Stanley, Meagan

Surmacz, Marisa A, Ms.

English

Scholarship@Western

Collecting gate counts, keeping a tally of every patron that visits the service desk or asks a question on chat, and tracking an information literacy class you’ve taught are all tasks that we have been doing for quite some time now as an effort in demonstrating our value to ourselves, and ultimately, to the powers that be. But as we know, those simple little ‘ticks’ have so much more meaning behind them that is tricky to convey. Faced with budget and staffing challenges, our unit needed, more than ever, to demonstrate our value. And so our journey began… Special thanks to all our colleagues in the Research and Instructional Services Unit at Taylor Library, and Rob Graves at LITS Avatars created by MARVEL Create your own Superhero (marvel.com) For many years, our institution has relied on several different tools to record reference and instruction statistics: Western Libraries Instruction & Outreach Database (mandatory) Desk Tracker (mandatory) Personal records for use in annual reports (optional) One tool to capture it all! Reference transactions and instruction can occur in  many forms: in person, online, on the telephone, via email.   Time is spent preparing, and often following up with patrons to meet their information needs.  The outcome of any of these transactions is to teach information literacy skills to aid in the work of class assignments, theses and dissertations, and research.  Librarians and Library Assistants Meetings, Meetings, and more Meetings! Library Information Technology Services (LITS) A Database that Collects: All-in-one statistics (instruction, reference, research support) Type of instruction (hands-on, lecture, drop-in) Mode of delivery (in-person, online) Preparation time Duration  Number of users Type of users (undergraduate, graduate, faculty, international) Nature of transaction (thesis, research, etc.) Outcomes Fine tuning the database  Demonstrating the success of this all-in-one database to all Units Eliminating the need to record statistics in multiple databases The output is only as good as the input!  We realized that the information entered into these tools does not really capture the whole picture of the work involved:  Our Unit needed a tool that somehow captured the data we were already collecting along with the missing data that would help us to better demonstrate our value. Our Journey Continues… Marisa Surmacz Meagan  Stanley & Allyn & Betty Taylor Library 

Capturing our value: The collection of instruction, reference and research support statistics

https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&amp;context=wilu

Capturing our value: The collection of instruction, reference and research support statistics

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Scholarship@Western