Library and Information Science Commons^™

Telling The Technical Services Story: Communicating Value (Presentation), Rebecca Mugridge

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Technical Services isn’t the hidden discipline it once was. Despite some cross-departmental interaction, misconceptions about the work are all too common. It’s incumbent on technical services staff to take a proactive approach by communicating to others their value to the library and institutional mission. This session spotlights successful initiatives and gives you the guidance to bolster communication within departments, across the library, and campus-wide.

Digital Collection Assessment And Use, Tammy Troup

Bucknell Open Educational Resources

The Digital Collection Assessment and Use learning module introduces the use of the Digital Public Library of America (dp.la) API to assess descriptive metadata practices from the perspective of subject specialists. Subject experts are encouraged to use this toolkit to consider how their expertise can be used to support access to knowledge.

The learning module is published in the #DLFteach Toolkit: Lesson Plans for Digital Library Instruction. The openly available, peer-reviewed collection of lesson plans and concrete instructional strategies is the result of a project led by the professional development and resource sharing subgroup. This publication emerged from …

Articulating The Value Of Our Daily Work: An Initial Discussion Of The Assessment Challenges Of Engineering Librarians, Amy G. Buhler, Margaret Phillips, Amy Van Epps

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Engineering librarians need to assess the effectiveness of our library instruction and outreach for many reasons, including communicating library value to institutional stakeholders and making impactful contributions to the scholarly literature. However, as practitioners, most librarians have not been formally educated in research design, data collection, and data analysis. To increase our skills and knowledge and to better align with various publication expectations and guidelines (e.g., ELD Author Guidelines), this panel will lead a discussion on library assessment needs with regard to research design, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination and discovery. The goal of the panel is to …

Resource Management In A Time Of Fiscal Scarcity: Combining Qualitative And Quantitative Assessment For Journal Package Cancellations, Casey D. Hoeve

UNL Libraries: Faculty Publications

As a result of continual resource inflation and a decreasing budget, Kansas State University Libraries were required to conduct a large-scale electronic journal cancellation project. The current organizational model does not require librarian subject specialists to perform comprehensive collection development duties; therefore, content development librarians developed a methodology of collecting quantitative and qualitative statistics to collaboratively evaluate journals. This article will demonstrate the methodology of assessment, and serve as a working model for libraries operating under circumstances of labor shortages, budget cuts, and leadership restructuring.

Advocating For Technical Services Through Assessment (Presentation), Rebecca L. Mugridge

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This presentation discusses how managers can advocate for technical services through a variety of assessment activities.

The Library Rally, Michelle Gibeault

University Libraries Faculty Publications and Presentations

Course instructors are a teaching librarian’s closest partners. This assessment focuses on gathering their responses to the most critical questions anonymously and offers the opportunity to include additional written feedback. If you’re not doing any assessment presently, this might be a good method to get responses in a quantifiable format, and it creates a medium for fellow educators to offer suggestions for improvement.

Deep Dive: Differentiated Ebook Usage Between Collection Types Across Disciplines, Antje Mays

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Digging Deeper: Trends By Discipline After 4+ Years Into Winthrop’S Pda Program, Antje Mays

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Putting Assessment Into Action: Selected Projects From The First Cohort Of The Assessment In Action Grant, Darren Sweeper

Sprague Library Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Advocating For Technical Services: The Power Of Assessment (Presentation), Rebecca L. Mugridge

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This presentation reviews the many ways that assessment can be used to advocate for technical services within academic library settings.

Data Informed Approach: Reinstating An Approval Plan, Leslie Horner Button

Leslie Horner Button

No abstract provided.

Common Cause: Using Assessment To Advocate For Technical Services (Presentation), Rebecca L. Mugridge

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This presentation demonstrates how assessment activities and results can serve as an advocacy tool for technical services divisions of libraries.

Internal Customer Service Assessment Of Cataloging, Acquisitions, And Library Systems [Presentation], Kate Latal, Rebecca L. Mugridge, Nancy M. Poehlmann, Wendy L. West

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The Technical Services and Library Systems Division of the University at Albany Libraries conducted an internal customer service survey to gauge customer satisfaction with its services. Survey results demonstrated that customer surveys are a valuable assessment tool. Technical services and library systems units should use this tool to identify whether customers are satisfied with the services provided, whether the services are still needed, whether additional services are needed, and more. This presentation provides an approach to conducting a customer service survey, an analysis of potential benefits, and a survey instrument that others could adapt to use in their own libraries.

