Primary tabs
You don't need to be an ALA Member to purchase from the ALA Store, but you'll be asked to create an online account/profile during the checkout to proceed. This Web Account is for both Members and non-Members. Note that your ALA Member discount will be applied at the final step of the checkout process.
If you are Tax-Exempt, please verify that your account is currently set up as exempt before placing your order, as our new fulfillment center will need current documentation. Learn how to verify here.
- Description
- Table of Contents
- About the authors
Decreased student enrollments, diminished budgets, and the fiscal reality of declining state appropriations are forcing higher education administrators to closely examine the allocation of funds and resources across the institution. With increased expectations of accountability and transparency for budget expenditures, institutions scrambling to do more with less, and the emergence of new budgeting models that view units as either cost centers or profit centers, academic libraries are under new pressures and scrutiny. It’s become incredibly important and necessary for academic libraries to clearly articulate to their institutional administrators their contributions to institutional outcomes, short-term and long-term value, and in essence, their return-on-investment.
Academic Libraries and the Academy is a thorough collection of best practices, lessons learned, approaches, and strategies of how librarians, library professionals, and others in academic libraries around the world are successfully providing evidence of their contributions to student academic success and effectively demonstrating their library’s value and worth to institutional administrators and stakeholders. This second volume examines assessment activities that are more difficult to measure and generally more time- and resource-intensive: 23 case studies are divided into two sections. The first, Reachable Fruit, examines projects in academic libraries that may require more external and internal resources to measure. They demonstrate the replicability of projects that take six months to one year to collect and analyze. The second, Hard-to-Reach Fruit, includes seven studies that require long-term data collection and feature greater external partnerships, internal infrastructure, or additional resources to measure and analyze.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to demonstrating a library’s worth and value, so Academic Libraries and the Academy captures a range of successful approaches and strategies utilized in different types of academic libraries around the world. Each case study opens with a one-page summary presenting fourteen descriptors of the chapter’s content that will allow you to quickly ascertain if the case study is of immediate interest based on your individual needs, interests, and goals. This book is designed to provide guidance and support to many of you—librarians, library professionals, and others involved in library assessment—who struggle to find the best approach and strategy at the right time in your assessment journey, and help you successfully articulate your academic library’s value.
Foreword by Megan Oakleaf
Introduction and Context
Demonstrating Value through Library Assessment
SECTION 3. REACHABLE FRUIT
Chapter 20. Problems and Promises of Using LMS Learner Analytics for Assessment: Case Study of a First-Year English Program
Valerie Beech and Eric Kowalik
Chapter 21. Reframing Information Literacy Assessment: Reaching for College Seniors
Toni Carter and Dr. Megan Rodgers Good
Chapter 22. Library Instruction, Net Promoter Scores, and Nudging beyond Satisfaction
Richard “Ted” Chaffin
Chapter 23. Gathering User Behaviors: Improving Library Space while Enhancing the Library’s Profile
Margaret A. Fain and Jennifer H. Hughes
Chapter 24. Constructing the Evaluation Mosaic of a Library Module for New Undergraduate Students
Diana M. Finkle
Chapter 25. Breaking the SEAL: Enhancing Engagement with Academic Libraries and the Academy through Educational Design Innovation in Technology-Enhanced Learning
Mary Fleming, Paul Flynn, Tony Hall, Barry Houlihan, Niall McSweeney
Chapter 26. Using Reflective Writing to Enhance the Student Research Process
Larissa Gordon
Chapter 27. Assessing the Effectiveness of Collaboration Workshops in an Academic Library: A Mixed-Methods Approach
April Hines, Bess de Farber, and Michael LeDuc
Chapter 28. Transitioning from a Teaching to a Research-Focused Collection in a Middle Eastern University: A Road Map for Future Directions
Lilly Hoi Sze Ho
Chapter 29. Creating a Strategic and Flexible Assessment Framework for Undergraduate Student Outreach
Amanda Hornby and Emilie Vrbancic
Chapter 30. Value Assessment Strategies and Return On Investment of the Twenty First Century Libraries: Covenant University in View
Mercy A. Iroaganachi, Michael O. Fagbohun, and Nwanne M. Nwokeoma
Chapter 31. Cracking the Code: Course Syllabi Unpacked, Decoded, and Documented for Evidence of Library Value
Colleen Mullally, Jeremy Whitt, and Casey Ann Mitchell
Chapter 32. Building a Case for the Replacement of a Legacy Library Management System
Shameem Nilofar
Chapter 33. When Numbers Are Not Enough: Using Assessment toward Organizational Change
Nancy B. Turner
Chapter 34. Assessment as Engagement: Understanding Faculty Perceptions of Research at Trinity College
Erin Valentino, Rob Walsh, and Rachael Barlow
Chapter 35. Targeting Collection Assessment Data to the Intended Audience
Kimberly Westbrooks and Paula Barnett-Ellis
SECTION 4. HARD-TO-REACH FRUIT
Chapter 36. Story Time in the Academic Library: Using Assessment Evidence to Communicate Library Value
Amanda B. Albert
Chapter 37. “We Only See What We Look At”: Sight as a Metaphor for Exploring Student Library Use, Study Habits and Research Behaviors
Valeda Dent, Kim Mullins, Eamon Tewell, and Natalia Tomlin
Chapter 38. Longitudinal Information Literacy Skills Assessment
Jessame E. Ferguson and Robin Dewey
Chapter 39. The Maturing of a Big Library Data Project: OR How to Future-proof your Library Data and Student Success Project
Jan Fransen, Kristen Mastel, Shane Nackerud, Kate Peterson, and Krista Soria
Chapter 40. A Voice of Their Own—Letting Library Collections Tell Their Story: The UNT Libraries Collection Map
Karen Harker and Janette Klein
Chapter 41. A Story for the Ages: Staff Engage in Reorganization by Reading a Decade’s Trend Data
Elena O’Malley
Chapter 42. Using Program Evaluation as a Proxy for Assessment: Diffusion from Policy Literature to Improve Academic Program Assessment
Seth M. Porter
Author Bios