Strategic Steering Team: Just a Fancy Word for Committee?

Posted on March 21, 2019 by Nancy Turner

I promised a “provocative” discussion at yesterday’s Assessment Community of Practice gathering, and I think we met that goal. The attendance was good, at least, with 27 staff members from  across the library (13 departments represented). A few highlights and editorial comments:

Impact

We often talk of impact as a way of measuring success as we work towards our goals. Impact can be a tricky thing to measure, and a single project may have different impacts, depending on the audience. Take our Open Access initiatives: From the student, or institutional perspective, impact for the open access textbook project is the dollar amount saved students. From the Library’s perspective, the impact is how open access ideas are advanced among Temple faculty. The Research Data Services’ data grants program is another example. We can count the number of applications received  for the first year.  That’s one measure. But we must also consider the increased awareness among faculty of the new ways in which the Library provides resources for their research. Harder to measure, but equally important.

Team Operations

The Strategic Steering Teams set goals and assess those, but also consider how the team functions as an organizational structure. To get those conversations going, leads  periodically ask of the team:  

  • How do you feel things are going?
  • Are you doing too much or not enough?
  • What changes would you like to see?

As a result, teams decide together how often to meet, and what the nature of their work together should look like.  We learned that each team has evolved in its own way, from serving as an advisory body to carrying out projects with “all hands on deck”. 

“What makes a strategic steering team any different than a committee?”

Merely being a cross-functional group is not enough. Focusing effort on areas of strategic importance happens elsewhere as well (thinking of the Web work now). In my mind, the autonomous nature of the teams is important. Each team begins its formative work by writing a charge – that process of creating a shared vision for the purpose of the team is one that is designed to bring the group together. It’s based on research : environmental scans both internal (where do we need to go?) and external (what are other libraries doing in this area?)  Team members are asked to think holistically when setting goals and to consider impact when prioritizing those goals. We take the concept of Team to heart,  sharing with team participants the seminal article, The Discipline of Teams as well as other resources for building teams.

We celebrate the collaborative, creative work that the teams are doing across the organization.  Scholarly Communication met with Collections Strategy to talk open access. Research Data Services also collaborated with Collections on their data purchase initiative. Outreach & Communication’s popular Ask Me Anything on Slack program serves the entire library/press.  The youngest team, Learning & Student Success, includes a member from the Writing Center, bringing a fresh perspective to that work. I think the idea of continuous reflection on our own structures is important. And while all of these elements are present in the group work we do across the organization, the Strategic Steering teams help to focus energies in a directed, yet flexible way towards library/press wide strategic goals. 

But there are clear challenges

Membership is a big one. How do we retain cohesion within the team but allow for fresh voices? How do we open up this kind of participation to staff at all levels? How do we resource the teams with dedicated staff time and potential dollars? How might we empower teams with more decision making authority in their areas of expertise?  

The meeting was open to all staff.  An open meeting that surfaces challenges to an organizational structure, I believe, is pretty special. Messy, yes, but an opportunity to learn as well.  Thanks must go to the Strategic Team leaders, to the many team members, and all who joined us for the session. 

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Brainstorming New Metrics as We Transition to Charles Library

Posted on March 4, 2019 by Nancy Turner

In less than six months we will be moving into Charles Library, an environment that will transform how we think about libraries and the resources and services it provides. And how we provide access to those resources and services. In preparation, staff members from 7 departments & teams gathered to start brainstorming questions we’ll be asking about how the Library serves its community. What metrics will we use to best demonstrate the impact and value of the Library for Temple University, its neighborhoods, and the world?

 

Capturing our Brainstorming

 

We started with a reflective exercise, and asked ourselves these questions:

  • In the area of your own current operational work, what will you want to measure and track as you transition to the Charles Library?
  • What will be one important thing to measure as we demonstrate the library’s value and impact to the University?

The reflections generated lots of important, and creative questions – summarized here and included in the “rough” below.   Some questions are more straightforward than others.  As we determined, it’s easy to count, but numbers never do full justice to the real changes we’ll be seeing.  And sometimes, smaller numbers do not mean less impact.

