Assessment Programs

An important goal of our assessment program is to create a culture of assessment throughout the Libraries.  The program provides opportunities for all staff to learn what assessment is and how to do it, and provides them with tools and support to do their own assessment projects, large or small, to improve their own efforts and those of their department.

To support evidence-based decisions, it is important to have accessible and accurate management data. The Libraries are required to report statistics to University administrators and various external organizations. Data gathering and reporting is a continual process. 

The Libraries contribute data to reports by:

• Association of Research Libraries
• Association of College and Research Libraries
• National Center for Education Statistics
• UTK’s Institutional Research and Strategic Analysis
• UTK’s Institutional Effectiveness

To support strategic planning, administrative needs, and accreditation requirements, we periodically survey the campus community to understand:

• Their use of library spaces, resources, and services
• Their satisfaction with library spaces, resources, and services
• Their perceived need for library services or the importance they attach to those services

These surveys have taken various forms over the years. Custom-designed, homegrown surveys were used at various times through the year 2000. To enable peer comparisons, the LibQual+ survey, developed by the Association of Research Libraries, was administered in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2013. Concerns with the complexity of the LibQual+ instrument led to the use of LibQual+ Lite in 2013 and its replacement with the Measuring Information Services Outcomes (MISO) instrument in 2017.

The MISO survey is a professionally designed and centrally administrated survey that has been used by hundreds of academic libraries since its initial release in 2005. While originally designed in the context of liberal arts colleges with combined administration of library and information technology services, the instrument can be customized through selection from a large bank of tested questions. At the University of Tennessee, patrons have only been asked questions relevant to library services.

Survey results are available to Libraries faculty and staff. Others needing access to details of the various surveys should contact the Assessment Programs Librarian.