Library and Information Science Commons^™

Mapping For Change: Re-Imagining Assessment With Concept Maps, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Fred W Jenkins

Facilitate student creativity and assess information skills at the same time with concept maps. Learn how to administer these easy assessments and analyze them for evidence of learning. The presenters will demonstrate how this assessment technique can be used in multiple situations and how it is possible to transform these maps into results that can be easily understood by stakeholders.

Beyond The Numbers: What You Can Say With Instruction Evaluation Data, Ashley Rosener, Barbara Harvey, Emily Frigo, James Gulvas, Anne Merkle

Barbara C. Harvey

While data driven decision making is a hot topic in librarianship, collecting, analyzing and interpreting data can be intimidating. Where and how to begin? Instruction librarians from Grand Valley State University will discuss how they scaled up from unshared, nonstandard evaluations to a standard form that would make participant perceptions of library instruction more widely accessible in order to make data driven decisions within the Instruction Program.

Practice Makes Perfect: Updating Borrowing Policies And Practices At A Small Academic Library, Crystal Boyce

Crystal Boyce

In 2011, staff from the undergraduate libraries at the College of William & Mary came together to evaluate circulation policies related to borrowing periods and billing. In an attempt to better align the policies across each unit, and with the intention of creating a more consistent user experience, new policies were proposed and implemented in the fall of 2012. These changes were found to dramatically decrease staff time necessary for billing, while improving user satisfaction with the borrowing policies. Significantly fewer books went into billing, suggesting no adverse effects on collection maintenance.

Assessing Data Linking In Transportation Technical Reports, Lisa Zilinski, Paul Bracke, David Scherer

Lisa Zilinski

In 2013, the Purdue Libraries partnered with the Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP), a collaboration between Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), to incorporate the publication of research data sets into the technical report publication process. This project extended an existing process, developed in partnership between the Purdue Libraries, Purdue University Press, and JTRP, which leveraged Purdue's institutional repository to replace artisanal production processes with a more professional approach (Zilinski, Scherer, Bullock, Horton, & Matthews, forthcoming; Newton, Bullock, Watkinson, Bracke, & Horton, 2012). The existing workflow focused on production of textual documents, but did not address opportunities …

Measuring The International Usage Of U.S. Institutional Repositories, Lauren Fralinger, Jonathan Bull

Jonathan Bull

Purpose – In an educational world with increasing internationalization, digitization, assessment and financial justification, US institutions, especially academic libraries, must justify each new project. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are no exception. The authors attempt to identify factors that might affect the international usage of US IRs as part of assessment efforts to determine an IR's return-on-investment. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was disseminated to IR administrators asking for demographic information, international usage counts for website hits and downloads, and any internationalization efforts connected to the IR in order to determine any influencing factors on an IR's international usage. Findings – While many …

Assessment And Evaluation Methods For Access Services, Dallas Long

Dallas Long

This paper serves as a primer to assessment and evaluation design by describing the range of methods commonly employed in library settings. Quantitative methods, such as counting and benchmarking measures, are useful for investigating the internal operations of an Access Services department in order to identify workflow inefficiencies or comparator data to judge performance against peer institutions. Qualitative methods, such as focus groups and observation studies, are useful for exploring patron behavior and perceptions, especially in regards to space planning and customer service. The strengths and limitations of these methods are also briefly addressed.

Establishing Twenty-First-Century Information Fluency, Jennifer Sharkey

Jennifer Sharkey

In an effort to infuse information fluency into programming and curriculum, consideration of the learning environment and methods for integrating technology is essential.

Information Literacy In The New Core Curriculum, Elisa Slater Acosta

Elisa Slater Acosta

The Impact Of Library Resource Utilization On Undergraduate Students' Academic Performance: A Propensity Score Matching Design, Felly Kot, Jennifer Jones

Jennifer L. Jones

This study uses three cohorts of first-time, full-time undergraduate students (N=8,652) at a large, metropolitan, public research university to examine the impact of student use of three library resources (workstations, study rooms, and research clinics) on academic performance. To deal with self-selection bias and estimate this impact more accurately, we used propensity score matching. Using this unique approach allowed us to construct treatment and control groups with similar background characteristics. We found that using a given library resource was associated with a small, but also meaningful, gain in first-term grade point average, net of other factors.