The University of Wollongong (UOW) has undertaken an innovative and collaborative research project to demonstrate the value that can be provided by academic libraries. The tool developed, the "Library Cube", is a data warehouse linking student borrowing and use of electronic resources to students' academic grades and demographic information. The project is different to other institutions' efforts to link usage to student outcomes, in that the Library Cube is not a one-off research project, but is now an ongoing part of UOW's systems and performance reporting and represents a fundamental shift in evaluating the student experience through the integration of discrete systems and datasets.The Library Cube demonstrates a new direction for evidence-based research. Analysis enabled through the Cube has revealed a very strong relationship between library usage and students' academic performance. This information will improve UOW Library's ability to demonstrate value to clients and stakeholders. The Library Cube has also delivered some anticipated and unexpected findings on the relationship between social variables (such as gender, age, and citizenship) and library usage behaviors; and in doing so has also identified potential target audiences for Library promotions and engagement strategies. ABSTRACTThe University of Wollongong (UOW) in New South Wales, Australia, has undertaken an innovative and collaborative research project to demonstrate the value that can be provided by academic libraries through a tool called the 'library cube'. The library cube consists of two major components: a backend system containing a multidimensional data warehouse linking student borrowing and use of electronic resources to students' academic marks (grades); and a frontend system that allows users to quickly and easily create cross tabulated data views, such as average student marks by frequency of library resource usage and gender.The project is different from the efforts of other institutions to link usage to student outcomes, in that the library cube is not a isolated research project, but is now an ongoing part of UOW's systems and performance reporting. The library cube represents a fundamental shift in evaluating the student experience through the integration of discrete 2 systems and datasets. It has revealed a very strong relationship between student library usage and academic performance. This information will improve UOW Library's ability to demonstrate value to clients and stakeholders. The library cube has also delivered some anticipated and unexpected findings on the relationship between social variables, such as gender, age, and citizenship, and library usage behaviors; and in doing so has also identified potential target audiences for library promotions and engagement strategies.

Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License 2.5 Canada (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the same or similar license to this one. AbstractObjective -This article describes a project undertaken by the University of Wollongong Library (UWL) to identify whether a correlation exists between usage of library resources and academic performance.Methods -A multidimensional approach to systems design was implemented, requiring collaboration between among the library, university administration, Performance Indicator Project team (PIP), and information technology services. The project centers on the integration and interrogation of a series of discrete datasets containing student performance, attrition, demographic, borrowing, and electronic resources usage data. PIP built a cube for the library that links usage of library resources to student demographic data and academic performance (the "Library Cube"). Other cubes will be linked later.Results -While initial reports are rudimentary and do not yet incorporate data on eresource usage, results are favourable in demonstrating the value of using the library information resources in coursework. Based on the data generated to date, students who Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2013, 8.2 164 borrow library resources do outperform students who do not. Early trend data shows up to a 12-point difference in grades. Conclusion -The LibraryCube signals a new milestone in the UWL's quality assessment journey. Well-established measures of effectiveness and efficiency will be further complemented by measures of impact and value, allowing the library to step even closer to the goal of having effective and valued partnerships with the university community to realize teaching, learning, research, and internalization goals.

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