Audrey Powers

Stay Calm and Cover Your Assessment: Creating a Culture of Assessment on a Shoestring

Academic libraries engage in assessment for a variety of reasons. Improving processes, responding to customer needs, fulfilling accreditation reporting requirements, and demonstrating impact and value to the institution are just a few. Many academic libraries find themselves in the position of being required to prove they are fulfilling a mission that contributes to the academic success of students and their value to the institution. Assessment is no longer a choice for libraries—it has become an expectation. Although most libraries are already doing some form of assessment, there seems to be little effort in many institutions to build a culture of assessment, where staff understand and participate in the process. In many organizations, assessment is often initiated and driven by library administration. Despite good intentions, many initiatives ultimately fail due to lack of staff buy-in.

Wasted Words?: Current Trends in Collection Development Policies

The transition to electronic resources and the changing role of the collection development librarian are having a tremendous impact on the manner by which libraries select and acquire new materials. The goal of this research project was to further elucidate the current trends of collection development policies in members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) as well as gauge current use and future efficacy. The survey was designed and sent to librarians responsible for collection development at university-affiliated ARL libraries in order to obtain a current picture of academic collection development policies, and how they are changing due to the abundance of electronic resources and new methods of data-driven acquisitions. The goals of the survey are to • Measure the continued use of CD policies as major collection-building tools; • Assess the frequency of updates to collection development policies; • Determine the availability of collection development policies; • Measure and compare the amount of time available to librarians to review and select new materials; • Determine if print materials are being reviewed in new and innovative ways or if they receive the same assessment as electronically formatted materials; • Measure the employment of data or patron-driven acquisition methods. The findings will require additional assessment, but the data does seem to indicate a time of change in the way academic libraries complete and assess their primary collection development activities. This survey was created, at least in part, with the hope of setting a starting point for continued evaluation and longitudinal measurement. If our survey participants are as actively helpful in future years, these dreams of cyclical assessment may well come to fruition. Survey Planning and Dissemination The major goals and elements of this survey, as well as the resulting data, stem from previous research by this group of authors. The initial work was presented at the 2011 Charleston Conference and appears in the proceedings as “Somethings Gotta Give: Is There a Future for the Collection Development Policy?” With this effort, the focus was the examination of the environment and landscape of collection development/ management, with special attention to the primary questions mentioned in the abstract. Following a thorough review of the literature and various best practices, the time arrived to collect original data on these topics. Following the presentation in November of 2011, the researchers set forth to expand the project. The Association of Research Libraries appeared the logical place to set the bar, and their collection of 125 research libraries proved an attractive target. The authors decided, however, that the focus of this initial survey would be only those libraries associated with the 112 public and private colleges and universities, excluding other library-type members (Smithsonian Institution Libraries, New York Public Library, National Library

Our Common Future

Follow this and additional works at: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/charleston An indexed, print copy of the Proceedings is also available for purchase at: http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/ charleston. You may also be interested in the new series, Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences. Find out more at: http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/charleston-insights-library-archival-and-information-sciences.

Reconfiguring Collection Development: A Faculty Print Serials Review

Follow this and additional works at: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/charleston An indexed, print copy of the Proceedings is also available for purchase at: http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/ charleston. You may also be interested in the new series, Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences. Find out more at: http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/charleston-insights-library-archival-and-information-sciences.

What the Heart Remembers: the Women and Children of Darfur

In 2009, the University of South Florida (USF) Libraries received from the organization Waging Peace a collection of materials which included transcripts of interviews with female genocide survivors and original childrens drawings depicting the atrocities of genocide in Darfur. These materials are particularly significant in that they were used as evidence of genocide in Darfur in the International Criminal Court. The childrens drawings have been digitized by USF and are an important element in the development of a web portal for the new Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center. These drawings also inspired the performance piece What the Heart Remembers: The Women and Children of Darfur staged by the USF Theatre and Dance Department. This article focuses on the librarys acquisition and digitization of these materials, the ongoing efforts to develop a web presence, faculty outreach, and the multidisciplinary collaboration between the library and other USF departments in this project.