Connections to People

  • How will reference interactions (basic, consultations) change, both in terms of  quantity and quality
  • How are students connecting with research librarians or other subject experts for research support?
  • With the different styles of instruction space (traditional hands-on computer lab and more flexibly configured spaces), might we compare the effectiveness of instruction in each?
  • Instruction numbers going down might actual equate with great impact. How do we know? If we implement new approaches, like training of faculty or online programming – we’d have more “reach” but numbers wouldn’t reflect that.
  • Is our new programming space attracting new people?  Our dedicated exhibition space will allow us to measure audiences more accurately, and we can start asking visitors if they are a first time attendee.
  • Is social media engagement going up?

Space Use

  • Are more patrons coming into the building? Where do they go?
  • How are the various space types being used by students, graduate students and faculty?Do these new space types and technology offerings changing the perception of the library as a space primarily for undergraduates?
  • How will the new meeting spaces provide opportunities for new types of workshops, for instance, on sensitivity and conflict resolution. These would be useful for guests as well as for Temple community.
  • In the opinion of our users, are we providing a better overall space/facility than Paley? This would be hard to measure, but we might compare perceptions of first year students with more senior ones.

Access to and Use of Collections

  • How will the ASRS be used? Will circulation go up or go down? Will patrons request books for pickup later? How many books will be requested at one time, and will those all get checked out?

Technology Use:

  • How will the laptops available for check out be used and by whom? What is the duration of use? What types of equipment are the most popular?
  • Will the increased visibility of the Scholars Studio affect how technology available there gets used? Will it attract new users, like undergraduates? If technology tools like 3-D printers, are offered elsewhere on campus, how does use of the Scholars Studio compare to those other locations?
  • Are users satisfied with the technology offerings?

Web Use

  • Since physical access is limited, how are users discovering physical library materials in Library Search?
  • Are people accessing our publications via the website?

New Services and Equipment

  • Can we demonstrate increased affordability? Does availability of equipment mean students don’t have to buy it, lowering the cost of attending Temple. This would include equipment such as laptops, cameras and specialized software.
  • How will we take advantage of new potential for collaborations with the Writing Center and community organizations. How can we measure goals from our case statement, such as “Advancing student success through co-location of CLASS and Writing Center?”
  • What are the best ways to share library stories?  

 

 

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Agile as Assessment: Driving in the Dark but Knowing Where You’re Going

Posted on February 22, 2019 by Nancy Turner

 

Cynthia Schwarz, with Dave Lacy and all the staff in LTS/LTD have put into operation a robust set of tools for communicating, documenting, and tracking workflows for all the complex work going on at the Libraries – technology-based and beyond. I think there is a relationship between these tools and principles associated with assessment and organizational development:

  • transparency
  • continuous improvement
  • frequent iteration
  • teams with diverse expertise

So last week I sat down with Cynthia to talk more about how Agile and assessment are connected.

NBT: You’ve really mastered the principles of Agile for project management in the last couple years. I know that the whole Library Technology/Knowledge Management area is proficient in using Agile tools – and we are all learning more about how best to use those to communicate and share information. But there are additional aspects to Agile principles that relate to organizational values and assessment – and I’d like to ask you about those as well.

NBT: In a nutshell, can you tell me what Agile means, and why it’s been adopted for managing technology projects here at the Libraries/Press?

CS: Continuous improvement is one term; also flexibility is another term that I’d use to describe Agile. Here is an analogy that helps to explain how Agile works.

Imagine that you are taking a trip at night. You set your destination on your car’s GPS. That provides you with the estimated time of arrival, and the route you will take. But it’s dark and there is only just so much you can see in front of you. And you have to be prepared for unforeseen challenges. In Agile, we know what our outcome needs to be, and we know how much time we have to get there. But we need to stay adaptable and flexible, because there may be unexpected barriers on our path.

Compared to the website development project, Alma was very straightforward.  Ex Libris provided a clear, defined script for the implementation. With the website, we need to stay much more flexible and in some cases, create our own path forward. Because we aren’t using a traditional CMS. We have identified an end goal – to demonstrate what the Libraries are to the community, but there are a hundred ways of getting there. Changing course is inevitable, so being adaptable as we go is essential to success.

NBT: There are many areas of Agile that relate to assessment and organizational effectiveness. For instance, transparency and communication. That’s something we’re seeing more of.

CS: Transparency and communication are not necessarily part of Agile, but definitely part of the operating principles for LTD/LTS and part of the JIRA and Confluence tools that support working together in an Agile environment.  

