With a tip of the straw hat to Old MacDonald... The N.H. Public Library Annual Report FY2004 data have gone to Washington to be assembled with their counterparts in the national database of Public Library Statistics. This year 217 libraries completed the report, 195 did it online through Bibliostat Collect. In other words, only 22 submitted paper copies, down from 38 last year; that's a terrific improvement. Unfortunately, 18 libraries of New Hampshire's 235 public libraries did not submit a FY04 report at all (9 of those had filed for FY03); our return rate was 92.3%

The state had a high of 235 libraries in 2004 because Easton rejoined the group after many years of being closed. However, the total will return to 234 for FY05 because the Union Village Library has closed, its collection dispersed and its trustees and librarian relieved of their duties. It's sad to see another library gone - Union joins Dorchester and Orange - but new libraries such as Madbury and Easton - and someday, perhaps, Rollinsford - give us hope.

Your State Data Coordinator is still working with people at the Census Bureau on edit check follow-ups. Those of you who use Bibliostat will recognize "edit checks" as those nasty little red messages that ask why your CY (current-year) figures are outside the appropriate range when compared with your PY (previous-year) figures, or why the totals don't equal the sum of the parts. Many edit checks use algorithms that no one has ever admitted to having devised; they hound their victim until a Federal note magically changes the red ink to green and the report can be submitted. But, once the reports get to Washington, Census actually reads all those Federal notes - and comes back with more questions. Once your SCD has resolved all the edit checks to Washington's preliminary satisfaction, the follow-ups follow; this is one of the biggest reasons for the delay in publishing the yearly statistics.

In the interests of expeding future Public Library Statistics compilations, here are suggestions for more accurate record keeping that will help eliminate a few common problems: look over last year's report to remind yourself what you need to be collecting or sampling this year; watch for an announcement about changes in the federal requirements as soon as Washington puts out the word; remember that the first year of "new" statistics is an informal collection; remember to count your Kids, Books & the Arts grants as state income; please separate your employee benefit figures from your salary figures, even if you have to beg the data from the town office; without a separate figure for benefits, your personnel expenditures are not counted (no, not even your wages or salaries), and the federal database is badly skewed; count adult and children's reference transactions, and adult and children's circulation, separately; if you don't, I have to estimate them - the program won't accept a total without separate components, and without transaction totals, we skew the federal database again; please check your library web site; make sure you put down the correct URL, which should not be confused with the library's e-mail address, and make sure it works; this year 45 libraries - almost 20% - submitted the wrong information.

If you have questions or encounter problems when you're filling out the New Hampshire Public Library Annual Report, whether online or on paper, please call or e-mail me at 1-800-462-1726 or spalmatier@library.state.nh.us. I'll get back to you as soon as I can, and if I don't have an answer I'll get one for you. Even if you have questions weeks after you've finished the report, please let me know. The more information you have, the more easily you can submit your statistics, the more statistics we gather - good, sound, accurate statistics - the better comparisons you can make among yourselves and between yourselves and other American libraries.