Library Assessment: Why Today and not Tomorrow

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Library Assessment Why Today and not Tomorrow
Martha Kyrillidou, Association of Research
Libraries Colleen Cook, Texas AM University
Library Assessment Thessaloniki, Greece June
13-15, 2005
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• Bangor University considers removing librarians
  posted by Blake on Thursday January 27, _at_0730AM
  -753 hits       Ms Information writes
  "News from the University of Wales Bangor in the
  UK. senior management no longer feel that subject
  librarians / academic liaison librarians are
  needed in the modern academic library. They have
  made restructuring proposals which include
  removing all bar one of the subject librarians
  and a tier of the library management, including
  the Head of Bibliographic Services. The
  university management thinks that technology has
  'deskilled' literature searching. As far as I
  know, this proposal is unprecedented in the
  United Kingdom.In essence, there will remain 4
  professional librarians serving a 'research-led'
  university of 8,000 plus FTEs and with 8 library
  sites. These will be the university librarian,
  cataloguing librarian, acquisitions librarian and
  Law librarian.Has anything like this happened
  anywhere that you know of? If so, what have been
  the effects?

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• Today
• is
• Tomorrow

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Rise of User-Centered Library Concept and the
Culture of Assessment in the 1990s

• User-Centered Library
• All services and activities are viewed through
  the eyes of the customers
• Customers determine quality
• Library services and resources add value to the
  customer

• Culture of Assessment
• Organizational environment in which decisions are
  based on facts, research and analysis,
• Services are planned and delivered to maximize
  positive customer outcomes

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Why Assess?

• Accountability and justification
• Improvement of services
• Comparison with others
• Identification of changing patterns
• Identification of questionable services
• Marketing and promotion
• Decisions based on data, not assumptions
• Assumicide!

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Good Assessment Practices

• Focus on the user
• Diverse samples/representative groups of users
• Fair and unbiased queries
• Measurable results that can be used
• Criteria for success
• Employ qualitative and quantitative techniques
• Corroboration from other sources

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What Are We Measuring?

• Institutional assessment efforts should not be
  concerned about valuing what can be measured, but
  instead about measuring what is valued.
• A.W. Astin, Assessment for Excellence, 1991
• What is easy to measure is not necessarily what
  is desirable to measure.
• M. Kyrillidou, An overview of performance
  measures in higher education and libraries, 1998

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Effective AssessmentEasier Said Than Done

• Libraries in many cases are collecting data
  without really having the will, organizational
  capacity, or interest to interpret and use the
  data effectively in library planning.
• The profession could benefit from case studies of
  those libraries that have conducted research
  efficiently and applied the results effectively.
• (Denise Troll Covey, Usage and Usability
  Assessment Practices and Concerns, 2002)

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What data do YOU collect

• What
• Why
• How

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Impact of Information Technology Upon Libraries
Costs Access Restrictions Scalability User
Behavior
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ARL Overall
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ARL Undergraduate
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ARL Graduate
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ARL Faculty
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Libraries Remain a Credible Resource in 21st
Century
98 agree with statement, My library contains
information from credible and known sources.
Note. Digital Library Federation and Council on
Library and Information Resources. (2002).
Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information
Environment.
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Changing Behaviors
Recent Survey Only 15.7 agreed with the
statement The Internet has not changed the way I
use the library.
Note. Digital Library Federation and Council on
Library and Information Resources. (2002).
Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information
Environment.
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Googlization
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everyone in class tried to get those articles
on line and some people didnt even bother to go
to the stacks when they couldnt Google them.
Graduate
Student
NYT Online 6/21/04
(Katie Hafner, Old search engine in
the
the library
tries to fit into a Google world)
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The Internet Goes to College

• Early data from ethnographic interviews
• I use Google because I heard it searches for
  more things (than other sources).
• I believe I can find anything on the Internet.
  There hasnt been anything I havent been able to
  find.
• Because Im lazy.
• Books have so much information that no one can
  go through it all.
• I use the Internet first is because it is more
  convenient.
• I go to the library because thats what teachers
  like.
• Google has gotten me through college.
• Source Steve Jones, The Internet Goes to
  College, ARL Talk

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What It Means - Implications

• What might reliance on Google (or other sites)
  mean for the future?

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• Emphasis on understanding the role and
  contributions of libraries to the teaching,
  learning and research missions of parent
  institutions and individual users

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a revolution in making

• Il est plus nécessaire d'étudier les hommes que
  les livres
• FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (16131680)