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1990 Newsletter Archive
DIALOGUE (JUNE 1990)
by Claudette John, CIGNA Corporation
As promised at the end of the last "Dialogue," I am starting a new topic with
this issue: statistical reporting for small company and institutional archives.
My guess is that most of you have reporting requirements and that you probably
speak to management in the terms it understands best--you quantify. The first of
these columns on reference is about my experience at NA/CIGNA and should get us
started; the next one I have reserved for the comments of Newsletter readers.
After that Iåll address other archival functions that lend themselves to
quantitative analysis.
The first quantitative report that I did was for NA in 1977 when the Office of
the Corporate Secretary, of which the Archives was a part, began to require
weekly reports. It was a simple count of reference requests for the week. Then,
as now, my goal was to collect and report the numbers in the fastest and
simplest way possible without sacrificing accuracy. I developed a form that was
completed as each request was received and answered. It included the date and
the name, phone number, location and department or affiliation of the requestor;
the question and a brief summary of the answer or a list of the materials
supplied. I noted in the text of the weekly report requests that were
particularly time consuming. The number of requests was totaled at the end of
the year. Nothing more.
After INA merged with Connecticut General in 1982, forming CIGNA, the
quantitative reporting gradually became more sophisticated, in part, I think,
because the Archives was moved from the Law Division to Administrative Services;
in part because I had eight bosses in five years and realized that numbers would
support my attempts to explain what the Archives did and why we were important
to the company. I began to report statistics monthly and to include in the text
information on who our major clients were and how the records were used. Large
projects were summarized.
Initially, when the emphasis was on service, that was enough. Later, during
corporate "downsizing," I went back to the research request forms and did a
numerical analysis of our major clients by division, noting the kinds of
reference service we had provided. Compiling this information enabled me to do
several things:
1. Ask our most important clients to speak for the Archives.
2. Show that the services we provided were necessary and argue that they would be
more
expensive and less effective if the responsibility were assumed by each division
separately.
3. Prove that the Archives was used by the lines of business as well as by
corporate divisions. (Corporate expenses are allocated to the income -producing
divisions, and the lines have become increasingly reluctant to pay for anything
they deem unnecessary.)
4. Make a case, in quantitative terms, for retaining archival services within the
company. (Reference statistics were only a part of this case. Others will be
discussed in future columns.)
One difficult requirement that I have never been able to satisfy is to report on
the quality of our work statistically. How do you quantify quality? My first
boss, when I blithely announced in a Monday morning staff meeting that I had
answered a record twenty-five requests for information and documents in the past
week, teased, "Yes but did you answer them correctly?å I was lucky. He
understood that quality is more important than quantity in the world of
archives. It has not always been so easy. I wish I could find a way to quantify
quality. The comparative statistics that I have compiled since 1986 are a start.
They show that we have responded to more requests for information each year and
that while we have added new client departments, our old ones keep coming back.
Beyond that, I must rely on brief summaries of accomplishments and, in dire
circumstances, on client references.
Do you have questions about what I have described so briefly? Have you developed
methods for compiling and using reference statistics? Please contact me:
Claudette John, CIGNA Corporation Archives, 1600 Arch Street, Box 7716,
Philadelphia, PA 19192; or phone (215) 523-3293. I am looking forward to
including your comments in the next ÃDialogue."
to top of 1990
Newsletter Archive
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