The Thompson Library & Archives Blog

Library Joins ACRL Project Outcome to Assess Services

In Winter 2023, the instruction librarians piloted the use of Project Outcome from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). This toolkit is "designed to help libraries understand and share the impact of essential library programs and services by providing simple surveys and an easy-to-use process for measuring and analyzing outcomes." It contains standardized surveys that help to collect and compare data not only within our own library but against academic libraries across the nation. The Winter 2023 pilot focused just on library instruction and teaching support, but Project Outcome has surveys to assess multiple service areas including research support, events and programs, technology, collections, and space.

After each instruction session in Winter 2023, librarians asked student and faculty participants to give immediate feedback about the lesson. Librarians taught sessions for a wide variety of classes, from 100 level writing classes to 500 level physician assistant classes, including both in person and online synchronous courses. We received 159 anonymous responses from students and 8 anonymous responses from faculty immediately after sessions. The response to both surveys was overwhelmingly positive in both Likert and open-ended responses and we met or surpassed the average scores of other academic libraries in our Carnegie Class and nationally. 

There were some trends that arose from the students' open-ended responses. When asked what they liked most about the session, students often commented that

• the content was very relevant and informative,
• the databases and research guides were helpful,
• they liked having hands on activities to either evaluate sources or to practice their searching in class with librarian support,
• the librarians were engaging, knowledgeable, and approachable.

When asked what else the library could do to help them succeed in their classes, student often commented that

• they would appreciate learning about the library earlier in their college experience,
• they would appreciate more sessions outside of class to learn about the library and the research process in general,
• they would like more communication directly from the library about its resources and services.

A few trends rose out of faculty's open-ended responses as well, including that librarians' expertise and point of view was appreciated and the in class activities led to greater engagement with students.

Read and download the brief reports from Project Outcome.  

From the responses we received, our librarians have taken actions this fall to continue our support of students including reaching out to faculty in specific programs to encourage library instruction, to increase the extracurricular webinar and workshop offerings, and increase communication to campus about library services through email (hence these newsletters), social media, and digital signs around campus.

With the modest success of the Winter 2023 pilot, we have expanded the use of Project Outcome's surveys, including them in our online Canvas modules and classes, our webinars and on campus workshops, and even our research consultations. We hope to include some of this data in our reports out to campus in the future.