FY22-24 SLAA OMB Supporting Statement Part B 20220727

State Library Administrative Agency (SLAA) Survey Data Collection

Supporting Statement for PRA Submission

B	Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

B.1. Universe, Sample Design, and Estimation

The State Library Administrative Agency (SLAA) Survey is a universe survey of all 51 SLAAs, from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC). The chief officer of each SLAA designates a staff person as the key holder, who has primary responsibility for completing the survey, although additional staff may assist in its completion. In many states, the key holder is the State Data Coordinator for the Public Libraries in the United States Survey (PLS).

B.2. Procedures for the Collection of Information

After receiving OMB approval, IMLS and Research Triangle International (RTI), the company contracted by IMLS to conduct the SLAA, will prepare for and administer the SLAA FY2022 collection that opens to SLAAs in January 2023. Preparation activities conducted in 2022 included a review of the survey instrument; a review of data elements, edit-checks, post-collection processing; and development of the instrument in Qualtrics, the web application tool for the FY2022 data collection. Upcoming preparation and administration activities in 2022 and into 2023 include contacting the chief officers of the SLAAs and the designated key holders; opening the web application for respondents during the data collection field period; post-collection editing and imputation of the data file; and release of the data file, data documentation (Data User’s Manual), and report of the findings on imls.gov.

Data Collection

Programming the Web Application

The SLAA data will be collected over the internet via a computer self-administered questionnaire to allow for the collection and analyses of high-quality and timely policy-relevant data on the current status of state library agencies that enable an ongoing evaluation of trend comparisons. For the FY2022 collection, the SLAA instrument will be implemented in Qualtrics, which is a commercially available survey platform. The online administration has been designed to minimize user technology requirements for both hardware and software, and as such, the SLAA web tool can be accessed via personal computers or laptops, using either Macintosh or Windows operating systems. All that will be needed to access the survey tool is internet access to any commonly used web browser, including Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome.

The web application has been designed to minimize response burden, enable timely submissions of high-quality data, and require minimal or no edit follow-up for data problems. Documentation such as a user's guide, collection instructions, a webinar to train on the use of the instrument, and a recording of that webinar will be made available to participants prior to the survey launch. An edit check tool will alert the respondent to questionable data during the data entry process via on-screen edit check warnings and an edit check report that can be viewed on-screen. These tools will ease the completion of the survey and enable the review and submission of the data in a timely fashion. In addition, the survey will be transmitted with data pre-entered into the system from the prior two-year data collection in FY2020 for items that are not expected to change. The respondent will be instructed to review the pre-entered data and update any information that has changed from what was entered in the FY2020 survey. All other data fields will be left blank for the respondent to fill in.

The web-based reporting system will be updated and maintained by the contractor. The contractor will serve as the primary administrator of the data collection. IMLS and the contractor will share responsibility for testing the product prior to its official release. The web application’s operation will be reviewed on an ongoing basis by the contractor. Updates and improvements to the application will be made as needed.

Contacting Respondents

The official request for data collection will be emailed to the chief officers of SLAAs and will stress the importance of their participation in the survey as partners in the process. The key holders will receive a separate email that recognizes their primary responsibility for completion of the survey and encourages their response. The email to the key holders will include a link with the login for the web application embedded.

Statistical Methodology

This is a universe survey and does not require special considerations for statistical methods.

Imputation

To make complete SLAA datasets for constructing estimates of totals, it is sometimes necessary to impute missing data items. After the data have been collected, edited, and cleaned, remaining missing items will be imputed. The data will be identified as either imputed or reported on the survey data file through the use of imputation flags and data users will be given definitions of what each flag means. Six imputation methodologies used in the FY2012 through FY2020 data collections will continue to be used for the proposed FY2022 survey: Zero Rule, Growth Rule, Sum Rule, Raking Rule, Sum of Internal-Detail-Report Rule, and Disaggregation Rule.

B.3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates and to Deal with Non-Response

Maximizing Response Rates

As the end of the data collection period approaches, the contractor, RTI, will contact non-respondents to encourage their completion of the survey. Members of the IMLS staff will contact the state library agencies, if necessary, to encourage response. IMLS Library Statistics Working Group (LSWG) members will be available to serve as mentors and may provide technical assistance to states in reporting their data. The contractor will conduct an edit follow-up of the data submissions and try to obtain any data not reported in the original submission to maximize accuracy and response rate.

The John Lorenz Award, a certificate signed by the Director of IMLS, will be presented to chief officers and key holders who submit their data a month before the end of the data collection period.

Approaches to Non-Response

Historically, issues of non-response have not been a problem with the SLAA Survey. The survey is the result of a cooperative effort between the chief officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) and IMLS. This cooperative effort has led to the 100 percent response rate this survey has historically achieved.

B.4. Steps to Minimize Burden and to Improve Utility

IMLS is committed to collecting high-quality data while minimizing the burden to respondents. IMLS continually reviews the survey instrument to determine whether data elements need to be changed, added, or deleted. Changes were made to the FY2022 instrument through a collaborative process, leading to LSWG approval, and then a state vote. These changes include the addition of seven items, including the conversion of one temporary COVID-19 item on partnerships to a standing item; the removal of two items; and one change to simplify the type of response being collected which will impact 25 items and 125 variables.

In January 2022, the full LSWG group reviewed the changes and recommended that all 10 items move to state vote. In February 2022, IMLS and the survey vendor delivered a webinar to COSLA to introduce the proposed changes. An electronic ballot was distributed to all 51 respondents (all states and the District of Columbia), and the voting period was open for 4 weeks from February to March 2022. To pass state vote, at least 38 states, or 66% of respondents, needed to vote in favor. All items passed state vote with a range of 45-51 states, or 88% to 100%, voting in favor of the proposed changes.

The web-based reporting system will be updated and maintained by the contractor. The web application will be updated to keep pace with changes in technology that enhance ease of use, as well as to make changes based on feedback from respondents in preparing to administer the SLAA FY2022 data collection.

Evaluations of the reliability and validity of the data will continue to be conducted periodically. The edit specifications will be evaluated as part of every survey cycle.

B.5. Individuals Responsible for Study Design and Performance

The following individuals are responsible for the study design, collection, and analysis of the data on SLAA.

Table B1. Personnel Involved with SLAA

Institution	Personnel	Email / Phone
Institute of Museum and Library Services 955 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Suite 4000 Washington, DC 20024	Marisa Pelczar, PhD Program Analyst Jacob Soffronoff Survey Methodologist Matthew Birnbaum, PhD Director, Office of Research and Evaluation Teresa DeVoe Associate Deputy Director – State Programs	mpelczar@imls.gov 202-653-4647 jsoffronoff@imls.gov 202-653-4648 mbirnbaum@imls.gov 202-653-4760
		tdevoe@imls.gov 202-653-4778
Research Triangle International 3050 East Cornwallis Rd. PO Box 12194 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194	Elizabeth Robbins Program Director, Web and Mobile Applications Development	robbins@rti.org 919-541-7062

IMLS: SLAA Supporting Statement B | 2