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This column is a reflective response to Dr. Jung Mi Scoulas' recent column, Navigating and evaluating ongoing assessment efforts in the University Library, that was published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Library Administration (Scoulas, 2024). In this column, the guest contributor discusses an evolution of assessment practices at a large public research university library in the southeastern United States. At this library, assessment has shifted from a practice that was routine and periodic to an approach that is purposeful, necessary, and helps to drive data-informed decision making that is actionable, impactful, and in alignment with the goals and mission of the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study systematically reviews the studies based on a search of published articles from 2010 to 2021 on library service quality with the aim of determining which models of service quality are the most commonly used by librarians as a means of measuring service quality. In addition, the paper makes an effort to determine the variety of dimensions by which these qualitative evaluations were carried out, the types of libraries that have reported such qualitative studies, and the data collection strategies (research population, sample size and data collection instruments) adopted by the authors. The findings indicate that the SERVQUAL and LibQual models are the most frequently adopted models. The empathy, reliability, tangible, assurance, responsiveness, effect of library, information control and library as place are the prominent dimensions. The researchers rely heavily on questionnaire-based survey research methods with sample sizes of less than 100 respondents, mostly reported in academic libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annual reports are an opportunity to demonstrate transparency and communicate with stakeholders. This article presents an exploratory content analysis of library annual reports and Instagram accounts in a state university system. The researchers synthesized common themes in content and structure developing archetypal formats of annual reports. These archetypes clarify the interplay between audience, purpose, content and design in developing a cohesive product. Findings indicate that libraries are neglecting opportunities to repurpose content between Instagram and annual reports. Information collected for the annual report provides content that can be tailored for Instagram posts, which in turn directs interested audience members to the full annual report. Finally, the best practices and strategies to improve communication and engagement with stakeholders identified by the researchers will be shared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Library assessments are used to inform others of the library's value to the community and to assist in decision-making. In some instances, those conducting the assessment are not those who are describing the library's value or making decisions. In these instances, a final assessment step is to close the loop of assessment. This article examines the assessment and user experience literature for insights on how library employees can close the loop on library assessments. It suggests the next steps employees may take after completing an assessment that results in library improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Library and Archives of Iran is the most important library in the country, taking on tasks such as providing and protecting the written and unwritten national heritage and organizing the services of other libraries in Iran. An assessment of the National Library and Archives of Iran is critical to understanding how the organization contributes to organizational and strategic goals. This article aims to show the rankings and priorities of performance indicators based on the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard framework (resources, access and infrastructure; use; efficiency; and potentials and development) and with use of the analytic hierarchy process. The perspectives of resources, use, efficiency, and potentials and development were rated. The top performance indicators included: 'Level of user satisfaction with searching the National Library and Archives of Iran's website', 'Percentage of acquired books in any medium and multimedia resources entered by legal deposit' and 'Qualitative evaluation using case studies of use and value of the collection and services'. Pervious literature shows various applications of a joint balanced scorecard and analytic hierarchy process. This study applies this integrated framework throughout an organization in a new service field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes an investigation into a new movement in disability education that impacts academic libraries. Those with (ID) are typically left without options for socializing, education, or employment after high school. To address this, Post-Secondary Education (PSE) programs have been created, which offer a non-degreed course of study at colleges to provide these individuals with education, vocational training, and peer interactions. This study investigates to what extent academic libraries have engaged with PSE programs at their campus to provide their students access to the libraries. The survey contacted all PSE programs in the country that are registered with the ThinkCollege Institute and both quantitative and qualitative data are gathered and analyzed. While library engagement with PSE programs is modest, a number of innovations point to improved programming for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using personally identifiable information (PII) (patron data) to make informed decisions in academic libraries through learning analytics programs has increasingly become more commonplace. In this column, we discuss how libraries around the world have used PII to make informed decisions about hours (gate count), electronic resources (collection usage and authentication), and research assistance (virtual reference). In addition, we discuss the use of learning analytics in library environments including the benefits and concerns associated with its use. Finally, we discuss how we have used PII at our institution's library and the data metrics we plan utilize at some point in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open access infrastructure for books is becoming more mature, and it is being used by an increasing number of people. The growing importance of open access infrastructure leads to more interest in sustainability, governance and impact assessment. The assessment of the OAPEN Library - containing over 20,000 titles - fits within this trend. How well does the collections meets the needs of its stakeholders: readers, libraries, funders and publishers? The composition of the collection is measured using subject and language. Both dissemination and the content-related