Evaluation for the 21st Century features thoughtfully written introductions to each of the main sections that provide a context and synthesis of the various evaluators' chapters. After reading this groundbreaking book, researchers and practitioners will be able to recognize these new developments in evaluation as they encounter them, place them in context, and incorporate them into their own evaluation professions and practices.

Explore the ARL’s initiatives for identifying, formulating, and testing new criteria for evaluating academic libraries in the digital age! The proliferation of electronic information resources in the past decade has changed the ways in which research libraries evaluate their service and holdings. This collection of articles (thirteen of which previously appeared in ARL’s bimonthly newsletter/report on research issues and actions) examines new measures for library evaluation that are being developed by the Association of Research Libraries. It presents an overview of how the Association of Research Libraries’ “new measures” initiative developed, plus insightful reports on the details of the SERVQUAL, LibQUAL+, and E-metrics projects. Handy flow charts and tables make the information easily accessible and understandable. From the editor: “The profound changes in library management and collection development brought about by digital technology in the closing decade of the twentieth century have changed the way we think about libraries. If we were to ask librarians who have been in the profession for more than a decade how they evaluated a library, we probably would hear statistics about the number of volumes held and added annually, the number of serial subscriptions, how much money a library has to spend, and how many professionals are on staff. These are the traditional criteria by which libraries have been judged throughout much of the twentieth century. Newer librarians, however, especially those who entered the profession in the late 1980s and 1990s, use a different yardstick and frequently recite different statistics that include terms such as user satisfaction, spending on electronic resources and services, document delivery services, numbers of databases and electronic journals available, and services provided to distance learners.” In Evaluating the Twenty-First Century Library, you’ll find valuable information on: current performance measures for academic libraries the continuing search for accurate new performance measures the uses of learning outcomes assessment SERVQUAL, LibQUAL+, and the ARL LibQUAL+ Pilot Project the results of the 2000 Symposium on Measuring Library Service Quality the uses of E-metrics in assessing the academic networked environment and accurately measuring use, users, services, resources, and other factors an insightful discussion of the rise in spending on electronic information by research libraries

Packed with discussion questions, activities, suggested additional references, selected readings, and many other features that speak directly to students and library professionals, Gregory’s Collection Development and Management for 21st Century Library Collections is a comprehensive handbook that also shares myriad insightful ideas and approaches valuable to experienced practitioners. This new second edition brings an already stellar text fully up to date, presenting top-to-bottom coverage of the impact of new technologies and developments on the discipline, including discussion of e-books, open access, globalization, self-publishing, and other trends; needs assessment, policies, and selection sources and processes; budgeting and fiscal management; collection assessment and evaluation; weeding, with special attention paid to electronic materials; collaborative collection development and resource sharing; marketing and outreach; self-censorship as a component of intellectual freedom, professional ethics, and other legal issues; diversity and ADA issues; preservation; and the future of the field. Additional features include updated vendor lists, samples of a needs assessment report, a collection development policy, an approval plan, and an electronic materials license.

Offering an excellent, client-oriented, results-driven means for studying practice evaluation, this book brings together practice, research, structural change in service delivery, and specific skills in an integrated, problem-solving way. With managed care becoming such a hot topic, professionals need to track client assessments and demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of their treatment. PRACTICE EVALUATION IN THE 21st CENTURY helps students develop the skills to monitor efficacy by integrating practice and research in the text, as well as providing access to powerful evaluation software via the Web. The book effectively conveys to students the importance of empirically evaluating social work practice and the responsibility of all practitioners to engage in evaluation as an integrated part of professional practice. Students have access to the CASS software on the accompanying Web site and will find that the contextual support in the text along with easy-to-follow documentation make the software easy to use.

The 21st Century Academic Library: Global Patterns of Organization and Discourse discusses the organization of academic libraries, drawing on detailed research and data. The organization of the library follows the path of a print book or journal: acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation, reference, instruction, preservation and general administration. Most libraries still have public services and technical services, and are still very print-based in their organization, while their collections and services are increasingly electronic and virtual. This book gathers information on organizational patterns of large academic libraries in the US and Europe, providing data that could motivate libraries to adopt innovative organizational structures or assess the effectiveness of their current organizational patterns. - Contributes to the literature on the globalization of information and of library and information science - Analyzes and presents data in a way that allows librarians and library administrators to consider what organizational patterns are the most effective for the goals they are pursuing - Includes emerging patterns that are not widely seen in the academic library population

Public Libraries in the 21st Century presents a comprehensive analysis of the impact of recent policy initiatives directly targeted at public libraries along with broader developments in the public sector environment within which they operate. Key features include: • An exploration of the context within which public libraries are operating and analysis of their role in local and national life; • Examples of best practice in service delivery; • Evaluation of the challenges and opportunities confronting public library managers; • Wide ranging coverage, including information from published and unpublished sources, supplemented by interviews with key stakeholders in the public library sector. The book provides a unique and thorough guide to the contemporary discourses surrounding issues of identity, social purpose, value and strategy facing the public library service.

Provides vision for strong school library programs, including identification of the skills and knowledge essential for students to be information literate. Includes recommended baseline staffing, access, and resources for school library services at each grade level.

Assessment is increasingly important to higher education. Tight budgets and scarce resources demand accountability from the entire academy, including the library. Librarians must be prepared to document the impact of the programs they create, the collections they develop, and the services they offer. Liaison librarians in academic libraries focus on engagement with academic units and outreach to students, faculty, and the community of scholars. In a series of scholarly essays, Assessing Liaison Librarians: Documenting Impact for Positive Change examines how academic libraries assess liaison activities and offers recommendations for documenting the impact of programs and services. Individual chapters address liaison activities relating to collection development; library instruction; research services; engagement and outreach; online, blended and other learning environments, including MOOCs; scholarly communications and information technology; the importance of assessment in the 21st century research library; and professional development of liaisons librarians.

An international collaboration between IFLA, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed standards for new library indicators for the twenty-first century. The existing international library statistics were developed nearly 40 years ago. This book presents the first results using the new statistics, and look forward to the next steps. It also contains other initiatives and developments in the fields of library statistics, benchmarking and indicators.