Rachel Applegate, SLIS faculty member, presented two papers at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference in Seattle, Washington. The Conference was held March 12-15, 2009 with a theme Pushing the Edge: Explore, Engage, Extend.
The program provides abstracts and details from the Conference.
Applegate responded to questions about her talks. See notes and abstracts below.
- Friday, March 13:
"The Designing Comprehensive Assessment Plans comes directly out of my teaching and my experience as an academic library director concerned with institutional assessment. The goal is to provide ways for people to think about an overall assessment context so they know *why* they assess, rather than becoming lost in, or diverted by, the details."
Abstract:
Having an overall plan for assessment brings measurement and meaning together--and keeps you from being overwhelmed. This session reviews five top, bottom, middle, and sideways approaches to assessment planning: modeling an academic department, serving a strategic plan, evaluating departments, weaving existing data, and being selective (scorecards and dashboards). It is one thing to know how to assess this or that—another to make all assessment serve the library's general mission.
- Saturday, March 14:
"The Support Staff competencies data comes from the same major survey that provided data for an ALISE presentation comparing the perceptions and values of MLS vs. support staff, regarding support staff roles and competencies. This presentation focuses on what is distinctively different in comparing academic and public library respondents. In general, academic librarians are more concerned with technical services, and more worried about the role of support staff in reference work. Collection development is not viewed as a paraprofessional/support staff role."
Abstract:
This research reports on data from a recent widely-disseminated survey of academic and public librarians and library support staff. The presentation describes what professional competencies respondents considered most (and least) important for support staff. It shows what are the most-highly-rated items overall, and examines areas where opinions differed the most, comparing academic and public libraries. Connected to the ALA Library Support Staff Certification Project.
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Posted April 02, 2009