This month I had the pleasure of visiting Bryn Mawr College as part of a staff development event hosted by the Assessment Working Group for Library & Information Technology Services (LITS). The group is convened this year by Olivia Castello, who also serves as Outreach & Educational Technology Librarian. Olivia and her colleagues have presented results of their assessment projects at the Philadelphia Libraries Assessment Discussion group. I spoke with Olivia about how they are developing a culture of assessment at Bryn Mawr.
NT: How did the Assessment Working Group get started? How is it organized?
OC: The group was founded at the request of our new CIO and Director of Libraries, Gina Siesing. The purpose was to leverage the wide range of skills across the organization, approaching assessment in a coordinated way. The charge is to “help us understand the effectiveness of our current programs and the interests and goals of our community, and to inform LITS’s ability to plan program and service changes, continuously improve, and meet the College’s evolving needs.”
The committee members are selected based on their expression of interest and their job role. The position of convener rotates annually. The convener is responsible for moving the group forward, as well as practical things like scheduling meetings and planning agendas. The first thing I did as convener was have a one-on-one with Gina to get her sense of where the group should focus their energies, what her goals for assessment were.
The working group doesn’t actually do the assessments, but it promotes a culture of assessment. We may serve as consultants or help a project manager do assessment planning.
NT: In what other ways do you foster a culture of assessment?
OC: Assessment is a requirement within our project management process, an assessment plan needs to be in place for a project to be approved. A project could be anything that’s not an ongoing service (e.g. renovating a computer lab, piloting a new type of instruction). This assessment could be simple or complex. Putting the assessment piece up front for project approval was an opportunity for the group to promote the process of assessment – the importance of thinking about assessment in the beginning rather than after the fact. It will hopefully result in better, more systematic, assessment – a baby step towards using the data that we already collect
So far in 2015 we have done some initial brainstorming as the first phase of an assessment data audit. We also organized a staff development workshop for LITS (and Tri-College Library consortium) staff members interested in learning more about assessment. Within the working group, we have also devoted meeting time to reading/discussing scholarly literature on library and IT assessment, exploring what assessment means to different stakeholders in our organization, and brainstorming different ways of talking about assessment to different audiences.
NT: Can you tell me about a specific assessment project you’ve been involved with?
OC: LITS already does a lot of assessment and every part of the organization uses data to make decisions – one particular project that I have been involved with is space planning for Canaday Library (http://www.brynmawr.edu/library). Even though we haven’t yet received capital funds to renovate our main library – the staff who manage the building have been able to make some simple changes (e.g. furniture placement, adding a public question/comment and answer board, adjusting carrel policies, improving signage, etc.) based on the data collected as part of our participatory design research. More about that project: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/lib_pubs/14/
We would like to try to get more feedback from students even in small ways, like using short interviews with a paper prototype of our research guides.
NT: What are some challenges that you are facing as you develop a culture of assessment at Bryn Mawr?
OC: One challenge is that assessment data are collected in a variety of formats and frequencies, and possibly with different understandings and assumptions by different groups. It can be hard to know how or whether to merge similar data, for example. Staff may sometimes feel that they don’t have the expertise to design complicated assessment projects or analyze data. Also, people may look at assessment as something that takes extra time — time they don’t have to devote to it. We are trying to address this in the Working Group by sponsoring professional development and by serving as consultants in assessment planning.
NT: What do you see as some activities that you’ll be engaged with in the future?
OC: We will continue with our assessment data audit by conducting formal interviews with LITS staff about what data they are collecting, with what frequency, where it is reported, what decisions it influences, etc. Virginia Tech librarians used the Data Asset Framework developed at the University of Glasgow, or we may develop our own that’s not quite as detailed. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate some form of assessment data repository to help with internal decision making, and to aid in communicating LITS’ value to external stakeholders.
NT: If I were to come to you seeking advice on how to initiate an assessment program like you have here at Bryn Mawr, what would you tell me?
OC: Even if you do have a full-time assessment librarian, I recommend convening some sort of working group. Regular discussion with representatives from across an organization can help provide different perspectives and develop an understanding of what assessment practices and attitudes towards assessment are already in place at an institution. A listening tour, or formal set of interviews with co-workers across the organization, is a good way to get the “lay of the land”.
It is also important to have the buy-in and sponsorship of the CIO/Library Director or other organizational leadership. They can help to refine the group’s priorities and articulate how the organization’s assessment efforts will connect to larger institutional goals, as well as how they may be relevant to outside audiences.
NT: This is really good advice. These strategies for building assessment practice are key for both small and large libraries. Thanks, Olivia!