We know we need to document. This provides us insight into what we do. It also allows staff from outside the projects to come into our space. They may not know too much about what we do, how we spend our time, but this makes it easy for people to read about it, to learn and provide feedback.  

NBT: Yes, that and Slack really open up new doors for us all. Sometimes when I go to the Developers  Slack channel it’s like they’re speaking a foreign language. All those references to Honeybadger!

CS: Yes, and it is another way that we are continuously improving on our work and connecting with stakeholders.  We try to maintain frequent back-and-forth with stakeholders.

JIRA has been particularly useful for this. Here’s a good example: The website’s Events & Exhibits page. Rachel mocked up the page. Chris Doyle coded it. Throughout the process, Sara Wilson was able to provide input.  It’s just a matter of “tagging” someone in the comments, and they can provide feedback immediately.

NBT: What do you like about living in an Agile world?

It’s exciting to actually do Agile – a lot of organizations claim to do it ; but we are fairly Agile as a development team.  It gives structure to projects. It requires us to think through the various elements when a project is initiated, so we don’t take on more than we can “chew” – work wise.

NBT: Yes, and it seems as though with the increased communication and visibility, and the flexibility that the approach allows for, and the inclusion of stakeholders every step of the way – you’ve opened yourself up to continuously reflecting on and improving your processes. If we think of assessment in those terms, you are definitely modeling it.

Thanks, Cynthia.

 

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A Critical Approach to Library Assessment and User Experience?

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Jacqueline Sipes

As the new year begins, I’ve been reflecting on the exciting changes 2019 will bring to both our physical and online spaces. Projects that previously felt distant or nebulous for some of us, like the creation of a new library website or move to Charles Library, are now fast-approaching. As we consider how to design and assess the user experience of our changing web presence and physical spaces, much of what I learned at last month’s Library Assessment Conference feels well-timed.

The sessions on user experience offered practical insights on methods and tools that can bring user feedback into digital projects like the website redesign and Library Search. Amy Deschenes (Harvard University) described her library’s website redesign project from start to finish including early discovery research (user interviews) and the creation of personas that informed decisions used throughout the entirety of the design process. Her explanation of integrating UX into agile sprints with technology staff felt particularly germane to our own technology development environment. Zoe Chao (Penn State University) made a persuasive case for using comparative analysis to test website navigational structures, and Andrew Darby and Kineret Ben-Knaan (University of Miami) shared online usability tools that make it fast and easy to conduct remote testing of webpage prototypes and site architecture with large numbers of participants. In the pre-conference workshop I attended, Kim Duckett and Joan Lippincott shared strategies and examples of post-occupancy space assessments for understanding the effectiveness of spaces for students, such as learning commons and digital technology spaces.

The presentation I keep coming back to, though, is one that questioned the emphasis on “practical” conference takeaways and argued for a more critically reflective approach to assessment and user experience work. In “A Consideration of Power Structures (and the Tension They Create) in Library Assessment Activities,” presenters, Ebony Magnus (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology), Jackie Belanger and Maggie Faber (University of Washington), highlighted the pervasiveness of the “practical” in librarianship, pointing to how often we create “how to’s” and “best practices” that are intended to make work easier and efficient. In the library assessment world the focus is often on specific tools and research methods. The presenters argued not that learning the practical— best practices, tools, and methods— has no value, but that we look at our assessment approaches through a “lens focused on power and equity.” Doing so allows us to interrogate how our own positions of power shape the assessment work we do.

We might, for instance, look critically at how we prioritize projects, the questions we ask, how we recruit participants, the research methods we use, and so on. During the presentation, I reflected on how we recruit participants for impromptu or “guerrilla style” usability testing of our website. The advantage to this type of recruitment is that it’s easy and convenient, but we’re missing feedback from populations who do not physically visit the library. Questioning our assessment approaches in this way can guide us towards a more inclusive assessment practice that benefits all users, particularly traditionally underrepresented groups. In a related blog post, the presenters outline additional strategies for incorporating more inclusive methods into assessment practice.

My favorite conference experiences are those where what I learn feels useful. I want to leave a conference with practical ideas that are easily adaptable in my own institutional context. I’m eager to attend any session that promises attendees a concrete takeaway to the point of skimming program schedules for phrases like “attendees will learn methods, tools, or strategies to use at their own institution.” The Library Assessment Conference didn’t disappoint in this regard.

