Assessing Academic Library Performance: A Handbook(Medical Library Association Books Series)

Selected as a 2025 Doody's Core Title Assessment is essential to describe a library's value and to inform decision-making. Using the four key assessment components of design, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination, Assessing Academic Library Performance: A Handbook provides strategies and case studies for performing four different types of assessments: Service assessments for the library's outward and inward facing services that either help library users or other library employees to help users. These assessments focus on providing and improving how things are done to better serve others.Resources assessments for the physical and virtual resources that the library has in its holdings or to which it provides access. Resources are the reason libraries exist as they help patrons in instructional and research pursuits.Space assessments for physical and online library spaces. These assessments help ensure that spaces meet user needs.Personnel relationship assessments look at how library employees interact with each other. as library professionals. While not for evaluation or advancement purposes, these types of assessments provide information on what library employees can do to improve their relationships with one another. Each section has information on conducting each aspect of libraries followed by three examples to illustrate how assessment is used to support descriptions of library value and to help library employees make decisions that are critical to library improvement.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents List of Figures, Tables, and Chapter Appendices Preface Chapter 1: Assessment Framework Chapter 2: Service Assessments Chapter 3: Case Study: Assessing Services and Staffing for Library Service Points Chapter 4: Learning from Our Users: A Usability Study of a Library Website Chapter 5: Assessing & Evaluating the Maryland Shared Open Access Repository Chapter 6: Resources Assessments Chapter 7: Weeding Decisions for a Science and Engineering Print Collectio Chapter 8: A Playbook for Journal License Negotiations: Data Informed Assessment Chapter 9: Space Assessments Chapter 10: Creating Space with Our Community in Mind: A Library Building Assessment Chapter 12: Facilitating Innovative Research, Creative Thinking and Problem-Solving: Chapter 13: Personnel Relationship Assessments Chapter 14: A Deep Bench: Staff Enrich Library Assessment Activities in an Academic Library Chapter 15: Sorting Out Library Programs, Services, and Tasks: Identifying Strategic Chapter 16: Communication Networks Within an Academic Library Chapter 17: What's Next?

About the Author :
Holt Zaugg is the assessment librarian at Brigham Young University. Prior to becoming the assessment librarian, he worked in the K-12 education system in Alberta, Canada. In addition to his teaching duties he was trained to present over 30 teacher professional development workshops on topics including differentiated instruction, team building, time management, classroom management, cultural competence, resiliency, and First Nations, Metis and Inuit education. He holds a master's degrees in instructional science and library science and a doctorate in educational inquiry, measurement, and evaluation. For the past six years he has led the assessment efforts at the BYU Library to evaluate services, resources, spaces, and personnel relationships.

Review :
Zaugg pulls together expertise from a variety of contributors for this all-in-one approach to assessment. At first glance this handbook appears to deal solely with library personnel performance reviews, but in fact it also considers the assessment of academic library services, resources, and spaces. Of note are the chapters written by Zaugg, each of which introduces the aforementioned sections and provides a framework for the assessment tools described. Librarians new to assessment responsibilities will find those introductory chapters are an efficient crash course. Case studies and articles written by librarians and other information professionals offer a deeper dive, with real-world findings and evidence-based practices… This volume will be useful for those academic librarians who have assessment responsibilities or are new to assessment in general. Assessing collections, services and operations to ensure that the needs and expectation of clients are met and to optimise return on investment is an essential part of all library management. For academic libraries the need for assessment is particularly acute at present because the COVID pandemic has brought about significant changes in teaching and learning experiences for students and for educators. It is unlikely that pre-COVID models of pedagogy or library use will persist unaltered; nor is yet entirely clear how they will evolve. This book offers a timely recapitulation of the challenges and opportunities of an effective assessment process for library decision making and continuous improvement.... Although the book relies on US academic examples, the principles it espouses are easily applicable to other geographical areas and to other sectors. Assessing Academic Library Performance presents a readable and nuanced introduction to library assessment backed up by recent scholarship and a compelling selection of case studies, which would be valuable to any library manager. Zaugg clearly and thoughtfully tackles the complexity of library assessment with a perfect blend of introductory overviews and considerations for assessing services, resources, spaces, and personnel relationships andthoughtfully curated chapters that illustrate these concepts in action! This practical resource will prove invaluable for anyone interested in library assessment. Zaugg provides an accessible introduction to developing assessment frameworks for all facets of academic library operations and offers flexibility for readers to identify methods that will suit their specific institutional needs. The case studies from various libraries bring assessment to life, serving as useful examples of this work.