aspects are paired to the number of publications. The average number of downloads per title is relatively similar for all subjects. However, the mean downloads of titles in English is roughly twice as much compared to German and the other languages. Combining subjects and languages shows that the dissemination of books in languages other than English is less predictable. This assessment has illustrated the composition of the collection and how its readers make use of it. The visualisation helped to tell a complicated story in a simple way; a powerful instrument to guide the further development of this open access infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Academic libraries are increasingly required to provide tangible evidence of their value to the scholarly community. Library responses have developed from early process-focused investigations to develop input and output measures, or user satisfaction studies, that do not provide much evidence of value, to attempting to demonstrate value from different perspectives, depending on the philosophical point of view with which the concept is regarded, for example in economic or social terms. This article attempts to explore a number of theoretical approaches that have been used to inform assessments of value in academic libraries, as well as some practical approaches to consider when undertaking studies of the value of academic library services. 1 1 An extended abstract for an early version of this article was published in the Book of Abstracts for the 10th Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries International Conference which was held in Chania, Crete in May 2018. A paper version of this article was never submitted for publication to QQM and has not been published elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can social media tell us about our patrons? We look at Yik Yak through the lens of library ethnography, suggesting that anonymous social media can reveal not only complaints and commentary about library services and spaces, but also uncover students’ emotional and social experience with research and study space. Looking at social media posts on Yik Yak, we uncover common threads of social dynamics, expectations of quiet space, and frustration with studying, all of which increase our understanding of student experiences in US and international libraries.

The United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development identifies 17 goals as a shared blueprint for peace, prosperity, people and the planet. Australian academic libraries have started documenting and planning how academic libraries contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the identification of assessment frameworks and key performance indicators. In 2019, the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Library stepped through an exercise of understanding how our day-to-day work and annual planning targets mapped to the SDGs. The article is a case study. The authors outline how an academic library's services, projects and action plans were mapped to the SDGs and how the mapping exercise was communicated to the community. The article will situate this activity among the broader approaches being taken by the Australian library community, including the 2030 stretch targets for Australian libraries. USQ Library staff found that existing services, collections and projects correlated to eight of the 17 SDGs. Activities were mapped to these eight goals and reported to senior executive of the University. The mapping exercise increased the awareness of library staff about the broader cultural and societal implications of their roles. The communication strategy led to conversations that increased university leaders' awareness of the SDGs and the value and impact of USQ Library in improving access to information as well as the library's role in transforming the lives of USQ students and community. By undertaking an exercise to map collections, services and projects to the SDGs, USQ Library has been able to demonstrate how their knowledge and information infrastructures which enable student achievement and research excellence. The SDGs can be used by university libraries as a benchmarking tool and as a challenge to set stretch targets aligned with the United Nation's 2030 agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UC Santa Cruz University Library ran the Ithaka S+R Undergraduate Survey in spring 2015. This presentation focused on applying survey results to a library renovation project.

In this study, researchers observed the impact of various promotional materials, such as print flyers, social media, email, and other web platforms, to market three electronic resources at a mid-sized, urban, commuter college academic library. Links to article databases were shortened and then tracked through a link shortening tool, which were observed over a two month period. The results created a data-driven picture of users’ promotional preferences, highlighting strengths, areas for improvement, and best practices in marketing e-resources. These best practices can be implemented at other libraries and the study methodology can be applied to other institutions tailoring their promotional efforts of e-resources.

Data from assessment of library building use can aid in making important decisions, such as where a renovation would be most impactful, in addition to the actual impact of those types of renovations. This article examines space usage data collected at Valdosta State University's Odum Library from 2017 to 2021. Renovations in two key areas occurred during that time. Patron counts were conducted using the Suma Space Usage software that was initially developed at North Carolina State University. Initial examination of this data shows a marked increase in use in areas where renovation occurred and a modest increase in overall library usage, after the renovation ended. Full and expected collection of data was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collection building is often described as more of an art than a science. Historically selectors relied upon basic usage statistics, the amount of money spent or volumes added, and anecdotal feedback to determine how well the collection met the needs of their students and faculty. There is no readily available data to determine if different disciplines are equally supported, the mix of formats used by different disciplines, or even which journals are the most heavily used (since usage data doesn’t disaggregate by department).  We believed that research methods from the social sciences could be used to gather meaningful (and actionable) data about our collections.To this end we conducted a citation analysis of doctoral dissertations in political science, economics, business and history to help us understand how well our collections are meeting our users’ needs, to identify gaps, and to make more informed decisions about how best to use our resources to support doctoral research.

