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ALI Assessment Committee: Standardized Assessment Tools

Materials archive from ALI Assessment Committee Events. This is intended to be the sharing location for materials hosted on other sites, like YouTube, institutional repositories, and their like.

Standardized Assessment Tools

Many of us struggle with not having enough knowledge, time, or personnel to dedicate to assessment. Using standardized tools, tools that have been developed and evaluated by others, can be a way to begin or expand assessment initiatives.  

Standard Library Metrics

  • Benchmark: Library Metrics & Trends
    From their website, "Benchmark: Library Metrics & Trends is the newest tool for data-driven planning and advocacy in academic libraries. Launched by ACRL in late 2021, Benchmark provides enhanced access to ACRL annual survey data from 1998-2020."
  • LibPAS by Counting Opinions
    From their website, LibPAS streamlines the data capture process which saves time and reduces staff burden; displays the data in easy to read report outputs which include tables, graphs, trends, ranking and many other click-only reports; easy to generate reports which help in identifying strengths and weaknesses of the library, informing decision making, community ROI studies, and demonstrating outcomes to key stakeholders; and consolidates data into one platform to reduce redundancy, improve consistency, and facilitate sharing between data sets."

Library Values and Engagement

Here are some standardized assessment tools for measuring library value and engagement: 

  • LibQUAL
    From their website, "LibQUAL is a web-based survey offered by the Association of Research Libraries that helps libraries assess and improve library services, change organizational culture, and market the library." 

    From the Assessment Committee,  
    Amy Petts, Assessment Committee member from Ball State has administered this recently and found the tool less helpful and not easy to change and modify to the library's needs. It was also not a user friendly survey to take.

  • LibSat by Counting Opinions
    From their website, "Using LibSat’s continuous feedback and monitoring capabilities, you can measure shifts in satisfaction, quality, use, importance, referral rates and expectations; LibSat automatically collects, processes and presents your customer data the way you want, continuously, on-demand, in real-time and directly to who needs it – YOU!; And informs decision making and measures impact of initiatives."

  • MISO Survey
    From their website, the MISO Survey addresses the following questions, "What library and technology services and resources are important to our constituents? How successfully do our organizations deliver these services? What benchmarks can be established for excellent delivery of these services?"                                                       

From the Assessment Committee,

Shawn Denny, committee member from Taylor University, helped implement MISO three times  and administered it twice. He found that "MISO is a powerful and very comprehensive tool that allows you to collect comparable information on your library and IT services as as well as ask proprietary questions that cover your local circumstances and tools."

Climate Assessment

  • ClimateQUAL
    From their website, "ClimateQUAL®: Organizational Climate and Diversity Assessment is an assessment of library staff perceptions concerning (a) their library's commitment to the principles of diversity, (b) organizational policies and procedures, and (c) staff attitudes. It is an online survey with questions designed to understand the impact perceptions have on service quality in a library setting."

Collections Assessment Tools

  • GreenGlass
    From their website, "GreenGlass supports libraries and groups in making evidence-based decisions regarding the management of print monograph collections. Group functionality employs visualizations and modeling tools that allow groups of libraries to understand their collective collections with respect to overlap, subject dispersion, and usage."
  • WorldShare Collection Evaluation
    From their website, "WorldShare Collection Evaluation compares your library collections to those of another library, a peer group or a benchmark library group to analyze the strength of your discipline-specific resources and to support decisions about what to buy, license or borrow."