Book 40: Surviving the Future

TITLE: Surviving the Future: Academic Libraries, Quality, and Assessment
AUTHOR: Gail Munde and Kenneth Marks
STARTED: August 25, 2011
FINISHED: September 14, 2011
PAGES: 201
GENRE: Library Science

FIRST SENTENCE: [From the Preface] In 2007 we set out to prepare a workshop for academic librarians on the general topic of library quality improvement and assessment.

SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com] Striving to increase your library's visibility and contribution to your university's success? Surviving the Future will teach you to use data collection, assessment, and comparative evaluation to vastly improve the quality of your library and its services. Authors Gail Munde of East Carolina University and Kenneth Marks of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas draw from a wealth of international expertise and use a clear and easy-to-understand style to address such important topics as creating a culture of assessment, strategic planning and budgeting, performance indicators, and user-satisfaction. There are real-life examples of successful quality improvement models, as well as an in-depth look at the librarys role in faculty research and teaching, and postgraduate, graduate and undergraduate studies.

THOUGHTS: If you are looking for a way to assess your impact on a public service level, read this book. It discusses the various types of assessment (professional and in-house) that are available, how they work, and what the results say about your library.

This book is steeped in the nitty gritty stuff and is, I believe, meant more for administrators. It's not bad, per se, but if your not shopping to buy a professional assessment, you can skip this book.

RATING: 5/10 [Meh.]

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