Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Making Decisions: Using Electronic Data Collection To Re-Envision Reference Services At The Usf Tampa Libraries, Lily Todorinova, Barbara Lewis, Andy Huse, Matt Torrence

Lily Todorinova

Declining reference statistics, diminishing human resources, and the desire to be more proactive and embedded in academic depart- ments, prompted the University of South Florida Library to create a taskforce for re-envisioning reference services. The taskforce was charged with examining the staffing patterns at the desk and developing recommendations to give librarians greater flexibility and to better respond to the information-seeking needs of users. These recommendations were based on statistics of desk usage, collected with the newly adapted online tool Desk Tracker, and structured interviews with library administrators. The taskforce was interested in how these stakeholders use quantitative data in …

Library Stats As An Assessment Tool, Maira Bundza

Maira Bundza

Western Michigan University has been working on creating a culture of assessment for ten years. The libraries have been using LibQUAL, a user satisfaction survey, since 2004, but have been gathering other statistics and assessment data over these same years. It is time to put it all together into an assessment plan.

Library Stats is an open source tool for maintaining reference statistics. It provides the opportunity to keep rich statistics on each reference transaction, including the actual question and answer. WMU implemented the use of Library Stats across all reference areas in 2009 and has already used the data …

Staff Training At A Combined Services Desk, Anne E. Rauh, Anne Glorioso, Amy Kindschi

Anne Rauh

In the summer of 2008 Wendt Commons undertook the ambitious task of formalizing a training program for all library staff (including students) who work at the combined services desk. Panelists will discuss the development process, show materials created for the pilot program, and offer an evaluation of the outcome. Please attend this session for an engaging discussion of library staff training and leave with ideas that can be implemented in any library setting.

Carl Research Award [Awarded By The California Academic And Research Libraries Association], Shannon M. Staley

Shannon M. Staley

As the Library and Information Science profession has developed a range of core competencies for information literacy based on the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, the need to assess students' progressive understanding of those competencies has become critical to determining the effectiveness of various library instruction approaches. Currently, there is no standardized or uniform way of assessing student information literacy skills at our library. A review of the literature reveals that many assessment surveys in the field are created without a process of standardization to determine whether respondents interpret questions correctly. …

Csu Mini Grant [Awarded By California State University], Shannon M. Staley

Shannon M. Staley

To apply quality research on information literacy, two graduate students will be hired. One will employ appropriate statistical methods for data collection. The other will program these new statistical reporting features into an online assessment tool and improve its overall usability. This will enhance an understanding of how library instruction impacts SJSU students’ educational experience.

Public Services Training At Wendt Library, Anne E. Rauh, Anne Glorioso

Anne Rauh

No abstract provided.

A Standardized Approach To Assessment: Results From A Pilot Study Of Library Instruction Sessions At San Jose State University, Shannon M. Staley

Shannon M. Staley

Introduction
We explore the use of a psychometric model for locally-relevant, information literacy assessment, using an online tool for standardised assessment of student learning during discipline-based library instruction sessions.

Method
A quantitative approach to data collection and analysis was used, employing standardised multiple-choice survey questions followed by individual, cognitive interviews with undergraduate students. The assessment tool was administered to five general education psychology classes during library instruction sessions.

Analysis
Descriptive statistics were generated by the assessment tool. Results. The assessment tool proved a feasible means of measuring student learning. While student scores improved on every survey question, there was uneven …

Using The Read (Reference Effort Assessment Data) Scale© To Assess Reference Work, Maira Bundza

Maira Bundza

Surveys have shown that librarians are not completely satisfied with the statistics used for reference services, so Bella Karr Gerlich at Dominican University developed the READ (Reference Effort Assessment Data) Scale, which has now been tested by 14 academic libraries. In October 2008 the Central Reference Department at Western Michigan University Libraries started using the READ Scale to record reference transactions. Instead of just writing down tick marks for each question answered, each question was rated on a six-point scale, based on the difficulty of the question and the time it took to answer. This low-tech tool was easy to …

Connecting 24/5 To Millennials: Providing Academic Support Services From A Learning Commons, Anne C. Moore, Kimberly Wells

Anne C. Moore

In response to the seamless academic and personal behavior of Millennial college students, libraries are creating a learning commons in which campus academic support services are integrated with library services to provide everything students need to succeed in a single facility 24 hours a day with food. Roving may be an effective way to satisfy the immediate support needs of students collaborating in these bustling environments. A survey conducted on March 16, 2006 of users of the UMass Amherst Learning Commons (opened in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library in September 2005) provided detailed insight into who they are, how often …

Junior Faculty Career Development Grant [Awarded By San Jose State University], Shannon M. Staley

Shannon M. Staley

The need to assess students’ understanding of information literacy competencies has become critical to determining the effectiveness of library instruction. This is particularly true at San Jose State University, where measurement tools are not uniformly applied. Currently, many online achievement tests measure student competence at a general rather than course-specific level. This project proposes the development of an application that enables librarians to create assessment tools matching specific learning objectives of individual courses. Preliminary findings will be shared at information literacy conferences, where experts convene to exchange ideas. Harvesting feedback, the application will be further developed through additional grant funding.

Understanding Patron Needs And Resource Usage In The Networked Academy, Win Shih

Win Shih

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to better understand various aspects of patrons’ access to library’s electronic resources and services via its Web site, their motivation, and the resources they used.

Brief Description: As library resources and services continue to evolve rapidly and ever-more-sophisticatedly along technological vectors, the imperative persists for librarians to develop an innovative, systemic methodology for fathoming the effectiveness in meeting the demands and necessities of our less-visible, yet omnipresent and “omni-diverse” patrons, as well as for promoting efficient resource management and capacity planning.

Methods: Traditional, web-transactional log analyses possess a raft of merits, including unobtrusive …