More Value Research from the 2013 ACRL Conference

 Posted by at 9:12 am  Communicating Value, General  No Responses »
May 222013
 

Whether or not you were able to attend ACRL in Indianapolis last month, you can check out lots of the great conference content through the proceedings, now available online. Here are a few contributed papers that present Value-related projects. The authors of these papers respond to the research agenda of the Value report in interesting ways.

Academic and Public Library Collaboration: Increasing Value by Sharing Space, Collections, and Services by Daniel Overfield and Coleen Roy

This project, from Cuyahoga Community College (CCC), is in the very early stages of working to demonstrate correlations between a popular reading collection and student engagement. CCC is collaborating with neighboring public library systems to install a small popular reading collection in the college library and hopefully increase student engagement. The CCC librarians plan to assess the impact and value of the popular collection by tracking circulation, visitor counts, and public library card applications. They believe that student success, student retention, and even graduation rates may be aided by the presence of a more diverse and interesting library collection. We hope to hear results from the project sometime soon!

Answering “How” and “Why” Questions of Library Impact on Undergraduate Student Learning by Derek Rodriguez

The author of this paper suggests that one of the most important questions asked in the Value report is “How does the library contribute to undergraduate student learning?” He presents the Understanding Library Impacts (ULI) protocol, which is designed to help libraries detect and communicate their impact on undergraduate student learning. There are two instruments in ULI: 1) a questionnaire to gather quantitative and qualitative data about student use of library resources, services, and facilities during academic work and 2) a “Learning Activities Crosswalk” that supports connections between library use and student learning outcomes. The ULI protocol has been used in ten library assessment projects over the past two years and examples from those projects are used in this paper.

Choosing and Using Assessment Management Systems: What Librarians Need to Know by Megan Oakleaf, Jackie Belanger, and Carlie Graham

The Value report highlighted the need for libraries to assess their information literacy instructional activities and programs and to demonstrate how their instructional activities contribute to student learning as well as the wider educational and research missions of their parent institutions. As a result, many academic libraries now face the challenge of assessing student learning and determining the best ways to collect, manage, and report assessment data. In order to support these efforts, the Value report highlights the potential usefulness of assessment management systems, or AMSs.

The aim of this paper is to inform librarians about various features and uses of AMSs in order to help them participate in conversations about the adoption and use of AMSs at their own institutions. Previous work on this topic within the LIS field has identified a number of significant benefits that libraries can reap in using an institution-wide AMS. This paper endeavors to forward this conversation by providing a more detailed discussion of specific features of a number of commercial AMSs, and by offering examples of how these systems are being used by academic librarians. This paper provides librarians with key selection criteria for choosing an AMS and explores the benefits and challenges faced by libraries and their institutions in using AMSs.

 

If you know of more research on this topic, please let us know in the comments.

Demonstrating Value Through Assessment and Surveys

 Posted by at 2:24 pm  Communicating Value, General  No Responses »
May 122013
 

At last month’s ACRL conference, there were more than 50 sessions that focused on assessment and/or the value of academic libraries.  While it was not possible to attend all the presentations, there were a number of poster sessions that provided examples of how libraries are gathering information to present on their value.  I focused on several of the poster sessions that had been publicized as focusing on value in the ACRL conference program.

One poster, “Demonstrating the Value of Academic Libraries with the MISO Survey” presented information on data collected from over 80,000 respondents between 2005 and 2012.  The survey has just completed its eighth year.  In terms of full disclosure, our institution participated in this survey for the first time this spring.   The presenters for this poster session were from a variety of  institutions including Bryn Mawr, Earlham College, Lafayette College, Spring Hll College, University of Richmond, and Brandeis University. MISO stands for “Measuring Information Services Outcomes” and the web-based survey instrument includes questions that measure use for both library and IT services.  The survey instrument collects feedback from faculty, staff, and students on services to measure the frequency of use, what services are considered most important, as well as measuring satisfaction by the respondents.   By evaluating those services that are frequently used as well as those that are not, as mentioned in their poster, the survey can be used both for improving services and for strategic planning.  With high response rates from faculty and students, libraries can assess those services that are both high in use and high in satisfaction as well as those services that are less frequently used and/or have low satisfaction.  For libraries looking to find information on what services are of the most value to faculty, it will provide a measurement of those services that faculty value highly and also use frequently.  With the data, libraries should be able to craft messages on high use/high value services in terms of demonstrating their overall contribution to the institution as well as the value of their support for faculty.  Two of the questions addressed by the survey are:

  • What services and resources are important to our constituents, and how successfully do our organizations deliver them?

