Library Continuous Improvement through Collaboration on an Institution-Wide Assessment Initiative

Abstract

Introduction When assessment professionals in universities and academic libraries look past the methods and tools that they employ to the forces that motivate their work, they find three prime drivers. First is a motive for discovery. Opinions are held, behaviors are exhibited, and patterns exist within organizations that are unknown, yet we intuit that such knowledge would impact our decisions. Assessments of this type are commonly timeand resource-intensive, as the professional looks under many stones with the hope of gaining insight. The second driver is advocacy. Academic libraries compete for limited resources with other university departments. The university itself may compete for state funds against sister institutions. This competition engenders a motivation to advocate for stakeholder wants and needs and to gather compelling evidence to support them. The third and final driver is to demonstrate value. This motivation has become a dominant theme in the library assessment literature of recent years.1 It is related perhaps to the advocacy agenda, but it is also associated with demands for accountability. As providers of stateand university-level funds want assurances that these resources are being put to good use, so also do accreditation agencies seek to ensure quality educational experiences for students.