Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success

Academic librarians are connecting with campus partners in novel ways to question and discover how they bring value to their institutions. To foster these partnerships, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), with funding from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, launched “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” (AiA). This three-year program will to aid 300 postsecondary institutions of all types as they create engaged libraries of the future. Each selected institution has a team with a librarian and at least two people from other campus units. The librarians will participate in a formal 14-month professional development program and lead their campus teams in developing and implementing action-learning projects. The projects investigate library impact and consider different aspects of the academic library (e.g., collections, space, instruction, reference, etc.). They must ultimately be tied to student learning (e.g., course, program, or degree learning outcomes) and/or success (e.g., student retention, completion, or persistence). This session will report on the assessment work of the first 75 institutions. Learn about the questions they are exploring as they develop and implement action-learning projects on campus and how ACRL is developing this assessment community of practice