INLS 782: Library Assessment
From Pomerantz
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All readings will be assigned on the course Schedule. Readings not from Matthews will be available on the free web, as an [http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/ejournal/ ejournal], or via the Library's [http://eres.lib.unc.edu/ ereserves]. Readings are also listed in my [http://delicious.com/pomerantzj/inls890121+reading course delicious feed]. | All readings will be assigned on the course Schedule. Readings not from Matthews will be available on the free web, as an [http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/ejournal/ ejournal], or via the Library's [http://eres.lib.unc.edu/ ereserves]. Readings are also listed in my [http://delicious.com/pomerantzj/inls890121+reading course delicious feed]. | ||
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=== Additional reading === | === Additional reading === | ||
Revision as of 17:42, 1 June 2010
"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less." -- General Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff
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Course description
PLEASE NOTE: This syllabus is under development. This course will be offered in Fall 2010, and I will probably be tweaking the syllabus right up to the last minute. Return to this page often for the latest.
Research and evaluation are not the same thing: research is what you do to make evaluation possible; evaluation is one possible use for research findings.
This course will be composed of the following Units:
- Introduction to evaluation, broadly construed, and approaches to evaluation that are common in libraries
- Overview of library operations and services, and how those are evaluated
- The user perspective
Course objectives
Students will:
- Develop the ability to identify library functions and services that must be assessed.
- Develop the ability to plan, design, and implement an assessment program in a library.
- Gain skill in analyzing and interpreting the data from an assessment, and in presenting that data for diverse audiences.
Instructor
Jeffrey Pomerantz Associate Professor School of Information and Library Science Office: 306 Manning Hall Office hours: Tu/Th 11-12:30 Email: pomerantz@unc.edu Phone: 962-8064 Website: http://ils.unc.edu/~jpom Blog: http://www.ibiblio.org/pomerantz/blog/ Twitter: @jpom
Textbook & reading
There is one required text for this course:
Matthews, J. R. (2007). Library Assessment in Higher Education. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
This book is available in the Student Stores and on reserve in the SILS library, as well as from the online bookseller of your choice.
All readings will be assigned on the course Schedule. Readings not from Matthews will be available on the free web, as an ejournal, or via the Library's ereserves. Readings are also listed in my course delicious feed.
Additional reading
Other good books on evaluation generally and evaluation in libraries specifically include:
Baker, S. L., & Lancaster, F. W. (1991). The Measurement and Evaluation of Library Services. Arlington, VA: Information Resources Press.
Davidson, E. J. (2005). Evaluation Methodology Basics: The Nuts and Bolts of Sound Evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Durrance, J. C., & Fisher, K. E. (2005). How Libraries and Librarians Help: A Guide to Identifying User-centered Outcomes. Chicago: American Library Association.
Patton, M. Q. (2008). Utilization-Focused Evaluation. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Also the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) sponsors a biannual Library Assessment Conference. Conveniently, this conference will be taking place right in the middle of this semester, on 25–27 October 2010, in Baltimore. You should go.
I've also aggregated a bunch of library assessment-related RSS feeds: stay tuned
Assignments
Develop an Assessment Project
Develop a Library Assessment Plan
Grading rubric & other policies
See my course grading rubric.
See my course policies.
Schedule
Unit 1: Evaluation
Intro to evaluation
What functions does a library perform, that need to be evaluated?
OBE & IMLS
Bertot et al, Statistics and Performance Measures for Public Library Networked Services
Unit n: Cost-benefit & Cost-effectiveness
Hal R. Varian, Buying, Renting and Sharing Information Goods
Unit n: Library operations
Technical services
Collection development
Circulation
Reference
Systems
Unit n: Users
User needs assessment Guest speakers: Diane Harvey, Emily Daly
Foster & Gibbons, Studying Students
80/20 Rule
LibQUAL+ & all the little QUALs
computational thinking