The website redesign and the move to Charles Library will significantly impact library users and library staff, and now is the time to plan for how we will design and assess the user experience of both. I hope to see us engage in the critical approaches, because those are the ones that will allow us to work towards the best user experience across our student populations.

Finally, I encourage everyone to have a look at Magnus, Belanger, and Faber’s beautifully written post, “Towards a Critical Assessment Practice,” in In the Library with The Lead Pipe which provides more detail about critical assessment practices.

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Avoiding New Year’s Resolutions, or Not

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Nancy Turner

Image from en.wikipedia.org

I may be turning cynical, but I’ve stopped making personal New Year’s resolutions. The U.S. News & World Report says that 80% of resolutions fail by February. That’s depressing!

While there may be a rational, statistically valid reason for not making resolutions, that is probably not the whole reason. I think we resist making resolutions for emotional reasons as well.  We fear we won’t keep them, and that will feel like a failure. If we don’t succeed in those goals, we just don’t “measure up.”

How does this relate to library assessment? Good assessment, or continuous improvement, is grounded in setting a goal or benchmark of some sort. Goals help us to imagine a vision of the future that is better.  And if we set that goal, with a measure, then we may not make it.  So why articulate what success looks like when we may not measure up?

Sometimes I  fear that when I talk enthusiastically about creating a culture of assessment here at the libraries/press, about setting departmental goals and developing assessment plans, I don’t feel much love. We hear assessment and that equates to evaluation – to good and bad. 

No one wants to be judged. Or to set a goal that isn’t attainable. Perhaps we set those goals low, somewhat timidly, and we certainly don’t shout about them in a public space.

So this year I will do what I ask others to do – I set, and publicized (on Confluence), goals for Organizational Research & Strategy Alignment for the upcoming year.  They look like this right now:

  • Assess the effectiveness of strategic steering team model for enhancing innovative, collaborative, cross-functional team-based  work across the libraries system and its communities.
  • Establish structure for Data Task Force and develop scope/groups to look at:
    • Data Collection
    • Data Privacy
    • Data Identification
    • Access and Communication
    • Learning Analytics/Integration with central ITS
    • Analysis / Platforms
    • Storage
  • Develop plan for assessment of space use in Charles Library, making sure that data gathering systems are in place to demonstrate use and value of new types of spaces for learning and engagement.
  • Work with team leads/department heads to develop assessment approach for key goals established for FY18-19.
  • Embed user experience research methods into development of services at libraries, to include website and discovery systems.

These are not too ambitious, but I think fit well within the library’s strategic directions and align with my own vision for the libraries as a learning organization.  And yes, I’m exposing myself to “not measuring up.”

But here’s the thing. I can only achieve the goals by sharing them with my colleagues. Getting feedback. Getting support. Learning from others’ expertise. Like the runner who has a partner to help get going in the morning, or the smoking quitter who relies on a friend when longing for a cigarette – we all feel more motivated when we share goals and get some support towards achieving them.  Working collaboratively to meet our aspirations gives us a MUCH better chance of success.

So my real resolution is to work with you all this year to bring assessment more to the forefront of our work. Not as a way of setting ourselves up for failure, but by better articulating, together, our vision for what matters to the organization and what “better” might look like.

 

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Library Space and Pot Plants: An Unexpected Connection

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Nancy Turner

“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 describe these as “potted plants.” We all laughed, then Heath went on with his story:  In testing various seating arrangements in the library’s reading room, the design team learned that plants placed in the center of each table provided a psychological sense of privacy, and students were more likely to sit across from one another while studying when plants were used as dividers. The designers learned that occupancy was less dependent on the number of seats in the space than how those  seats were configured in relation to one another.

Small round tables created personal “bubbles” and resulted in one person sitting alone at a four-top, leaving 3 seats empty. Low-backed couches arranged like train cars left patrons feeling as if someone might be watching them from behind, or reading over their shoulder. This seating type also reduced occupancy.   These  findings were discovered as part of the prototyping process. The designers experimented with “cheap” Ikea furniture that allowed for iteration and experimentation – prior to investments in permanent furnishings.

