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The purpose of this paper is to examine potential new uses of return on investment (ROI) in alternative methods for library assessment and valuation.

Uses examples of recent uses of ROI by libraries to identify potential new applications of ROI in library assessment and valuation.

ROI investment has historically been used by libraries for the assessment of past performance of library organizations in a reactive/defensive nature or for assessing the value of customer services. ROI has not been widely used as a proactive assessment tool, to introspectively assess administrative or other internal services, or as an offensive assessment and valuation tool, especially for intangible performance assessment and valuation.

New applications of the ROI assessment tool could provide library administrators with proactive means of increasing the effectiveness of library assessment, valuation, and their results.

This paper aims to report on the first phase of a two‐year project sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries, “Making Library Assessment Work: Practical Approaches for Developing and Sustaining Effective Assessment”.

This paper reports on the project, which is intended to provide libraries with the knowledge and understanding necessary to select and apply appropriate measurement techniques, and to use assessment data in decision making. The focus of this effort is on practical and sustainable approaches to effective assessment. The paper is particularly interested in the successful application of assessment within different organizational cultures and moving library assessment from a project‐based approach to a more programmatic, integrated, and sustainable operation within libraries.

The findings of the study indicate that all the ARL libraries in Phase I are developing a stronger understanding of the value of assessment and library leadership supports this movement. It finds that there are staff in each library who have good research methodology skills, although they may not be involved in assessment efforts. It reveals that areas that did not receive a passing grade in most libraries included resource allocation, sustainability, prioritizing needs, choosing the appropriate assessment method, using data for improvement, and communicating assessment results.

The paper provides useful information on a project intended to help librarians in decision making.

Reports on the Illinois Library Computer Systems Organization (ILCSO) assessment methodology task force’s work in determining their assessment formulae for the decade covering ten fiscal years, 1988‐1999. The article includes the rationale ILCSO used for membership assessments, assessment totals by fiscal year, assessment methodologies by fiscal year, new member assessments and an appendix detailing the cost allocation methodologies used by 21 other consortia.

The purpose of this paper is to draw a picture of the current landscape of library assessment based on the data gathered in interviews. The authors will focus specifically on the continuum between micro and strategic assessment and share the lessons learned from diverse institutions and geographies about how to build a culture of assessment.

Between 2015 and 2017, the researchers have interviewed more than 75 library directors and leaders, library assessment practitioners, and academic experts on four continents about library assessment and its current state in their institutions.

The results reveal a varied landscape, with libraries in widely varying stages of assessment performance and readiness.

This paper presents the results of a large-scale study over more than two years. More than 75 people have been interviewed in five countries. The scale and scope of the work is both significant and unique.

Suggests that although much was written during the 1980s on performance assessment in the public services sector, very little was published about the performance assesment actually taking place in higher education libraries with regard to reader services. Reports on research which aims therefore, to ascertain the commitment of institutions and their libraries to performance assesment, the nature and extent of assessment of three library reader services – document delivery, enquiry services and education – and the dissemination of results and ability to gauge satisfaction levels of library managers with current assessment procedures. A postal survey was carried out during the summer 1992. Results indicated that of those surveyed around one in three libraries, 15 per cent of libraries carried out no assessment of their reader services and last only one‐third of library managers felt satisfied with their performance assessment procedures.

The purpose of this study is to report on the findings of the two‐year Association of Research Libraries (ARL) sponsored project, “Making Library Assessment Work: Practical Approaches to Effective and Sustainable Assessment,”; it aims to examine the organizational factors that facilitate and impede effective data use and the implications for assessment in research libraries.

Information was gathered from a variety of sources, including: a self‐evaluation of assessment activities and needs done by each of the 24 participating libraries; extensive discussion with a designated contact at each library; a review of library and institutional sources such as annual reports, strategic plans, accreditation self‐studies, ARL and IPEDS statistics; and the observations and discussion that occurred during 1.5 day site visits.

