Recent assessment work in the Carolina Digital Library and Archives

Jenn Riley, Head, Carolina Digital Library and Archives

​

Tali Beesley, CALA, Carolina Digital Library and Archives

Making assessment a priority

Image by welshmackem. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mervtheswerve/974646752/

How we got started

• Identify a staff member to lead efforts
• (That's Tali --->)
• Department brainstorming of assessment questions
• Small group refine long list into short term priorities

Matrix

• Classified questions as quantitative, qualitative, or needs-based
• Indicated whether they were internal or external projects, and short or long term
• Prioritized them on a scale of 1-3
• We ended up with four questions that were "Priority 1"
• Talked to Heather, our assessment librarian

Reality check

Sometimes it's better to dive in and experiment with something

Data has to come first

​

Digitization Statistics

What I Envisioned

​

Image by Future Cars Now. http://www.futurecarsnow.com/

Digitization Statistics, cont.�

What We Got

Image by iandavid. http://www.flickr.com/photos/iandavid/1022689178/

Digitization Statistics, cont.

Takeaways:

​

Assessment doesn't happen in a vacuum--you must talk to all stakeholders

​

It is important to work within the systems already in place

LTC Process

• New process to decide how technology resources would be allocated
• The CDLA was charged with creating the process
• We worked assessment in from the beginning

LTC Process Assessment

Survey Draft 1

Survey Draft 10

Tali's Confidence Level

LTC Process Assessment, cont.

Focus Groups Tell You:

• The range of people's opinions
• How strongly they hold those opinions

​

​

Focus Groups Don't Tell You:

• How to proceed

​

​

...but all data is good data.

​

Thank you!

jennriley@unc.edu

beesley@live.unc.edu