Heath is the founding principal of Modern Human , a UK design and innovation consultancy. His work with all kinds of clients provided a refreshing perspective on service and space strategy for the 600 librarians attending the conference last week in Houston. His presentation related to the use of ethnographic methods in design towards prototyping services and spaces in libraries.  

Design ethnography is a tool that many of us use in our assessment practice. Its roots are in anthropology and Nancy Fried Foster, then at the University of Rochester, popularized its approach in the now classic Studying Students. Observation, diaries, journey maps, design charrettes – the methods strive to understand users not by asking them what they want, or studying historical data – but by watching, and observing the kinds of barriers and frustrations users experience as they do their work. The approach can be used to understand how users search for an item in the library catalog, schedule a study room, or interact with a service professional. The idea is that by watching people, by observing in unobtrusive ways, we learn what motivates people, what’s important to them and what they value. 

Heath emphasizes the power of iterative design and prototyping. It’s important to “Keep everything you design as an experiment.” – not getting too attached to a single solution before you’ve tested it with users. As much research in assessment shows, librarians and other information professionals may have quite different mental models of the information universe than our users.  Heath provided us with powerful examples of resolving this challenge.   

Next post, Jackie Sipes (User Experience Librarian) will share her takeaways from the conference!

Enjoy,

https://speakerdeck.com/pauljervisheath/unlocking-the-power-of-design-in-libraries

 

 

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Mapping Library Goals to Institutional Priorities: An Assessment Workshop

Posted on December 3, 2018 by Nancy Turner

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 at each table (thanks, Steven Bell, Olivia Castello, Lauri Fennell, Cynthia Schwarz, and Jackie Sipes). The facilitators did a great job of encouraging participation from everyone, bring together the rich kind discussion that cross-functional groups can bring to bear on a challenge. 

While we started with a discussion of the article Demonstrating Library Value through Outreach Goals and Assessment from Educause, the purpose was to find connections between our library/press goals and strategic actions with Temple’s Institutional Priorities. And considering the kinds of assessment that would demonstrate progress towards those goals. This outcome will keep us on track as the University prepares for the upcoming Middle States accreditation, a process that  compels us to articulate how the library supports institutional values, assesses that work, and puts into place changes based on findings.

Temple Institutional Priorities

Each table was tasked with addressing these questions:

Of the ideas presented in this article, what resonated with you the most, particularly in thinking about how you present your own work or the work of your department?

Table Brainstorm: How does the work that you or your department does have an impact on users (student success, faculty productivity, community services). What does success look like?

Select a goal from the Strategic Directions document. How might you assess that goal in terms of impact? Consider both the library’s interests, and those of external stakeholders.

Discuss your ideas with table mates.

These discussions  yielded good ideas on a wide range of services provided by the library, from our affordable laptop borrowing program to the assessment of a program to promote diverse materials in our collections.

  • Table 1 looked at the departmental goal of “Providing fast easy access to laptops and scale up to meet demand” and suggested a learning outcome for this goal: Students can identify library as a laptop source and can obtain a laptop in a totally self-service mode. To access this, we might look at the statistics or deploy point-of-survey surveys (on IPads?) and conduct observations as students interact with the service.  
  • Table 2 discussed how outreach efforts, for instance events like Beyond the Page, map to the curriculum. How can we best engage with faculty as these events are planned, and assessed? From their perspective, does attendance at a program make a difference in the quality of their work?
  • Table 3 discussed how the library might demonstrate its commitment to diversity through displays of heritage content. We might look at who we buy from (minority/women owned businesses)
  • Table 4 recognized that the article did not provide an adequate definition of outreach, and the much of the library’s efforts, like open textbooks, relies on services provided throughout the library.

This last is important — outreach, demonstrating value, connecting to Institutional Priorities – these might be considerations for all of us. To that end, I’d like to put this challenge out to library staff from all levels of the organization:  Select one of your articulated goals for FY18-19. Considering how you will demonstrate value and impact. How will you assess the success of this initiative? 

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Assessment Community of Practice: User Experience

Posted on November 5, 2018 by Jacqueline Sipes

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 UX projects (Blacklight/Library Search and service design for the new library).

Rather than rehashing highlights of my presentation, I want to return to two questions that I posed to the audience. I intended for these questions to be a “thinking together” exercise where attendees could reflect on how we, as an organization, might embrace UX and more fully integrate it into our every day work. We touched on these briefly toward the end of the COP meeting, but I want to delve into them more here and provide my own perspective.