The UC Berkeley Library has developed an innovative approach for gathering insight from particular academic departments, programs, and campus communities for Library strategic planning and organizational learning without deploying another survey for departmental input.  The Academic Program Review (APR) exercise guides academic departments at Berkeley through a comprehensive assessment of their opportunities and challenges, helping them assess their future and analyze what is needed for pursuing new paths of inquiry and discovery.  Each academic department is scheduled for this review every eight years. The APR reports amass a wealth of data and provide valuable insight into the needs, experiences, and plans of academic units.  Informed by the aspirations of academic departments, library liaisons will be better able to enhance and adapt library services, programs, and resources with a greater sense of focus and impact. The Vice Provost approved the Library’s request to receive copies of all past and future APR reports prepared by academic departments.  In 2012-2013, the Library developed and piloted the methodology for distributing the APR reports, extracting and documenting key data, coding and summarizing findings, identifying commonalities and potential enhancements, and setting priorities for action. This poster session presents the methodology for a qualitative library-centric evaluation of academic departments’ needs and objectives as evidenced in the APR reports.  The Library employed collaborative content analysis and qualitative coding methods to extract departmental strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and priorities (SWOT+P).  This SWOT+P model mapped content from the APR reports to a series of strategic planning and action items for the UC Berkeley Library. This analysis was beneficial to our library in several ways.  The reports added an evidence-based and qualitative dimension to our understanding of academic departments’ needs and experiences, and helped the library collect ideas for improving, adding, or evolving services and resources in meaningful ways.  By seeing how the Library was discussed in these APR reports, we developed a deeper awareness of how the Library relates to the University and individual departments in order to spotlight opportunities for aligning with wider organizational initiatives and for cultivating campus awareness of the Library’s academic value.  In addition to helping the library plan strategically, this process engaged library liaisons in organizational learning that allowed them to draw on their unique areas of expertise as well as to engage in dialogue through the shared vocabulary of the project.  By observing affinities and commonalities between different liaison subject areas, we also sparked conversations that may lead to greater mutual support and collaboration. With the evaluation frameworks, coding models, data sharing agreements, and communication methods in place, the UC Berkeley Library is now positioned to use our APR reports review exercise for continuous assessment and strategic planning.  This scheduled cycle is an opportunity for libraries to regularly study academic departments’ needs and plans in order to design responsive library enhancements.  This is an important mechanism that helps the Library to respond to changes as they develop.  The analysis utilized a mix of technological, methodological, and analytical activities that, taken together, suggest a useful approach that could be implemented in other academic library settings with any artifact that documents the goals, programming, and priorities of an academic unit.

ACRL Library Trends and Statistics survey data from two years were analyzed to explore relationships among variables thought to predict full-text article requests. Five different regression models predicted full-text article requests from variables including reference transactions, library instruction, Web site visits, database searches, and ongoing expenditures. Full-time student enrollment and Carnegie classification were included as covariates in all five models. All regressions supported using enrollment as a covariate; four of the regressions supported using Carnegie classification as an additional covariate. Results suggested that reference transactions, library instruction, and ongoing expenditures increase the number of database searches and full-text requests beyond these covariates. Ongoing expenditures made the largest contribution in all models, but did not always contribute the most unique variance. Furthermore, a mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect of library instruction on full-text requests through database searches. This study suggests most ACRL data may need log transformation before using regression analyses, and offers one approach to interpreting results. Future research could investigate the meaning of ongoing expenditures after controlling for institutional size and Carnegie classification. Additional variables such as interlibrary loan usage or whether the library has a discovery tool might be interesting to include in similar models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the service quality of special libraries in Kerala, India. A modified SERVQUAL questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 800 library users. The analysis revealed that the service quality of the libraries is not up to the expectations of their users. The users have high expectations but they perceived low. The libraries have to update their resources and services regularly in order to meet the changing needs of their users. Proper user orientation programs need to be conducted. The study results suggest the elements to be improved for enhancing the service quality of special libraries in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates and analyzes the organizational climate of Chinese university libraries to provide references for library management decision-making. Using the Chinese Library Organizational Climate Scale, a survey study was conducted among 1054 librarians nationwide and 438 librarians from 11 university libraries in Jiangsu Province of China. The results show that the job satisfaction of university librarians in China is low; the weaknesses of the management are mainly concentrated in the two areas of Climate for Management Justice and Climate for Staff Support; the Climate for Innovation has begun to be valued by the leadership of libraries, but it lacks effective policies and support systems; Interpersonal Harmony and Employees' Sense of Responsibility are the two aspects that perform well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic planning in academic libraries can help libraries develop and grow as an organization. The planning process can also be an opportunity to communicate the value of the library to the institution. This column reviews recent writings about strategic planning in academic libraries. Some publications present traditional techniques and strategies that focus on process and assessment, but tell unique stories based on experience. Other publications introduce new techniques for examining the value of an academic library, including using Critical Management Studies, prototyping, and organizational psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present case study investigated the users' perceptions and expectations of the central library of Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST), Mirpur Azad Jammu & Kashmir about library service quality. The sample of the study was consisted of undergraduate students and their respective faculty members. