Category Archives: service assessment

Celebrating 10 Years at Ginsburg: A Time for Review

The Ginsburg Health Sciences Library is celebrating its 10th birthday and used the occasion to conduct an intensive review of current operations and planning for the future. Barbara Kuchan, Director of the Health Sciences Libraries, worked with a team (Patrick … Continue reading

Posted in assessment methods, data-driven decision making, library spaces, qualitative research | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Celebrating 10 Years at Ginsburg: A Time for Review

“why can’t life just be easy !?”

One of our strongest educational partnerships here at Temple Libraries is our collaboration with the First Year Writing Program. Nearly all entering first-year students at Temple take at least one of the courses in this program, so it’s a great … Continue reading

Posted in instruction and student learning, surveys | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Cookies, User Research, and an Iterative Design Process

In late February, the Library Website Redesign project turned its focus to incorporating user research into the design process. With the help and support of Cynthia Schwarz, Nancy Turner, David Lacy, the UX group, and others, Rachel Cox and I … Continue reading

Posted in usability | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Cookies, User Research, and an Iterative Design Process

Library Space and Pot Plants: An Unexpected Connection

“Fall in love with your users” – Paul-Jervis Heath When Paul-Jervis Heath told the story of how pot plants improved occupancy rates at the Cambridge University libraries, the non-Brits at last week’s Library Assessment Conference were a bit confused. We would … Continue reading

Posted in conference reports, library spaces, qualitative research | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Mapping Library Goals to Institutional Priorities: An Assessment Workshop

Last week two dozen library staff members took time out of busy schedules to participate in the Assessment Community of Practice. The session was structured a little differently (always experimenting here!) with small round tables, mixed department seating, and facilitators … Continue reading

Posted in organization culture and assessment, process improvement | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Assessment Community of Practice: User Experience

Last week’s Community of Practice was my first opportunity to talk with colleagues from across the organization about user experience (or UX) in libraries. I presented an overview of some principles of UX and a brief update on two current … Continue reading

Posted in usability | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Springtime Refresh at Ambler

Continuous improvement is a kind of assessment that we don’t usually think of as assessment per se – there are no statistics, there isn’t a formal plan for data collection, and our efforts may not result in a report to … Continue reading

Posted in process improvement | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

An Agile Approach to Assessment

Last week I had the pleasure of talking with Emily Toner, our Technology Projects Librarian, about how she works with developers in Library Technology Development to conduct ongoing assessment of their work on the Blacklight project. (Blacklight is the software … Continue reading

Posted in assessment methods, process improvement | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Improving Temple Libraries’ System for Systematic Reviews

Stephanie Roth, Biomedical and Research Services Librarian at the Health Sciences Libraries, doesn’t always think of herself as doing “assessment.” But my conversation with her about the evolving service and education she’s doing with Systematic Reviews is a good example … Continue reading

Posted in process improvement, research work practice | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Learning about Our Users: The Website Use Survey

Cynthia Schwarz, project manager for the Libraries’ Web Environment Redesign Project, contributed this post. She reports on the results and next steps of the team’s user survey conducted last month, providing us with a healthy return of 460 user responses. … Continue reading

Posted in surveys, usability | Tagged , , | Leave a comment