Developing performance indicators to evaluate organizational intellectual assets of Thai academic libraries.

Intellectual assets are strategic resources that underlie a library's sustainable growth. Many library experts are striving to design indicators for measuring the intangible sides of library organizations. However, very little effort has been made to develop indicators with specific reference to intellectual assets. The purpose of this study is to apply intellectual capital concepts to academic library settings by exploring types of intellectual assets from a new perspective for library managers, explaining the motivation behind an interest in intangible assessment, and developing indicators to evaluate measurable surrogates for library intellectual assets. The researcher selected the case study methodology to investigate the actual development of indicators at three university libraries in Thailand. Using multiple methods of data collection, document reviews and semi-structured interviews yielded the case descriptions, key success factors associated with intellectual assets, and initial intangible indicators. Small-scale surveys were sequentially undertaken to test user acceptance of the suggested indicators. The case findings from within-case analysis were compared to examine similar patterns across the three case libraries that led to the formation of theoretical propositions and the modification of the conceptual framework for developing intangible indicators. The key findings from this study are as follows: (1) library collections and services can be treated as an additional category of library intangibles because they are derived from a combination of human, structural and relationship assets; (2) two main motives for interest in intangible assessment are tracking progress on knowledge management projects and supplementing library evaluation reports with information on intangibles; and (3) most indicator users at the operations management level place more emphasis on the indicators developed for assessing human assets, as well as on collection and service assets. This research makes a major contribution to knowledge on library performance evaluation by providing the theoretically-informed, empirically-supported propositions that intellectual capital reporting principles are relevant and applicable to internal assessment practices in Thai academic libraries. These propositions may be transferable to other information service units where their contextual conditions are similar to the case study libraries

Undergraduate Students\u27 Information Literacy Behaviour in Chulalongkorn University

This paper examines the ways in which Thai undergraduate students in Chulalongkorn University find, evaluate, manage, and apply the needed information for doing their course-related assignments and everyday life research. The information literacy behaviour studied includes the undergraduates’ use of information resources, evaluation of information, research styles, and difficulties encountered during research practices. The survey instrument originally developed by Project Information Literacy of the University of Washington Information School was used as the basis for designing a questionnaire of this study. The questionnaire, then, was distributed to sophomores, juniors, and seniors enrolling at Chulalongkorn University. The sample for the student survey was 378 respondents from 18 faculties. Data collection was completed by the end of March 2011. Overall a 95% response rate was achieved. The findings of this study indicate that the most frequent source of information the majority of the undergraduates used for their course-related assignments and everyday life research is search engines. Most undergraduates always pay attention to credibility of library materials and web content when evaluating information in hand. Regarding the survey respondents’ research styles, they usually make action plans and create search terms before writing term-papers. They also have problems with deciding what to do at the early stage of research process, narrowing down a topic, and determining credibility of information resources

Evaluating Intellectual Assets in University Libraries: A Multi-Site Case Study from Thailand

Intellectual assets are strategic resources that libraries can use to add value to services, but their intangible attributes make them hard to evaluate. An exploratory case study used document analysis, interviews and a questionnaire to develop and test indicators of intellectual assets and related performance measures at three university libraries in Thailand. The study demonstrated the feasibility of applying an intellectual capital perspective and a scorecard process model to design a workable system for evaluating library intangibles, particularly where libraries have a pre-existing interest in knowledge management and a culture of assessment.Academic libraries, intellectual assets, intellectual capital, intangible assets, library evaluation, performance indicators, performance measurement, scorecards, Thailand, university libraries

Application of the CIPP Model to Evaluate Knowledge Management Projects

Knowledge management (KM) initiatives have been widely welcomed by several university libraries in Thailand to: • Establish internal environment for team learning; • Create repositories of knowledge about library practices and information work; and • Provide access to practical knowledge. Most pioneering libraries make their KM efforts by running annual projects that need to be evaluated. However, there are few empirical studies on KM project evaluations in the academic library sector. This current research focuses on the selection of evaluation approaches suitable for judging the success of KM projects done in the Thai university libraries. This issue is still one of relatively unexplored study areas in a KM context of non-profit organizations in Thailand. PURPOSE As a well-known approach to programme evaluation, Daniel Stufflebeam (2007) ’s CIPP Model has the potential to enable library managers to gain holistic views about contexts, inputs, processes, and products of each KM project and help to address some useful management information for improving the implementation of other relevant projects in the future. METHO