Users are at the center of Library 2.0, and assessment is the key to finding out what they want. If users are going to do all the things predicted by the Library 2.0 world view - participate in the creation and use of interactive, collaborative library services - it follows that we need to know what is useful to them.

My working definition of assessment is the gathering of user feedback or data and taking direct follow-up action, if warranted, as a result. Emphasis mine!

At the University at Albany Libraries, how are we doing on this score? Here is a selected list of the kinds of assessment we've been doing, with brief commentary.

• OPAC: In the 20-odd years of its existence, we have just begun usability studies.
• Public Web site: In the ten years of its existence, we've done two online surveys and a couple of surveys of grad students in the Information Science program. A handful of small follow-up actions were taken a few years ago.
• UNL 205: Instructors have been distributing course surveys. Honest question: how has this driven change? I suspect that it has, but I'm out of the loop.
• LibQUAL+: We have run the survey twice. The results of the second survey aren't available, at least on our Web site. The results of the first survey especially highlighted needs of graduate students, and there has been follow-up.
• Focus groups: We did some focus groups a few years ago. I'm unaware of the follow-up activities.
• Miscellaneous student discussions or surveys on specific topics, e.g., a libray coffee shop. Our Dean has also been meeting with student groups.
• Statistics: We've been gathering a hefty amount of stats annually for reporting purposes. We have numbers galore about the use of our various resources and services, and have been running a Web analytics program since 2000. This is something of a grey area because we don't consistently use these numbers for assessment but rather for reporting.
• Campus-wide surveys have put us in a positive light.

What does this list tell us? We should be commended for what we do, definitely. All of this reflects good-faith efforts. I suspect that these activities are not dissimilar to what many of our peer libraries do.

However - in my view - we don't yet have a culture of assessment that drives the nature and kind of services that we offer. Many of these activities are sporadic, or after-the-fact activities, and we don't routinely use them as guidelines for change. Collaborating with users as we bring up or change services is not a fundamental part of our way of doing things. I'll ask just one question to prove my point: how were users integral to the planning process for building the Science Library?

Please note that this is not a denial of our responsiveness to the user feedback reaching us on a day-to-day basis through informal means. We take user comments seriously. We all know that.

In a follow-up post, I'll attempt to come up with a few ideas that reflect a Library 2.0 way of assessment.