Putting Assessment into Action: Selected Projects from the First Cohort of the Assessment in Action Grant

Are you new to library assessment? Are you tasked with conducting an assessment project and don’t know what methods to use, or which ones are the most effective (or practical)? The methodological issues addressed in Putting Assessment into Action: Selected Projects from the First Cohort of the Assessment in Action Grant (edited by Eric Ackermann) are based on the real world, practical experience of librarians who participated in the first cohort of the assessment in Action project. Unlike many books on this subject, this volume allows the selection of an appropriate assessment method(s) based on the activity or program being assessed without requiring extensive previous knowledge of research design, methods, or statistics. Twenty-seven cases are presented in arenas as varied as assessing fourth year undergraduate learning, first year experience, graduate student information literacy, technology facilities, assessing outreach services and space, and more. Represented are 25 U.S. institutions and two Canadian institutions and a range of types of institutions from doctoral/research universities to baccalaureate/masters granting institutions to a tribal college and a community college.

This book is appropriate for professional Library and Information Science collections in all types of libraries and is particularly appropriate for immediate consideration of assessment methods.