73 SPEC Kit 352: Collection Assessment
59. What question(s) are you trying to answer about your collection that you have not yet been able to
resolve with the tools currently available? N=1
Key challenges are: how well do the collections support the academic enterprise generally and
specifically (especially when a unit is undergoing review) what metrics would be useful in achieving
equity and establishing spending priorities how to effectively evaluate alternative strategies and
possible actions devising approaches and standards for monitoring how well the collections deliver
value and crafting the assessment results into compelling and understandable narratives. Moreover,
the appropriate methodologies and corresponding metrics vary greatly depending upon the nature and
goal(s) of the assessment.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
60. Please enter any additional information regarding collection assessment activities at your library
that may assist the authors in accurately analyzing the results of this survey. N=12
Collection assessment is a very complex, evolving, multifaceted process involving people with many
different and changing roles. It’s not always easy to capture that complexity in survey responses.
Collection assessment staff and organization have increased and changed within the past academic
year, and new plans and approaches are still being worked out.
Survey responses should have allowed for more than 1 box to be checked, e.g., regular AND project or
formal AND informal, to reflect the realities in libraries. Also, as structured the survey does not capture
the complexities of collection assessment.
The association dean for collection strategies position has been staffed on a part-time basis for most of
the last three years. This arrangement has recently been changed with the incumbent taking on the
position full-time, enabling increased resources (greater time and attention) for collection assessment
projects and ongoing assessment training and service development.
The survey questions seem to assume an established program for assessment. We do assessment on a
very ad hoc basis, which made many of the questions difficult to answer accurately.
This is more a comment on the survey than on assessment activities at our library: It would have been
useful to provide a clearer definition of the range of activities that constitute “collection assessment.”
Every library gathers data on holdings, usage, collection expenditures and analyzes this data in various
ways, though not always in an integrated fashion. To what extent—separately and/or in combination—
do these activities amount to collection assessment? For example, the question about “changes made
as a result of assessment”—our faculty and university administration responded to statistics showing
a drop in library for annual collection expenditures. Concern about this development eventually led to
greater support for collections funding, but it was unclear to me whether this should be seen (in terms
of the present survey) as an impact of collections assessment per se.
We are in the second year of a sustained effort to make collection development more evidence-based.
This effort includes programs already in place—such as DDA—and is complementary to a library-
wide reorganization of staff that emphasizes the formation of flexible, project-based teams. Our
fiscal climate also demands that we be able to present (better) data about our collections and their
use both to administrators and to faculty and students. Currently, collection development librarians
are considering ways to make assessment part of their regular practices, and we are also examining
workflows in acquisitions that could better support the kinds of data we need for reliable assessments.
We do not have a staff position that has sole responsibility for overseeing collection assessment.
The Coordinator for Library Assessment is a new position and only 50% of that staff member’s job.
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