Value Of Academic Libraries Research Articles

Data Ethics in Library Learning Analytics

Introduction: This study examines data handling and data ethics in library learning analytics research projects involving the use of data about students as library patrons, alongside a baseline evaluation of the benefits of library learning analytics to libraries practicing it. Methods: Citations were gathered via citation chain aggregation from the original Value of Academic Libraries report, then winnowed to projects with English-language artifacts documenting them, collection and/or analysis of library data about students, and a research question about the contribution of student library use to student success. Results and Discussion: Much of this research is reaching publication despite not employing best practices nor documenting respect for human-subjects research ethics, library-specific privacy and confidentiality ethics, and student data-privacy expectations. Very few projects create direct benefits to libraries. This result would not be possible without gaps or lapses in editorial processes, peer review, and upstream research guidance and ethics reviews. Conclusion: Ethics reforms are required at all stages of research and publication to prevent further unethical exploitation of patron data.

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, February–August 2022: Highlights of the Board’s Annual Conference meetings and recent actions

The ACRL Board of Directors met virtually on June 3, 2022, and held an informal face-to-face Board Update meeting on June 24, 2022. A face-to-face meeting was scheduled for June 25, 2022, but because of a lack of a quorum, this meeting was rescheduled as a virtual meeting on August 1, 2022. The Board also held a face-to-face strategic planning meeting on June 23, 2022. The Board met with the leaders of its five goal-area committees—ACRL Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee; Value of Academic Libraries; Student Learning and Information Literacy; Research and Scholarly Environment; and New Roles and Changing Landscapes—to assess progress on ACRL’s strategic plan, the Plan for Excellence. With feedback from the Board, these committees will finalize their reports and develop their work plans for 2022–2023.

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions: Highlights of the Board’s LibLearnX and fall meetings

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, association governance continues to take place virtually. For the inaugural ALA LibLearnX, the ACRL Board of Directors met virtually in January and February 2022. The Board held a virtual update session on January 25 and held Board meetings on January 27 and 28. In addition, the Board and Budget and Finance Committee convened for their annual joint meeting on February 1. This article also includes actions taken by the ACRL Executive Committee on November 9, 2021. In January, the Board received updates from the leaders of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, as well as its four goal-area committees: New Roles and Changing Landscapes, Research and Scholarly Environment, Student Learning and Information Literacy, and Value of Academic Libraries to assess progress on the Plan for Excellence.

Invisible Labor, Invisible Value: Unpacking Traditional Assessment of Academic Library Value

Academic libraries face mounting pressure to demonstrate their value to stakeholders, yet traditional assessments of their financial value ignore the work of librarians and library staff in producing usable collections and services for patrons. Through a survey of US academic library workers, we examine the range, scope, and financial value of labor performed in US academic libraries. Our findings reveal ways in which traditional assessment mechanisms render this labor invisible to stakeholders. We argue that making this labor more visible will help better communicate the value of academic libraries and ignite conversations about reducing workload and stress for library workers.

2020 ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey: Highlights and key EDI findings

The annual ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey is the largest of its kind and offers the most comprehensive picture of academic library budgets, staffing, teaching, services, collections, and more. The data facilitates benchmarking, assessment of impact over time, tracking of new trends, and demonstration of academic library value. The survey is generally open from September through February each year to align with the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) collection. Libraries completing the survey can easily download their IPEDS responses to share with their local IPEDS keyholder. The Survey Editorial Board sincerely thanks all 1,672 libraries that contributed to the 2020 survey. The overall response rate was 49.8% with 52.1% of U.S. libraries responding.

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, June 2021: Highlights of the Board’s Annual Conference meetings

For the second year in a row, in lieu of meetings that would have been held face-to-face, the ACRL Board of Directors met virtually on June 23 and June 30. The Board also held a virtual priority setting meeting on June 3 and an informal Board Update on June 10. The Board met with the leaders of the ACRL Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, as well as its four goal-area committees: Value of Academic Libraries, Student Learning and Information Literacy, Research and Scholarly Environment, and New Roles and Changing Landscapes to assess progress on ACRL’s strategic plan, the Plan for Excellence. With feedback from the Board, these committees will finalize their reports and develop their work plans for 2021–22.

The Coin of Love and Virtue: Academic Libraries and Value in a Global Pandemic

In September 2010, the Association of College and Research Libraries released The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report. The spread of the novel coronavirus and the resulting global pandemic has raised questions about the concept of value in academic libraries. How is value attributed? How does value function? What does it mean to demonstrate or prove our value? We begin with an overview and analysis of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries Initiative. We then provide a description and timeline of the spread of COVID-19 and the reaction of both institutions of higher education, academic libraries, professional library organizations, and individual librarians. The pandemic has created a new category of workers - “essential workers” - who provide vital services, perform maintenance work, and labor to keep infrastructures intact. The role of carework and careworkers in the pandemic helps illuminate the situation of academic librarians within regimes of neoliberal austerity. Ultimately we argue that although the discourse of library value seeks to prove library value rationally and empirically, through a lot of quantitative data, capitalism, the economy, and value are fundamentally irrational. Academic library value must be claimed politically; misrecognizing the nature of the problem and relying on commonsense understandings of value and the economic, which is what the discourse of library value has done for the past decade, goes nowhere.

