How and Why Libraries are Changing: What We Know and What We Need to Know

Abstract

whether the library is accomplishing its mission within the larger institution. Outcomes assessments can be difficult and expensive to conduct. For example, how do you articulate and assess a measure of the library's impact on student learning and faculty research? Libraries have no standard definitions or instruments with which to make such assessments and no source of aggregate or contextual data to facilitate comparing and interpreting their performance. If university and college administrators do not require outcomes assessments, libraries may not pursue them. What we know about how and why library outcomes are changing is miniscule and speculative.