Critque of the 2004 Annual Report of the King County Law Library

All page numbers are based off of the pdf version of the report that can be reached here.

The homepage of the King County Law Library can be reached here.

Strengths

Comprehensive introduction to report with focus on theme report, highlights of the report, and promises of responsiveness from the board in the year ahead. (pg.3)

Complete statement of Board of Trustees Activities including policy changes, legislative activities, and the overall theme of the year. (pg.4-5)

Mission Statement is balanced and well thought out. (pg. 5)

Highlights section makes good use of graphics and very complete summaries of the 85th Anniversary Campaign and the Reopening. (pg.6-7)

Good quick summaries of none reopening related events and programs in the Patron Outreach section. (pg.8)

Good explanation of figures used and why the numbers are off for the year compared to the previous in the Finances section. (pg.12-13)

Very complete figures for income and expenditures presented in an easy to read format. (pg.13)

Weaknesses

Mission statement is to long and should be reduced to one paragraph or two one sentence bullet points. (pg.5)

Opening to the 85th Anniversary Campaign in the Highlights section was to long and the second of the three paragraphs could be condensed into a graphic. (pg.6)

Web Statistics should not be located in the Patron Outreach section and should be in a seperate User Statistics area with other approirate information. (pg.9)

Information about providing free database searching (HeinOnline Now Available) should be located in the Behind the Scenes section with other computer information. (pg.9)

Collection Management subsection in Behind the Scenes should not talk about cancellation of titles. (pg.11)

Behind the Scenes section gives to much detail about problems in the other building and the move returning to the Courthouse. (pg.11)

Not enough focus on the success of turning a projected deficit into an actual surplus. (pg.12)

Staff Development section has too much information. The public does not need to know the name of every committee, professional organization, presentation, conference, and publication that an employee attended or appeared in over the course of the year. (pg.14-15)

Looking Ahead section seems to be a mix of goals without time limits and objectives for the new year. It needs to be simplified into either goals with reasonable time limits or a shorter list of objectives for the coming year. (pg.16)

The report needs to have fewer screenshots overall.

 

Missing Information

List of major contributors is missing. Report does not even include a list of firms that provided support for the reopening. This is noticably lacking given the amount that the fundraising campaign is discussed.

Needs for the coming year are not articulated.

Only the usage statistics for the website are included. The report needs at least a door count and a separate section for the statistics.

The goals for 2004 are not listed.

The benefits that King County gains from the library are not listed.

No comparison with other law libraries in the state or similar special libraries in the region. Making comparisons with previous years only leads to more explanation then may strictly have been needed.

No listing of volunteers that assisted with library operations or with the move itself.

No list of needs for the coming year, although it did include budget information for the coming year.

 

Overall Evaluation

The 2004 Annual Report for the King County Law Library was is many ways substandard. It suffered from an excessive amount of writing, a large amount of missing information, and a Broad that focused to heavily on one event during the year.

The main problem with this report is that many sections of it were overwritten. Many of the subsections could have been reduced to one or at most two paragraphs. Some of the subsections could have been cut entirely or reduced to two or three sentence explanation; these is noticably true on pages four, five, six, nine, and ten. Many details were included that the reader didn't need and this excess verbage seems to have squeezed out important parts of the report.

This report also has a large amount of missing content that needs to be addressed. If so much space in the report is going to cover how funds were raised then space should be reserved to recognize the givers.

Some of the problems with the report seem to stem from the library undergoing a reopening this year. Future reports will likely focus less on one major event and the fundraising that led up to it.