The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announces the publication of the ARL Statistics 2004–05, the latest in a series of annual publications that describe the collections, staffing, expenditures, and service activities of ARL's 123 member libraries. Of these member libraries, 113 are university libraries (14 in Canada, 99 in the US); the remaining 10 are public, governmental, and private research libraries (2 in Canada, 8 in the US).
ARL libraries are a relatively small subset of the largest research libraries in North America, but they account for a large portion of academic library resources in terms of assets, budgets, and the number of users they serve. The total library expenditures of all 123 member libraries in 2004–05 was more than $3.5 billion; of that total, more than $2.6 billion was spent by the 113 university libraries and $900 million was spent by the 10 nonuniversity libraries.
Law Libraries materials and staff accounted for the bulk of total expenditures, at 46% and 45% respectively. Respondents reported spending a total of $11,858,6 From the news release:
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announces the availability of the ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2004–05. This publication presents compilations and rankings of data that describe collections, expenditures, personnel, and services in 77 law libraries at ARL member institutions throughout North America.
In 2004–05, the reporting law libraries held a median of 313,574 volumes, had total expenditures of $200,223,137, and employed 2,259 FTE staff. Expenditures for83 for electronic materials; this includes a total of $10,235,586 for electronic serials.
This publication presents compilations and rankings of data that describe collections, expenditures, personnel, and services in 67 medical libraries at ARL member institutions throughout North America.
In 2004-05, the reporting health sciences libraries held a median of 243,011 volumes, had total expenditures of $229,669,155, and employed 2,537 FTE staff. Expenditures for materials and staff accounted for the bulk of total expenditures, at 45% and 42% respectively. Respondents reported spending a total of $40,211,607 for electronic materials, or a median of 43% of their total materials budgets; this includes a total of $36,656,698 for electronic serials.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
