Statistics in Planning for National Information Services.

To identify the essential core of statistical data needed to plan improvements in library and information services in the United States, one must examine some recent trends in public administration methods and their potential applicability to the library field. Public administrators increasingly regard planning as a cycle: perception of needs, formulation and comparison of options, transmission of findings to decision makers, and evaluation. In the United States, the local autonomy of libraries has inhibited coordinated planning. However, a formal national focus for planning has been created in the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS). In the absence of adequate statistics, NCLIS has relied on expressions of need from the field. Proposals and projects are not as likely to secure support on this basis as they would when targeted to well-defined activity loads/needs, cost-effectiveness data, and evaluation plans. To be relevant to these uses, data must meet the standards of timeliness, appropriate coverage, credibility, and clarity. Shortfalls in these respects can be avoided by careful articulation of data needed and by the standardization of formats. Basic library resource and performance data should be systematically available soon. (Author/SL)