The Libraries' Culture of Assessment:
Upcoming Evaluation Activities

We're at it again! The York Libraries are involved in assessment activities to fulfill our user-centred mandate and to continually improve services and collections. Each year, in an article in News UCan Use, we have provided you with an update of user assessment activities, feedback on what we have learned, and improvements we have made to meet your needs.

Focus Groups with Graduate Students

This year is no exception! In November, we held focus groups with graduate students (see Focus Groups with Graduate Students to Assess Library Needs) and more are planned. We asked the students questions relating to library collections, services, space, librarian liaison, and library improvements they think should be prioritized in the coming year. One way in which we responded to focus group suggestions was the introduction of a Library Research Skills Workshop specifically geared to graduate students' needs. Two sessions were held in early February, and 70 graduate students attended. We plan to continue offering these workshops at the beginning of the fall and winter terms.

Library Service Quality Survey

In the spring of 2002, we participated in the LibQUAL+ tm Library Service Quality Survey, along with several hundred other academic libraries throughout North America. In the survey results, an area of concern that was no surprise to us showed problems with library facilities as a place to study and carry out research.

Improvements were identified. Now you can see the results of the Libraries' efforts to make those improvements in the expanded new study space in the Scott Library, the new Peter F. Bronfman Business Library at Schulich, the renovations that are underway at the Steacie Science and Engineering Library, and improvements planned at the Leslie Frost Library at Glendon.

We are now participating in the 2004 implementation of LibQUAL to continually measure how well we are doing in respect to your expectations about collections, services, and space. So don't be surprised if you are part of the sample that has been drawn for this assessment activity. For more information on Libqual, see our FAQ sheet.

YUL Website

The Libraries' website is a gateway to the rich world of collections and services that we offer. Each year we strive to make it better in terms of functionality and design. The Libraries' Web Review Committee is presently planning usability testing with some undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty to make sure we are on the right track. If you would like to participate in a web usability study for a revised library home page please contact Toni Olshen at tolshen@yorku.ca.

Ontario Scholars Portal Assessment

A very exciting province-wide project is under way to assist us in measuring the use of our electronic resources in order to better serve Ontario university communities and to place budget decisions about electronic resources on a more solid footing. The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) is starting a year-long library assessment initiative. York University is one of the sixteen members of the participating group. We want to evaluate how well Ontario university libraries are meeting researcher needs with the consortia-purchased electronic resources offered to you through the Ontario Scholars Portal. To see the coverage of the Ontario Scholars Portal please see
http://scholarsportal.info/cgi-bin/sciserv.pl?collection=journals.

We are implementing a brief, anonymous, web-based survey that will run once each month from February through December 2004 on randomly selected two-hour time periods. During the two-hour period, as you access a Scholars Portal journal, you will be asked to fill out a web form with five questions. The survey provides anonymous data on both in-library and remote usage of these resources which will help us determine why patrons are using electronic resources (for funded or non-funded research, for curricula preparation, for coursework, etc.) and to track the differences between in-house and web usage, comparing the location of the user and their status (graduate student, undergraduate student, faculty, etc.) with the purpose of that use.

We feel very strongly that database usage statistics are not enough to provide a full picture of the impact of networked electronic resources on members of our university communities. This survey methodology allows us to reach all actual users of the Scholars Portal to provide OCUL with rich, reliable data for decision-making and service improvements.

Meeting your needs

These activities indicate the Libraries' continued emphasis on meeting your research, teaching and learning needs and expectations. We ask your patience, cooperation, and participation in these endeavours so that York Libraries can improve the collections and services provided to you.

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