This essay served as the basis for the opening keynote speech during the Library Assessment Conference in Baltimore in 2010. It set the stage by tracing the demands for accountability in the beginning of the century and outlining progress made. It provided important background and context for the following four keynote papers delivered by Megan…

Examines factors that have contributed to the development of measures that can determine the impact of library services, including evaluation approaches, demands for public sector accountability, and government activities aimed at determining service outcomes. Discusses impacts of community information services based on a study by the Institute of…

This report of an Institute in Evaluation Techniques in School Library/Media Programs is presented in outline form to serve as a format for other training and inservice sessions in evaluation techniques. Basic information is given in the narrative with indication of related discussion questions and activities for participants. A discussion of the…

Cost benefit accounting is not being used in academic reference libraries today but administrators are beginning to require quantitative evaluation of services provided. Several systems are described and evaluated. (35 references) (DH)

Includes three articles: the first presents rules and regulations from the "Federal Register" that focus on educational effectiveness in postsecondary institutions; the second discusses the appropriateness of various research methodologies for assessment and accountability of reference services; and the third examines data collection…

Arguing that user studies and performance measures provide two major approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of library services, this occasional paper presents an overview of the literature, examines the goals and approaches in user studies and performance measures, and provides suggestions for increasing the potential benefits of both by…

Examines two traditional approaches to the measurement of library service--the gathering of circulation and reference statistics--and relates them in a statistical model in an attempt to define real standards against which a library's activity can be compared. Graphs comparing reference and circulation statistics are included. (Author/JD)

The recent demand for more accountability from public libraries has made it essential that true cost-benefit analysis be applied to their operations. The authors developed a cost-benefit analysis methodology and applied it to five large public library systems. This article describes ongoing research to modify their methodologies to make them…

As our society moves increasingly from an era of affluence to one of scarcity, the evaluation and assessment of publicly supported services will become even more crucial and necessary to ensure that public resources are being expended in the most effective manner. Evaluation of library service effectiveness is defined in this paper in terms of…

Three articles consider methods of demonstrating the value of library services. The first discusses showing the relevancy of public library services at New England town meetings; the second describes ways in which the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library evaluates user satisfaction; and the third discusses justifying the value of a special library.…

Developed as part of a three-year project funded by the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA), this manual is designed to present librarians in the State of California with an alternative, "sense-making" approach to assessing the information needs of patrons and potential patrons and to assessing accountability, i.e., whether…

This manual was conceived as a reference guide for Illinois' 18 library systems to use in their long-range planning and evaluation program. Section 1 of the manual explains the planning model: Context Input Process Product (CIPP). CIPP was selected as a coherent adaptation and modification of many previous planning and design methods: systems…

With today's demands for accountability, some new methods should be evolved for evaluating the services given by the school library media center. Since circulation counts, head counts, and similar statistics have provided only an approximation of the real services provided, an opinionnaire was devised to survey the faculty about library use,…

Includes four articles that discuss the evaluation of library reference services. Topics addressed include unobtrusive testing; measuring the accountability of reference librarians by behavioral rather than factual evaluation; on-the-job training of reference librarians; and faculty expectations of academic reference librarians. (52 references)…

Discusses library collection evaluation and its relationship to the acquisitions budget. Topics addressed include the publishing industry; library services that are more user centered; acquisition of versus access to sources of information and knowledge; the concept of value; library accountability; objectives and setting priorities; and levels of…