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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the pilot project of collection assessment performed by an academic library for the Computer Information Science (CIS) Department specifically and share the experience involved in this assessment.

In this descriptive research, the library gathered and analyzed a set of evaluation reports for CIS-related print and electronic materials. This assessment includes analyses of physical items, periodicals, electronic resources, peers’ databases, faculty syllabi, as well as departmental allocation fund.

This project shows the importance of collaboration between the library and academic departments on collection evaluation and assessment. It demonstrates that the assessments of a department-specific collection can provide the library with insights into the quality of the collection and help librarians better understand the information requirements of the faculty and students in the department. By analyzing the data collected in the assessment, the library can spend the tight budget on the most needed core materials related to the curriculum and research of the department. This project provides a good example for future routine assessments.

The procedure, results and future work of this assessment provide other academic libraries with insights into and practical solutions to department-specific collection assessments.

The study describes a set of collection assessment activities specific to a disciplinary department undertaken by Spiva Library. Few studies have been conducted to study department-specific collection assessments. This type of study can assist a university library to develop a core collection in support of teaching, learning and research for individual academic departments.

Researchers and administrators have struggled to fully understand the value of library human resources for decades. There are many approaches to counting the activities of library staffs, but less is understood about the value of developing and maintaining relationships. Given the growing importance of engagement-focussed, expertise-based service models in research libraries, the failure of library assessment models to account for the relational value of librarian activities is problematic in justifying and incentivizing new strategic activities and understanding the importance of libraries’ relationships with users and other stakeholders. The social network perspectives now commonplace in organizational studies to provide relational and contextual understandings of organizational behavior could be applied to library performance measurement and evaluation, providing a fuller picture of library impact. The purpose of this paper is to address this conceptual gap in the evaluation of library services.

The first part of the paper will present a content analysis of recent literature on emerging service models in academic libraries to identify relational aspects of the models. The relational elements will then be mapped to major concepts and methods from the social network analysis literature. This will include, as appropriate, basic network properties such as transactional content (e.g. exchange of power, services, etc.) of the relationship, nature (e.g. intensity, reciprocity, embeddedness) of the relationship, and structural characteristics of library networks. It will also identify more advanced areas of analysis such as the development of social capital, diffusion of innovations and contagion, and the role of networks in providing access to organizational resources. After mapping relational elements of emerging library service models to social network theory, a research agenda for better understanding library social networks and their value will be proposed.

Social network theory offers a rich conceptual and methodological framework for understanding the relational value of library services, particularly in emerging engagement-centered views of librarianship. Although activity- and outcome-based models of assessment are still important in the assessment of library activities, a social network view of library relationships is an essential complement in providing a more complete view of library value and will complement other work in this area such as human capital valuation and the relational capital components of the values scorecard.

This paper presents a unique theoretical and methodological viewpoint on the assessment of library services. This will contribute to the understanding of a vexing problem in library assessment, the value of library human resources, by providing a framework for the measurement and evaluation of relational aspects of librarianship that are often viewed as intangible and unmeasurable.

In the spring of 2016, the University of Kansas Libraries piloted Research Sprints: One Week, One Project, a program aimed at cultivating relationships with faculty through deep project-based engagement.

Three faculty members, matched with a team of library experts, worked intensively to complete a research or pedagogic project for one week in May. Critical to the program’s success was the use of project management methodologies and tools. These tools were essential to identifying task dependencies, developing workflows, and documenting work processes.

The overall success of the Sprints demonstrated to faculty that library staff can be more than one-shot consultants; faculty collaborators learned first hand that the library can be a true partner throughout the scholarly process. As an approach to user engagement, Sprints pose some considerations for library management, including the need for robust staff training in project management and teambuilding, internal resistance to utilizing project management tools, difficulty finding staff time and resources to commit for a short but high-concentrated period, and the need to align projects with staff expertise and availability.

This chapter provides an assessment of the Sprints pilot, addressing some of the implications, potential benefits, and challenges of adopting and adapting Research Sprints to support library work. It will be of interest to project managers and library staff who are considering integrating project management methods into their outreach and services, and provides examples of how project management can inform library efforts to more deeply collaborate in advancing the scholarly work of local research and teaching communities.

Since 1973, Reference Services Review has published an annual annotated bibliography of materials focused on library instruction and, most recently, information literacy. Publications addressing academic library activities continue to be represented in the largest numbers. The continuing growth of electronic information has made librarians, in all types of libraries, more aware of the need to provide ongoing instruction to library users.

The Business Library and The College of Business Administration at The Pennsylvania State University have formed a strategic partnership to analyze, evaluate, make selection decisions, and provide funding for electronic resources. This paper describes the background and rationale for the formation of this partnership and describes the issues and procedures that are followed to collaboratively build electronic collections to support business research. Benefits of this partnership include greater access to electronic resources for faculty throughout the University; an improved understanding of the breadth and needs of faculty research in business; and better knowledge of the resources that are used by various faculty, academic departments, and locations throughout the University. The partnership also provides a framework for incorporating electronic resources into the strategic planning process.

The importance of “information literacy” in the education of nursing students continues to increase. In response, partnerships between nursing faculty and librarians are developing. The shortage of nurses and the rapid changes in information technology have created opportunities for librarians to educate nursing faculty and students about locating information, evaluating resources, and managing information. The type of instruction and support needed varies, depending on the level of the nursing student. Become a partner with the nursing faculty by attending meetings, having an office in the college of nursing, participating in social networking, and exploring ways in which a librarian can provide assistance. These partnerships provide benefits to nursing programs, nursing faculty and librarians.

Traditional interviewing techniques often fail to fully assess the “soft skills” required for a potential hire to succeed in a particular organizational culture. This case study presents an alternate framework for evaluating candidates to determine their ability to effectively collaborate with existing team members. The authors report the process used in hiring two faculty librarians in 2011 and the ways the process was revised to fill two newly created positions in 2013. A review of management literature on interview techniques supports using practical exercises and strategically designed questions to assess a candidate’s fit within a given organizational culture. The experiences reported in this case study bear that out. The process of strategically designing the interview structure enabled the department to gain a better vision of its priorities and values, while the interviews enabled the team to select additional members who work well in a collaborative environment with the personalities already in place. Readers can use this to redesign their interview procedures to more effectively select candidates who will contribute to the vision and positive culture of their workplace. This model was successful in this instance and readers can modify these procedures to adapt to their own workplace cultures in any type of library. Building on strategies used in various industries, this chapter translates the use of practical exercises and strategically designed questions into an academic library context.

Undergraduate information commons have become pervasive in the academic library landscape. In recent years, librarians and administrators have come to identify the need for comparable commons’ spaces and services for graduate students. This chapter serves as a review of recently developed models of graduate commons—in this discussion referred to as Scholars’ Commons—as defined by an integration of physical learning spaces, personnel, and a dynamic availability of research support services that support assist graduate students throughout their academic life cycle. These provisions serve as the foundation for the development of enhanced library-supported graduate student success.

Still a rare commodity, existing models from selected institutional web sites were examined using a framework for analysis consisting of several criteria: new use of space; segmented services; partnerships; and new organizational structures. Through a synthesis of the commonalities prevalent in these systems, this chapter aims to provide recommendations for prospective Scholars’ Commons models and proposals for their development. Library organizations contemplating the development of a Scholars’ Commons need to consider the needs of their target population, potential new or reallocated spaces, feasibility of providing support and research technologies, and possible staffing models. As well, the authors consider the importance of library-based graduate student support that bolsters cross-divisional collaborative partnerships across the academy.