  • How effectively do we communicate with our campus constituencies about our services and resources?

As a means of making improvements, the results should be able to provide data to show that changes may need to be made if  there are services that the librarians value highly, but faculty or students aren’t using.  This is where improvements in communication could provide an increase in underutilized services.

An additional feature of the survey is that MISO allows participating institutions to collect data on their campus and compare their results with the peer institutions who participate in the annual survey.  It is not the same group of institutions every year.  However, as a tool it not only measures satisfaction, but also can help identify trends.  You can see a copy of the poster presented at ACRL at

http://www.misosurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/MISO_ACRL_Poster_FINAL.pdf

 

More details about the MISO survey will be found at the general information page for ACRL -

http://www.misosurvey.org/acrl/

 

There were a number of excellent posters and sessions on work being done by libraries to both use the Value report and to collect data to help demonstrate value.  Other posters will be featured in future blog postings.

 

Assessment 101: Getting Started

 Posted by at 12:35 pm  General  No Responses »
Mar 252013
 

In The Value of Academic Libraries, page 93, “What to do next” includes, “Get Started.”

Whether you start with a small project or use existing data, the most important step, is to start.  If you haven’t started already, what are the barriers or challenges facing you?  Are you uncertain as to what the exact challenges are that are keeping you from embarking on a project?  The following are a few possible resources that may be of help to get you started.

A freely accessible resource, “Assessment 101 for Librarians: A Guidebook”, by Tina Chrzastowski is available from IDEALS (Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship) [http://hdl.handle.net/2142/28582] This guide is an excellent starting point for anyone who just wants to get a brief introduction to the topic.  Librarians often cite a lack of skills as being one of the major obstacles for starting an assessment program, but Ms. Chrzastowski states:

“Experience is helpful, but not absolutely required.  In time, today’s library assessment beginners become tomorrow’s experts.  This is a skill that can be learned, and one that does improve with experience, learning from mistakes and taking risks.  Librarians and staff willing to shoulder the responsibilities of assessment need to be allowed some room to learn, grow, make mistakes and forge ahead.  

The important piece is ‘this is a skill that can be learned.’  In addition to the guide, Ms. Chrzastowski provides a list of additional resources to help one start the process of learning.

In Megan Oakleaf’s workbook, Academic Library Value:  Impact Starter Kit, Activity #25 is focused on Assessment Fears, Challenges, and Barriers.  Megan has made a copy of this activity freely available at her website.  http://meganoakleaf.info/ALVactivity25.pdf  Perhaps completing the exercise can assist your organization in identifying not only what is preventing you from starting, but perhaps help you identify strategies for overcoming those barriers.  Is it a question of time, or resources?  Is it a lack of skills or lack of interest?  Maybe you could challenge your assumptions and identify a strategy that will get you started on assessment in your own institution.

Lastly, the most recent issue of Portal: Libraries and the Academy (January 2013) includes, “A Review of the Literature on Assessment in Academic and Research Libraries, 2005 to August 2011” by Jon R. Hufford.   As pointed out by the author, “the use of the words assessment and evaluation among librarians is sometimes ambiguous, or has changed over the years.”  He goes to explain his selection criteria for inclusion in his review of the literature.  As a survey of the literature over six years, he has provided a distillation of books, articles, and conference proceedings that all provide additional resources to help one develop a better understanding of assessment in libraries.

If one keeps in mind that a primary emphasis of assessment is to analyze for the purpose of providing improvements when needed, the most important part of assessment is to get started.

What’s holding you back from getting started with assessment?

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