Analyzing IMLS Data to Find Your Peer Libraries

"Peer analysis" is a tool used in finance, management, and even sports -- and you do it unconsciously all the time.  We're simply finding the similar items in a large dataset by one or more dimensions, and then seeing how they compare in other dimensions.  In other words, if you're the director of a small library in Ruraltown, Nebraska, you don't want to compare your library's collection numbers to those larger library systems in Omaha and Nebraska.