Academic Library Assessment: Strengthening the Collective

The Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC) leads and coordinates projects and resources for academic libraries at 40 state universities and colleges. The cooperative structure brings together stakeholders at multiple levels. The Members Council on Library Services (MCLS; FALSC and library leadership) oversees seven standing committees, each charged with specific work that serves the cooperative. Each committee includes librarians from college and university libraries, and liaisons from FALSC and the MCLS. The Library Assessment Standing Committee (LASC) charge is to:
Assist and advise the MCLS regarding methods and tools for library assessment;
Create a centralized repository to house examples of best practices for assessment methods and activities; 
Identify and promote examples of effective library assessment methods; 
Create a shared repository of examples of library assessment practices for SACS and other accreditation;
Provide recommendations to the MCLS for resources and activities to support assessment in all libraries in the collective;
Provide regular reports to the MCLS. 
By bringing librarians from different institutions together around this shared charge, the committee identifies common needs and goals, leverages expertise to address these, and facilitates communication among all the libraries. Evaluation of data visualization tools was a great opportunity to strengthen the collective by pursuing a common goal with many mutually beneficial results.

Presented at the Library Assessment Conference 2020 on Oct. 26, 2020.