Quantitative Methods and Inferential Statistics: Capacity and Development for Librarians

In informal conversations locally and at conferences, the author has heard librarians acknowledge that statistics may in fact be useful, but then liberally use adjectives such as intimidating and boring. Personally, she loves math and statistics, perhaps to what others might consider an unreasonable or evangelical degree. She does not expect all librarians to become devoted mathophiles. However, she does contend that increasing people's understanding of statistics individually and collectively will lead to better research, better evidence, better assessment, and better library and information practice. In this paper, she will discuss her observations of the current relationship between academic librarianship and statistics, the utility of and case for statistics, and a number of different ways to learn more about statistics. Her presentation at the 2016 C-EBLIP Fall Symposium was descriptive and subjective in nature, and she did not discuss the wide range of research that relates to the use of statistics by librarians.