The beginning of a new year is a somewhat artificial, but useful time to reflect on the past and look toward the future. Reviewing the 2017 archives of this blog reminds me of all that has happened this year. One big change is how assessment activity is organized – evolving from a rather traditional Assessment Committee to a growing Community of Practice. And it is growing; the last assessment meeting attracted 22 staff members to engage with Cynthia Schwarz and others about the recent library website user survey.
Cultivating this assessment community includes drawing upon staff here at Temple and beyond to contribute to this blog, from our own colleagues’ experiences at conferences to Swarthmore’s Mary Marissen – relating her experience as an assessment librarian.
Some of my favorite posts are those that speak to broad issues: How do we develop a culture of assessment in an organization? If for nothing but the title, I liked this one, “Grounded or Toppling Over: The 3-Legged Stool of Assessment Culture”.
But enough reflection, and on to the future. The recent ARL Assessment Program Visioning Task Force recommendations (published December 4, 2017) was just released, and has particular relevance for what we are also accomplishing locally.
“Research libraries need to define the values by which they want to be measured, rather than trying to manifest values out of the data that they have.”
Rather than holding fast to those important, though conventional library metrics (e,g, number of volumes, number of participants in programs) we need to take the lead on developing metrics (and telling stories) that serve to better describe our value. Not just in relation to other libraries (i.e. rankings) but value to the institution and its strategic priorities.
So as I consider my own resolutions for the upcoming year: My mantra will be impact. I plan to think more, and talk more with staff, and external colleagues, about how best we use metrics to understand impact.
With the Administrative Council I’d like to explore together how we can better demonstrate impact as we report out and share our activities, and how we connect those activities to the strategic contexts. Can we ask ourselves:
- What library work will have the greatest impact? On student success? On faculty research productivity ? On support for faculty instruction?
- How do we prioritize the work we do to make our collections most accessible to the widest range of users (geographically, for instance) and with the most effective metadata?
- How do we organize our own time in ways that have the most impact? That may involve pausing in our routine work to learn something new, to allow ourselves the time for brainstorming and creative thinking.
Perhaps considering impact can serve to insure that we’re collecting the data (both quantitative and qualitative) we need to demonstrate value.
Here’s to keeping those resolutions in 2018, and continuing to appreciate all that we’ve accomplished already. Thanks for a great year.