The Book Vs. E-Book: E-Book Survey Report, Susan R. Silverman

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

During the Spring Semester 2014 at Winthrop University an E-book survey was administered to Winthrop faculty, staff, and students. The objectives of the survey were (1) to inform the patrons that the library does have e-books available to them, (2) to ascertain if they have used any of the e-books for their research, (3) to determine which format, print or e-book, is their primary preference and (4) which format do they think is most important as part of the permanent library collection. The results, including comments from the faculty, staff and students, were compiled and are presented in this paper.

Approval Plan Profile Assessment In Two Large Arl Libraries: University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign And Pennsylvania State University, Lynn N. Wiley, Lisa German, Tina E. Chrzastowski, Bob Alan

Staff publications, research, and presentations

Two Association of Research Libraries member libraries, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) and Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), evaluated their monograph acquisition approval plan profiles to answer basic questions concerning use, cost effectiveness, and coverage. Data were collected in tandem from vendors and local online systems to track book receipt, item circulation, and overlap between plans. The study period was fiscal year 2005 (July 1, 2004–June 30, 2005) for the approval plan purchasing data, and circulation use data were collected from July 1, 2004, through March 31, 2007, for both UIUC and Penn State. Multiple data points were …

The Evaluation Of Use Of Electronic Resources And Services In Academic Libraries: A Study Of E-Metrics And Related Methods For Measurement And Assessment, Kanu A. Nagra

Publications and Research

This paper presents a review of literature for the evaluation of use of electronic resources and services in Academic libraries. E-metrics and similar methods for evaluation are discussed in detail. The paper highlights how some libraries approached e-metrics to start useful evaluations and dealt with technicalities to achieve better decision making for e-collection, services and infrastructure for their library users. The evaluation of use of e-resources and services is discussed in five parts explaining application of e-metrics, different methods to capture usage data in different settings, types of data requirement by libraries, complexities and technicalities involved in measurement of usage …

Chemistry Journal Use And Cost: Results Of A Longitudinal Study, Tina E. Chrzastowski, Brian M. Olesko

Staff publications, research, and presentations

Journal-use studies were conducted in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chemistry Library in 1988, 1993, and most recently in 1996. Between 1988 and 1996, the cost of purchasing the journal collection rose 66.9% while use of the collection rose 34.2%. These increases occurred during the cancellation of over 180 chemistry journals between 1988 and 1996. The data point to a collection with obvious "top" journals that generate most of the use. While the data confirm the 80/20 rule ( 84% of use was generated by the top 100 journals in 1996, approximately 20% of the journal collection), journal use …

Surveying The Damage: Academic Library Serial Cancellations 1987 Through 1990, Tina E. Chrzastowski, Karen A. Schmidt

Staff publications, research, and presentations

A longitudinal study of serial cancellations was conducted by analyzing the cancellation lists between 1987 and 1990 from five midwestern libraries of the Association of Research Libraries. The study was designed to test the primary hypothesis that large academic libraries, faced with the same negative impacts on their budgets, are cancelling the same or similar types of serials. This hypothesis was disproved. Results of the study showed that, of 6,503 cancelled titles, only 281 (4 percent) were cancelled at more than one library, resulting in 6,222 (96 percent) unique title cancellations within this survey. Results also provide an overall profile …

Library Collection Deterioration: A Study At The University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Tina E. Chrzastowski, David Cobb, Nancy Davis, Jean Geil, Betsy Kruger

Staff publications, research, and presentations

A survey of bound items in the bookstacks of the University of Illinois library at Urbana-Champaign was conducted following the methodology used in the 1979 survey of the Green Library stacks at Stanford University. A reliable random sampling technique was used. The survey found that 37.0% of the items at Illinois are seriously deteriorated (paper is embrittled), 33.6% are moderately deteriorated (paper is becoming brittle), and 29.4% are in good condition (paper shows no signs of deterioration). The total cost of the survey was $1,845.45 (excluding permanent staff salaries). The methodology can be adapted by other libraries for collection condition …