How is UX different from what we’ve always done in libraries? (i.e. we’ve always been committed to user-centered design and great customer service). 

In the book Useful, usable, desirable : applying user experience design to your library, librarians Aaron Schmidt and Amanda Etches tell the story of a colleague who tentatively asked them, “How is [UX] different from what we’ve always done in libraries? We’ve always cared about our patrons. We’ve always been user-centered. We give great customer service!” As an erstwhile public services librarian who values good customer service, this question resonated with me. At the desk, we strive to provide the best service possible; we listen closely, we ask questions, and we do our best to make sure the person in front of us is satisfied. When planning an instruction session, we talk to instructors; we learn about the students we’ll be working with and their assignments, and we design instruction based on that information. Library staff have a long history of considering user needs when providing services.

For me, user experience is an evolution of that user-focused tradition. It gives us a framework to put the user’s needs at the center of all of our design and decision making.

My interest in assessment and user experience grew over the last few years in my previous position as the Emerging Technologies Librarian and Education Liaison. In that role, I was uniquely positioned to both contribute to the design of library technologies while also observing firsthand how students and faculty used, and sometimes struggled with, those technologies. Those interactions highlighted for me the need to know more about our users’ needs and expectations when making decisions about the design of our website and search tools. I began to approach all of my work, including technology projects and reference and instruction, from the question of “how can we make this better for our users?” I’m now lucky enough to have a job where it’s my responsibility to ask that question every day, not just of our online spaces, but also of our services and physical spaces.

To create services, websites, and spaces that work well for our users, we need to understand and empathize with our users. User experience asks us to build that empathy and understanding with intention. We might immerse ourselves in a user’s journey (i.e. put ourselves ‘in our users’ shoes’) using a particular service or tool to identify pain points or frustrations along the way. We might observe how users naturally utilize a space or service. Or, we might work directly with them through user research using methods like usability testing, interviews, or focus groups. When we see how users actually engage with the library — what they like or find challenging or what we, as well-meaning information experts designing services and websites for non-expert users, might have unwittingly missed — we start to empathize with our users and better understand them. And, hopefully we come up with solutions that enhance their experience with the library.

UX also requires that we approach design holistically, acknowledging that users do not experience our individual services in isolation. My interactions with students and faculty at the desk and in the classroom also afforded me the opportunity to see the connections between our services and physical and online spaces. A faculty member who wants a book uses our website or catalog to find or request the book, asks for help using our chat service, reads stacks or other wayfinding signs in the building, and finally uses self-checkout kiosks or interacts with a staff member at the service desk. A student who wants to reserve a study room uses our website, submits a request through our room scheduling system, approaches the service desk staff, and finally uses their study room. Good customer service might ensure the user has a pleasant, if not successful, interaction with staff at a service desk and in many cases even throughout the remainder of the experience. But, even the strongest customer service ethos does not acknowledge the robust interconnectedness of library services and spaces; nor does it ask us to work collaboratively, and sometimes uncomfortably, across library departments to holistically design services and tools for our users.

How can we prioritize user experience work in the organization? How do we integrate UX into our existing processes?

If great customer service doesn’t necessarily make for a great overall user experience, neither does the work of one, solo User Experience Librarian, even with her small, but enthusiastic group of colleagues who have signed on for UX work on the Library Search and Website Redesign projects. We need to work together as an organization to integrate user experience into our work. I look forward to expanding my own work beyond the user experience of our online tools to our services and physical spaces. I also hope to help my colleagues develop capacity in user research and design and foster an organizational culture that puts the user at the center of every decision we make.

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Setting the Path towards a New Library

Posted on September 24, 2018 by Nancy Turner

The “Link” at the Calgary Airport

Last week I had an unexpected 12 hours to spend at the Calgary International Airport, providing me plenty of time to consider all that I learned at the Designing Libraries conference.  While the airport provided fun rides between terminals and the wi-fi was robust, the distractions (like food, bookstores, cozy chairs), unfortunately,  were minimal.

Designing Libraries brings librarians, researchers, designers, planners and architects together to discuss the future of libraries, particularly how new technologies support new ways of doing research and supporting students in their learning. The conference is currently sponsored by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), North Carolina State University Libraries, and the University of Calgary Libraries. 