Special Issue Editors’ Introduction

In 2009, responding to a new level of challenges to academic libraries brought on by the recession, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) created the Value of Academic Libraries (VAL) initiative and allocated funding for a systematic review of existing literature, resulting in the 2010 Value of Academic Libraries report by Megan Oakleaf. To take this work forward, the value of academic libraries became a goal in ACRL’s Plan for Excellence in 2011, with a committee dedicated to furthering work in that area.

Portal: Libraries and the Academy 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press Award for Best Article

portal:Libraries and the Academy 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press Award for Best Article Marianne Ryan (bio) The Best Article Award Committee has announced the selection of "'Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should': Practitioner Perceptions of Learning Analytics Ethics" as recipient of the 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press Award for the best article featured in portal: Libraries and the Academy during 2019. Written by Kyle M. L. Jones, the article appears in volume 19, number 3 (2019), pages 407–28 and can be accessed at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/729196. As noted in the committee's report, this timely and well-written essay uses qualitative research to address ethical issues regarding learning analytics, the gathering and analysis of a wide range of data about students to assess their academic progress and improve their educational outcomes. The article provides valuable context for the uptake of learning analytics in academic libraries in response to findings and recommendations from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2010 publication The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report by Megan Oak-leaf. Learning analytics is a topic of growing importance for libraries as they attempt to demonstrate their role in student success and their value to higher education. Members of the portal Editorial Board called Jones's essay "a good introduction to the ethical questions surrounding learning analytics" and "an important contribution to the literature." Jones raises important questions, including whether assessment findings justify potentially compromising student privacy and whether the information libraries gather by using learning analytics is worth the ethical dilemmas that doing so can create. The article suggests that institutional review boards may lack familiarity with the emerging issues of data ethics, which may result in overly lenient examination of library learning analytics research. It theorizes that current learning analytics practice may not be consistently guided by the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics. This inconsistency has fueled heated debate, particularly in discussions of data [End Page 411] ethics. Jones also offers practical and actionable suggestions for how libraries might navigate these challenging waters. Comments from the board consistently noted the timeliness of this topic and Jones's balanced and thoughtful treatment. One member observed that Jones's essay "demonstrates, through a literature review, analysis of current practice, a focus on professional ethics for librarians (especially user privacy), and methodologically sound interviews with library practitioners, just how much of an ethical minefield [learning analytics] is for academic libraries." Another called the essay "an effective article for me to point to for others to read and join the conversation locally." Still another said, "This is a conversation that needs to happen." Kyle M. L. Jones is an assistant professor in the Department of Library and Information Science in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis. His research primarily focuses on student privacy issues that emerge from mining sensitive or confidential student data and information, which institutions use to match courses and majors to students' interests, to support interpersonal relationships, and to improve learning outcomes. His secondary research interest concentrates on emerging educational technologies and their efficacy in library and information science (LIS) graduate programs and for LIS professional development. Jones is currently coprincipal investigator for two Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) research grants: the first to investigate faculty perspectives of student privacy and their practices in relation to learning analytics, and the second to develop continuing education for academic library practitioners to address student privacy and deal with the emerging ethical issues of learning analytics. He teaches courses on database design and information policy, and publishes extensively on the topics of student confidentiality and data ethics with respect to library learning analytics. Articles selected for portal's Best Article Award are chosen through a multistep process by which Editorial Board members nominate a pool of articles from each volume. The entire board then votes on a short list of the most nominated articles. Criteria used in the selection process examine the quality of the research methodology; the extent to which the article places library issues in a broader academic or higher education context; the degree to which...

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, June 2019: Highlights of the Board’s Annual Conference meetings

During the 2019 ALA Annual Conference Meeting in Washington, D.C., the ACRL Board of Directors met on June 22 and June 24. The Board met with the leaders of its four goal-area committees: Value of Academic Libraries, Student Learning and Information Literacy, Research and Scholarly Environment, and New Roles and Changing Landscapes to assess progress on the Plan for Excellence. With feedback from the Board, these committees will finalize their reports and develop their work plans for 2019–2020.

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, January 2019: Highlights of the Board’s Midwinter meetings

During the 2019 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, the ACRL Board of Directors met on January 26 and January 28. The Board met with the leaders of its four goal-area committees—New Roles and Changing Landscapes, Research and Scholarly Environment, Student Learning and Information Literacy, and Value of Academic Libraries—to assess progress on the Plan for Excellence.

