Assessment Strategies in Technical Services

Are you spending money wisely? If you’re a technical services manager at an academic library, an administrator, or a dean, you’re tasked with proving it. Incorporate assessment and analysis work into your library’s existing workflow with the guidance of this new collection from the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS). Contributors from several academic libraries draw from real-world practices to suggest new approaches for acquisition and collections, cataloging and metadata, digital preservation, and e-resources and serials. You’ll find advice on such topics as

• assessing e-resource budgets, workflows, vendors, and collaborative initiatives;
• how to use multiple data sets to assess collections across subjects, formats, or other factors;
• working with data using common applications like Excel, Access, or MySQL;
• four types of preservation assessment and how to structure them for actionable results;
• ways to save on serial expenses while avoiding cancellations;
• seven key considerations for building a data warehouse; and
• benchmarking techniques for improving metadata processes

Exploring your options for assessment will lead you to the right balance of traditional and new metrics, and this book provides a valuable overview.