Academic library directors' use of statistical data-benchmarking tools for the libraries

There has been an ongoing discussion about the input of the library to the output of their university. The challenge here seems to be that it is difficult to discern a clear correlation without in-depth research and analysis. Nonetheless, the libraries must prove their value to their parent organizations to take part in the continual survival game of academic resource allocation as well as competing with different actors for the dissemination of academic information. In this paper, we analyze how the statistical data is utilized in comparing the success of the universities, their output and in addition, the resources allocated to them and its use by the libraries. The comparison is made between five Finnish universities with similar sizes and academic structures. The main source of the data is interviews conducted with library managers.