Creating an Outreach Story: Assessment Results, Strategic Planning, and Reflection

Academic library outreach and student engagement initiatives often strive to connect students to learning spaces, resources, and experts. Librarians do this work to raise awareness of services and to remove barriers so students feel more comfortable seeking help. Additionally, these activities promote the academic library as a hub of engagement, innovation, and continual learning to various user groups. Unfortunately, because these learning experiences can often be unique or serendipitous, measuring how these efforts are contributing to the library’s teaching, learning, and research missions can be difficult. This paper focuses on how academic librarians can align their outreach to strategic goals and utilize assessment data to evaluate and share the impact of their work. Case studies from two institutions will provide a structure for other institutions. Additionally, this paper will share examples of qualitative and quantitative assessment, which can be adapted and modified for a variety of uses