Joan Lippincott (CNI) summed up the key discussion threads in this way:

We are:

  • Integrating our thinking about what we want users to be able to do in relation to space
  • Articulating more clearly the relationship of programs to institutional priorities
  • And we have a growing “appetite” for digging deeper into post-occupancy assessment.

Joan was persistent in asking those hard questions of assessment:

  • How do you demonstrate how the new space relates to the creation on new knowledge?”
  • How are spaces contributing to learning?
  • How do you determine impact, either quantitatively or qualitatively?

Assessment is a topic I’d like to see addressed again at future conferences, and something we need to plan for at Temple as we near the opening of the Charles Library.  Assessment is important because it requires us to consider, before any project is initiated, what it is we want to accomplish with the new space, the new service, the new resources? 

As we plan for the opening of the Charles Library, let’s ask:

  • What are our new expectations for the building, and the kind of research, learning, and partnerships it will support?
  • What does that kind of engagement on the part of faculty, students and staff look like?
  • While we’re focusing on the digital scholarship and instruction aspects of the space,  what are the other opportunities for assessment? What are the different ways the collection is being used?  More use of electronic?  Less use of the physical collection, or different parts of the physical collection? Is this due to the different access, or is it due to different discovery opportunities?
  • Certainly, we anticipate opportunities for collaboration and communication within the space. How else might the building facilitate a different kind of organizational culture?

Greg Raschke said of the Hunt Library at NCSU (a Snohetta project, like the Charles Library)  “Hunt was a meteorite opportunity. If you miss it, it will set you back. If you overdo it, you can always scale back, but if you miss that opportunity for change, you’ll never get there. Use failures and successes as a way of evolving your organization.” 

Architect Craig Dykers, of Snohetta, also spoke of the transformative value of the library – it can be a place for both safe dialog AND disagreement; both a welcoming space AND a challenging one. The library is something always transforming, but should serve as a transformational space as well.  Sort of like the path along Calgary’s Bow River.

 

Path along the Bow River, Calgary.

 

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Moving Forward: Lessons Learned from the Last 10 Years of Risk Modeling

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Nancy Turner

Last week the Libraries’ Assessment Community of Practice kicked off the year by hosting Alexandra Yanovski-Bowers (Assistant Director for Undergraduate Strategic Initiatives) and Michele Lynn O’Conner (Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies). The discussion was Undergraduate Studies’ work to build a predictive statistical model for identifying “at risk” students at Temple and provide positive interventions to support these students.

While the idea of collecting, mining and analyzing personal data on students is concerning to some, Temple’s research program utilizes data already collected by the University as part of doing business, and uses very selected data points to target students who are at greater statistical risk of not returning to school at the beginning of the subsequent year. This is how “at risk” students are defined.

Alexandra described the various ways in which data can be used – we can collect it, we can watch the trends and report out on what’s happening. But we can also take a more “pro-active” approach to using the data that we are already collecting and use that data for supporting student success. This is predictive analytics. 

 

In the course of its business, the University collects data related to admissions, enrollment, orientation registration, gpa, housing, financial aid, as well as its New Student Questionnaire, completed by all incoming students. The modeling process uses historical data to make a determination of the key variables within these data sets that correlate with a students not returning. That “model” is applied to the current student population to identify students potentially at risk. This means that the model is constantly changing as the student population and policies for administration and registration change.

Undergraduate Studies wanted to be more pro-active in helping students – not stepping back and waiting for students to seek assistance on their own. So prior to any data work, the University beefed up its advising program.  Each school as a risk adviser, and those advisers all undergo Risk Liaison Intervention Training. There are a variety of interventions to meet a student’s particular need.   The intervention may be extra academic advising, but it is as likely to result in a job closer to campus, or a specialized financial aid workshop.

From the floor there were questions about how confidentiality of students was protected. For the Library, a core value is protecting confidentiality of the individual in terms of what they read or the information they access. We talked of the responsible ways of using predictive analytics. The fact that Temple has created its own model means less risk of external parties getting access to student data.

What might the Library’s role be?  Students don’t always know how the librarian fits into their educational experience.  To that,  Alexandra says, “We want the library to be an intervention, not a factor. “ In other words, we serve a greater purpose by connecting with students, providing space for their work, advising on their research, and being a friendly face as they face the stresses of being a college student on this big campus.

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