ACRL and OCLC have announced the release of Academic Library Impact: Improving Practice and Essential Areas to Research. Developed for ACRL by OCLC Research, this valuable resource investigates how libraries can increase student learning and success and effectively communicate their value to higher education stakeholders. The full report is freely available for download on the ACRL website.
Now more than ever, academic libraries are being asked to demonstrate value to their institutional stakeholders, funders, and governance boards. Academic Library Impact builds on ACRL's 2010 Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report and the results of the subsequent Assessment in Action program. It demonstrates how libraries are now measuring library contributions to student learning and success, and recommends where more research is needed in areas critical to the higher education sector such as accreditation, student retention, and academic achievement.
Led by Lynn Silipigni Connaway, OCLC Senior Research Scientist and Director of User Research, all components were produced in partnership with OCLC staff and partners including William Harvey, Vanessa Kitzie, Stephanie Mikitish, and Dale Musselman. The components include analyses of library and information science (LIS) and higher education literature, focus group interviews and brainstorming sessions with academic library administrators at different institution types within the US, and individual interviews with provosts.
Building on established best practices and recent research, Academic Library Impact clearly identifies priority areas and suggests specific actions for academic librarians and administrators to take in developing programs, collections, and spaces focused on student learning and success. It includes effective practices, calls out exemplary studies, and indicates where more inquiry is needed, with proposed research designs. It identifies the next generation of necessary research to continue to testify to library value. The new report is a significant milestone for ACRL's Value of Academic Libraries initiative and for the profession.
A companion online tool, 'Visualizing Academic Library Impact: The ACRL/OCLC Literature Analysis Dashboard' helps librarians and researchers filter the existing literature for studies most relevant to their research interests and visually explore the literature and other data in the form of charts and graphs.
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