Book Reviews 121 als, and especially part 1 of the book, provides a great introduction to critical literacy and offers the reader several directions she or he could take for further study on this topic.—Michael R. Mitchell, Bethel University Lesley S.J. Farmer and Alan M. Safer. Library Improvement through Data Analysis. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2016. 184p. Paper, $75.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1425-0). LCCN 2015046382. Over recent years, there seems to be an increase in the number of books that tackle the subject of library analysis, metrics, assessment, evaluation, and altmetrics. And clearly there is a need on the part of academic libraries to better understand their processes, their outputs and impacts, and the value they bring to their institutions. Setting up assessment projects can be a challenge; and when you add statistical analysis to the mix, it can be very daunting. So it is exciting to see a book come out that merges library evaluation with statistics written in a much more digestible format. Library Improvement Through Data Analytics tries to be just that kind of book. The book is coauthored by Dr. Lesley Farmer, a highly respected academician and researcher, prolific author, and educator in the field of librarianship from California State University at Long Beach, and by Dr. Alan Safer, a professor of statistics also at Long Beach whose research ex- amines the application of statistics within multiple fields. Considering the topic, the authors put a lot of material in a relatively short 157 pages of text. Part of the way that they achieve this is through the use of many different charts as examples of the concepts they are discussing and lists of various concepts, issues, metrics, and think points. These two items, the charts and lists, will be invaluable to anyone taking on a project that aligns with what is covered in the book. They can almost be used as templates and outlines that can facilitate your own thinking. Readers may discover that the table in chapter 4 on processes and matching data is the part of the book that they will want to share most widely with their colleagues. The book is broken up into four parts: Overview, Six Sigma Steps, A Statistics Primer, and Case Studies. With 25 chapters spread out across them, it is clear that the chapters are relatively short. Having short chapters when dealing with such a broad topic, one would be correct that many of the chapters take a high-level view of what is covered. A good introduction chapter is followed by a chapter on planning Six Sigma, which prepares the reader for the part of the book focused on Six Sigma. Strangely enough, the planning chapter discusses two Six Sigma models, yet it gives the DMADV model short shrift including replacing most of the discussion on DMADV with information on the other DMAIC model. Even in the second part of the book, which focuses just on Six Sigma, the entire discussion is on the DMAIC model with no indication as to why the DMADV model, which is more future focused, was excluded altogether. This part of the book does do a very nice job of explaining the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) model of Six Sigma and poses lots of questions someone doing this work should think about. The reader might now think, given that so much of the book is dedicated to Six Sigma, that it would be employed in the remainder of the chapters. In this case, it is not. The examples used to illustrate Six Sigma in the chapters in Part II are the only items that the reader has to draw from. Part III of the book, which is the Statistics Primer section, has four chapters. These are fast and succinct chapters that provide more high-level review of statistics. It acts as a crib sheet of some of the core methods and processes around statistics. Those charts mentioned before again play a vital role in helping to understand the concepts covered. Chapter 10, which deals with matching analytic methods to data, is not only the longest chapter in the book at twenty pages; it is probably the most thorough. It goes through many different statistics methods and gives examples of the research doi:10.5860/crl.78.1.121 122 College & Research Libraries January 2017 goals that could be applied to find an answer. The reader is able to see how a variety of different problems can be answered using statistics. The final part of the book includes fourteen case studies. These cover a range of topics from e-books to reference staffing. Each one shows how data analytics can be applied to the problem being addressed. Some, like the case study on benchmarking library standards, give more detail on the analytic process, whereas the case study on instruction is so fleeting at just over one page, it is more of a minor commentary on test- ing. At times these chapters are less case studies and more like examples of problems. They do allow the reader to think about the problem, although they, like so much of the book, are not covered in any particularly great detail. This is a lost opportunity and would have been much better if other authors had been able to submit their own more detailed case studies of how they used data analytics. Surprisingly, the book ends with no concluding commentary, no recommenda- tions, nothing to pull it all together into a nice little package. The book does provide a bibliography of cited works, which is interesting since at the end of chapters it does list the references used in the chapter. The reason they do this may be because there are problems with some of the chapter references. For example, a 2005 work by Xia is cited on page 118, but the reference is not included at the end of the chapter, although it is included in the bibliography. Also, there is one item listed in the references at the end of chapter 5 but it is never cited within chapter 5. The authors do provide a list of “other useful readings” at the end of the book in case the reader wants to explore further. Note that some of the items in this list are also in the bibliography. For some- one just getting started in this area, the book does give a broad overview. The lists, charts, and tables also are excellent resources and can be beneficial. The book could have been more complete; maybe another edition will address some of this edition’s problems.—Mark Shelton, College of the Holy Cross Marketing and Outreach for the Academic Library: New Approaches and Initiatives. Bradford Lee Eden, ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. 153p. Paper, $45.00 (ISBN 978-1-4422-6254-6). LC 2016000813. Marketing and outreach are increasingly becoming topics of interest among academic librarians. It seems that conferences, presentations, journal articles, and blog posts are often discussing issues related to social media, programming, and student and faculty engagement in library services. These are a few areas of focus within marketing and outreach that are relevant to nearly all who work in an academic library. “Marketing and Outreach for the Academic Library” is the seventh volume in the “Creating the 21st Century Academic Library” series published by Rowman & Littlefield. This volume follows titles such as “Rethinking Technical Services: New Frameworks, New Skill Sets, New Tools, New Roles,” “Cutting-Edge Research in Developing Libraries of the Future: New Paths for Building Future Services,” and “Enhancing Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century Academic Library: Successful Innovations That Make a Difference.” This series clearly aims to cover all aspects of current academic librarianship. The editor of the series is Bradford Lee Eden, dean of library services at Valparaiso University and editor of several journals related to library science and musicology. This particular volume is composed of ten chapters. While there is no clear thematic organization to the content matter, there are three chapters that discuss various aspects of social media in libraries, two chapters related to events and event planning, three chapters related to digital services, one related to library space, and one that proposes a vision for the future of librarians and librarianship. Each chapter ends with cited references, and most include a list of other relevant and useful resources for further doi:10.5860/crl.78.1.122 _GoBack _GoBack _GoBack _GoBack _GoBack _GoBack