IMLS / public-libraries-survey

FY 2026 IMLS Public Libraries Survey: Solicitation of Data Elements Changes
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Training Example: Deletion - 500 Public Service Hours Per Year (HRS_OPEN) #58

Open klow-air opened 2 years ago

klow-air commented 2 years ago

Name: Evan Nielsen

State/Affiliation: American Institutes for Research (AIR)

Description of Change: Delete data element #500, Public Service Hours Per Year (HRS_OPEN)

Current Definition: This is the sum of annual public service hours for outlets.

Justification: To be clear, I am only proposing that HRS_OPEN be removed from the data collection, not from the data files. The outlet data element HOURS would be retained and used to populate HRS_OPEN. In FY 2017, edit checks for consistency between HRS_OPEN (500) and HOURS (713) occurred more than 1,500 times. If HRS_OPEN should simply be the sum of HOURS values for the outlets in that AE, then the value for HRS_OPEN should be a calculated field, instead of reported. This would eliminate the burden of resolving these inconsistencies.

Potential methodological issues: States will continue to include HRS_OPEN on their data files causing import validation issues.