Review Essay: The Documentation of Library Assessment Planning Process, Lessons Learned and Suggestions

Abstract

A library assessment plan describes outcomes, direct and indirect assessment methods, timelines, and responsible individuals who will conduct the assessment. Numerous academic libraries have developed and made publicly accessible assessment plans to demonstrate the impact of their library services and resources. Many guidelines are available for academic libraries on how to develop a library assessment plan (e.g., Maki, 2002;Oakleaf, 2010;Rubin, 2006), yet only a handful of academic libraries have shared their actual assessment planning experiences, how they applied available guidelines, and what difficulties they had. The purpose of this article is to document academic libraries' assessment planning processes that have been published since 2010. The reported strengths and challenges of assessment planning are discussed.