ACRL Annual Report 2017-2018

This report highlights ACRL’s many accomplishments during the 2018 fiscal year across the four strategic goal areas highlighted in the Plan for Excellence—the value of academic libraries, student learning, research and scholarly environment, and new roles and changing landscapes—along with the association’s enabling programs and services.See the ACRL FY18 4th Quarter Budget Report supplement for additional information.

Catalyzing organizational change: Strategies and tools to implement your scholarly communication agenda

As ACRL President, I spend much of my time thinking about the priorities we have identified as part of our Plan for Excellence: our new signature initiative focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion; the value of academic libraries, student learning; research and the scholarly environment; and new roles and changing landscapes.1 Though this plan has designated areas of focus, I’m sure we all have had experiences that demonstrate that these themes intersect with each other. Thinking systemically across these themes, we can enable the evolution of academic libraries in ways that support our core mission across multiple domains of service.

A Survey of Provosts Indicates that Academic Libraries Should Connect Outcomes to University Goals

A Survey of Provosts Indicates that Academic Libraries Should Connect Outcomes to University Goals

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, June 2018: Highlights of the Board’s Annual Conference meetings

During the 2018 ALA Annual Conference Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, the ACRL Board of Directors met on June 23 and June 25. The Board met with the leaders of its four goal-area committees: Value of Academic Libraries, Student Learning and Information Literacy, Research and Scholarly Environment, and New Roles and Changing Landscapes to assess progress on the Plan for Excellence.

ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, February 2018

During the 2018 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver, the ACRL Board of Directors met on February 10 and February 12. The Board met with the leaders of its four goal-area committees: New Roles and Changing Landscapes, Research and Scholarly Environment, Student Learning and Information Literacy, and Value of Academic Libraries to assess progress on the Plan for Excellence.The Board also heard updates from ALA Treasurer Susan Hildreth and ALA CFO Mark Leon, the ALA Washington Office Associate Executive Director Kathi Kromer, as well as updates from representatives from the ACRL Diversity Alliance, ACRL Libraries Transform Implementation Task Force, Joint ACRL/LLAMA Interdivisional Committee on Building Resources, and ALA Council Committee on Legislation.

Provosts' Perceptions of Academic Library Value & Preferences for Communication: A National Study

While many studies have been conducted under the auspices of calculating academic library value, there are no large-scale studies into the perceptions that college or university provosts have of library value, nor are there studies into how provosts prefer library value data to be communicated. This study addresses that gap through a national survey of public and private university provosts/chief academic officers, with attention to size of the institution, accrediting agency, and the status of librarians at the institution. An understanding of provosts’ perceptions of library value and preferences for communication aid library directors as they seek to leverage the findings of value studies for library advocacy.

A Multilevel Approach for Library Value Assessment

As the volume of academic library value research has continued to increase, the resulting literature has grown complex and sprawling. This article takes stock of this body of work, using a review of the published research literature and an analysis of its organization and structure. This investigation reveals that the research on library value follows a “levels of analysis” framework, with three types of studies—small group, single institution, and multi-institution—comprising the major dimensions. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of studies at each level and propose a multilevel framework designed to improve the practical utility and scholarly rigor of academic library value assessment.

The problems and promise of learning analytics for increasing and demonstrating library value and impact

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the need for academic libraries to demonstrate and increase their impact of student learning and success. It highlights the data problems present in existing library value correlation research and suggests a pathway to surmounting existing data obstacles. The paper advocates the integration of libraries into institutional learning analytics systems to gain access to more granular student learning and success data. It also suggests using library-infused learning analytics data to discover and act upon new linkages that may reveal library value in an institutional context.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes a pattern pervasive in existing academic library value correlation research and identifies major data obstacles to future research in this vein. The paper advocates learning analytics as one route to access more usable and revealing data. It also acknowledges several challenges to the suggested approach.FindingsThis paper describes learning analytics as it may apply to and support correlation research on academic library value. While this paper advocates exploring the integration of library data and institutional data via learning analytics initiatives, it also describes four challenges to this approach including librarian concerns related to the use of individual level data, the tension between claims of correlation and causation in library value research, the need to develop interoperability standards for library data and organizational readiness and learning analytics maturity issues.Originality/valueThis paper outlines a path forward for academic library value research that may otherwise be stymied by existing data difficulties.

ACRL Annual Report 2016-2017

This report highlights ACRL’s many accomplishments during the 2017 fiscal year across the four strategic goal areas highlighted in the Plan for Excellence—the value of academic libraries, student learning, and the research and scholarly environment—along with the association’s enabling programs and services.See the ACRL FY17 Budget Report supplement for additional information.