survey collects data that describe the collections, overall library expenditures, materials expenditures, staffing, and operational and service activities of member libraries. This data series began in 1908 and represents...

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  DataBridge Prepares Students for Careers in Data Science

  The University Libraries at Virginia Tech is helping students develop skills to succeed in the fast-growing field of data science. DataBridge, an undergraduate research program offered by the libraries, provides...

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  Scientist Aims to Optimize Science through Data Analysis

  Why would a school of information science have a biologist and physicist on its faculty? Jevin D. West, assistant professor at the University of Washington iSchool and co-director of the...