Ten scholarly papers and twelve abstracts comprise the content of the twenty-first annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The twenty-first Brick & Click Libraries Conference was held virtually. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at…

The Quality Matters™ (QM) Program is utilized by over 700 colleges and universities to ensure that online course design meets standards imperative to student success in a Web-based classroom. Although a faculty-driven peer-review process, QM provides assessment from a student perspective, thereby identifying opportunities for improvement that may…

This article serves as a primer for assessment and evaluation design by describing the range of methods commonly employed in library settings. Quantitative methods, such as counting and benchmarking measures, are useful for investigating the internal operations of an access services department in order to identify workflow inefficiencies or…

This article presents a qualitative evaluation methodology of academic departments for library organizational learning and library enhancement planning. This evaluation used campus units' academic program review reports as a data source and employed collaborative content analysis by library liaisons to extract departmental strengths, weaknesses,…

This article discusses a project undertaken to assess the journals in a Big Deal package by applying a weighted value algorithm measuring quality, utility, and value of individual titles. Carried out by a national library consortium in Canada, the project confirmed the value of the Big Deal package while providing a quantitative approach for…

Although academic libraries have a long tradition of program assessment, in the past the results have been more meaningful internally than externally. Recent changes in the conceptualization of libraries' role in higher education and advances in measurement tools will likely provide answers to different questions, particularly the relationship of…

During the last decade, research has become increasingly important to the profession of librarianship. Seven library schools now have doctoral programs, foundation grants have stimulated and supported scores of major projects, and the research method has been recognized as an accepted technique for solving library problems. The increasing volume…