In the book “How to Measure Anything,” Douglas Hubbard encourages working from four assessment assumptions: (1) your problem is not as unique as you think, (2) you have more data than you think, (3) you need less data than you think, and (4) an adequate amount of new data is more accessible than you think (Wiley: 2010, 32). Taking these as are our starting points, the Library’s Discovery and Delivery Study Team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has formulated an evidence-based framework for decision-making relative to future system development. The assessment framework includes:
- A systematic review of the published literature on discovery as well as reports issued by other libraries documenting their decision-making criteria and white papers and reports from the vendor community.
- Synthesis and analysis of the user perspective and practices data gather through local user surveys over the past decade (Graduate/Professional Survey, 2004; Undergraduate Survey, 2005; Faculty/Staff Survey, 2006; LibQUAL, 2008; Ithaka Faculty Survey, 2013; and LibQUAL Lite, 2014).
- Extracting themes, values, and priorities as well as testing approaches and system problems documented in the Library’s reports on implementing the WebFeat federated search system (2005-2006), developing and deploying Easy Search, a locally-developed and supported broadcast search, search assistance, and recommender system (2006-present), and piloting Primo (2011-2014).
- Analysis of user search behavior, search types, and use of assistance features through Easy Search logs (2010-present).
This session will present both our methodologies for each type of assessment as well as highlight our findings and the future to which they direct our attention and actions. Session attendees will find value in the methodologies, which can be adopted and adapted for other institutional settings, as well as our findings, including identification of ways in which the Illinois user community is similar to and/or different from national trends.