The paper finds that libraries surveyed have made some progress incorporating data in decision making and services improvement, but there is much work to be done.

This is not an evidence‐based practice study but rather one that examines why evidence (the data on which a decision may be based) is not used more widely in libraries.

This paper describes the development of a culture of assessment in an academic library’s information literacy program offered through its Research and Instructional Services department.

Incorporating components from change management, adult learning and organizational authority approaches offers opportunities for those without managerial duties to encourage others to incorporate student learning assessment into their work. Over a three-year period, instruction assessment was refreshed and renewed in an information literacy program and individual sessions through workshops, new assessment techniques and reflective activities.

Approaching cultural change through small, incremental activities can be a useful method for encouraging buy-in and engagement from library workers. Efforts at one academic library resulted in increased rates of assessment in instruction sessions and self-reported willingness to use assessment techniques in the future.

This paper is limited to the analysis and building of an assessment culture within a single academic library department.

Changing organizational culture is a complex undertaking, particularly for those without supervisory duties. This paper applies approaches of change leadership and assessment from existing literature to an instruction program through the lens of “coordinator syndrome.” Librarians from institutions where assessment is dispersed throughout an organization or where assessment has been seen in a negative light may find a similar incremental approach useful in their own context.

The libraries at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and Cornell University have created or re‐defined their assessment plans and programs within the last two years. This paper aims to show the similarities and differences between the approaches of these four institutions.

A case study approach is taken.

These case studies underscore how vital assessment has become and illustrate how these assessment programs have evolved to reflect local needs and priorities, their libraries' organizational structure, their institutions' planning cycle, and, the reality of limited resources.

Recognizing that understanding local needs is the key to successful assessment at any institution, it is hoped that these case studies will be useful to libraries that are at various stages of building an assessment program.

Two studies sponsored by the Digital Library Federation (DLF) aimed to discover the assessment practices, priorities, and concerns of academic libraries, and to propose next steps for addressing significant unresolved issues. One study surveyed and convened selected library directors to discern their priority assessment needs and design research to meet the most critical unmet need. The outcome of this study was a survey of how students and faculty perceive and use the entire information landscape. The second study examined the assessment practices and concerns of leading digital libraries. The problems identified indicate that current assessment efforts are often inefficient and ineffective because of inadequate skills, poor planning, cumbersome governance, and a fundamental frame of reference ill‐suited to assessment. Libraries urgently need to synthesize and disseminate what they have learned from experience, organize assessment as a core activity, and audit and modify the beliefs, behaviours, and assumptions operating within their organization.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the epistemological underpinning of SERVQUAL and its limitations; and second, to propose ways to enhance the utility of SERVQUAL as a library assessment tool.

The study first conceptualises quality judgment as a knowing process and locates the epistemological stance of SERVQUAL within the general framework of epistemology demarcation; it then examines related SERVQUAL assumptions and their implications for library assessment in general and for service quality assessment in particular based on two empirical investigations: a questionnaire survey and an interview survey. The questionnaire survey applies the SERVQUAL instrument to three Chinese university libraries, with a view to examining the SERVQUAL score in light of epistemological considerations; the interview survey interviews 50 faculty users in one of the three universities with a view to illuminating the naturalistic process through which users develop their judgement of the library's service quality and through which the SERVQUAL score is formed.

The study shows that the actual SERVQUAL score is distributed in a very scattered manner in all three libraries, and that it is formed through a very complex process rooted primarily in the user's personal experiences with the library, which are in turn shaped by factors from both the library world and the user's life‐world. Based on these findings, this research questions a number of SERVQUAL assumptions and proposes three concepts which may help to contextualise the SERVQUAL score and enhance its utility in actual library assessment: library planning based variance of user perception, perception‐dependent user expectation and library‐sophistication based user differentiation.

The research presented in the paper questions a number of SERVQUAL assumptions and proposes three concepts that may help to contextualise the SERVQUAL score and enhance its utility in actual library assessment.