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey by using the LibQUAL+ instrument, which is specifically designed to measure the perceptions of the users about the quality of the library service. The findings indicate that the users were not satisfied with the quality of the library services. Their expectation level with library services was very high. The participants demanded better behaviour of staff, improved services, availability of library material in different formats, physical facilities, and better ambiance of the library building. This research serves as a baseline study to highlight the problem areas of existing services of the library. Furthermore, the selected case library is in a developmental phase and students'/faculty perceptions and expectations may provide guidelines to the authorities towards desired direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present research is to evaluate the service quality of medical college libraries of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences from the users' perspective based on the LibQUAL+ model. Furthermore, is to make a comparison between perceived quality in terms of users' different education level. The data were collected from 119 questionnaires which were responded by 13 college libraries' clients by administering the LibQUAL+ questionnaire in a printed format. The findings revealed that college libraries have been failed in satisfying even the minimum expectations of their users as well as could not meet the customers' desired expectations that make them fully satisfied with the service quality. This study also revealed a wide gap between users' perceptions and expectations of service quality. The effect of services dimension is the most satisfying dimension. Furthermore, findings showed that the relationship between education level and satisfying with the service quality is statistically significant (P<0.001). It is necessary for the university managers to pay more attention to the quality of library services equally in all the colleges included. This will lead to help libraries to meet the user's expectations of service quality in all colleges which will lead to academic improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes problems of theorizing and evaluating a short series of ‘Library Academy’ events within a Carnegie Corporation-funded project to improve library service to researchers in six South African universities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The value proposition of academic library consortia often focuses on the benefits a member library expects to receive in return for its paid membership in a consortium. This article takes a look at the literature of library and information science as well as the Web sites of 45 academic library consortia to understand how consortia communicate their benefits, especially in terms of financial value. It initiates a discussion about how academic library consortia could adopt assessment measures that strengthen their value proposition and improve the ways they demonstrate their impact and the impact that their members wield within higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WelServe is the database management system Welch Medical Library developed for quantitative assessment of services. The informationist team uses WelServe to capture data about direct service contacts with members of the research, clinical, and academic units at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. WelServe data is used for library management and for reporting productivity data to higher units, including the Welch Advisory Committees, composed of deans and managers from the hospital and the schools of nursing, public health, and medicine. WelServe also supports reporting for the American Association of Health Sciences Libraries and the Association for Research Libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research, scholarship, and discovery have been transformed by the internet and communication technologies across all sectors on a global basis. The rapid dissemination of findings, the creation of new tools and platforms for information manipulation, and open access to research data have rendered the more traditional institution-based library approaches to providing access to information inadequate. This paper will examine collective choices and strategies needed to move local collections and services to a global scale in the emerging research library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic libraries are considered as key factors in the educational system of a country and strong pylons for the economic development and societal cohesion. Libraries have always intended to provide qualitative services and frequently run surveys that measure the opinion of their users. Our contribution aims to show how the findings of a survey can be aligned with information from other assessment tools to better inform library management. We analyze external data of our Library’s performance as collected by an electronically conducted survey in May 2018. The initial objective was to collect 1000 questionnaires from all registered Library users; however, 950 questionnaires were collected in a two weeks’ period, securing the quota sampling conditions. Descriptive statistical analysis via SPSS was conducted to find the key measurements and to explore deeper the various associations. At the same time, we compared the scores of library performance as reflected in internal managerial assessment practices over the span of two years. This study follows an approach that exploits the existing percentage measurement scale for the assessment of Greek public sector employees to gather users’ opinion on certain performance categories. This scale, as well as its interpretation module, is used for the harmonization of the information that comes from varied assessment notions, tools and practices. Our survey findings showed that the library users were well satisfied with the conduct of staff and think that the library has margins for improvement to fulfill its role as a study place and collection. These findings seem close to the respective internal assessment scores. Therefore, our study showcases that there can be a harmonization of various assessments tools, internal and external, and the library administration can be informed about its performance in a coherent way.