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Standards for Libraries in Higher Education

Introduction

The Standards for Libraries in Higher Education are designed to guide academic libraries in advancing and sustaining their role as partners in educating students, achieving their institutions’ missions, and positioning libraries as leaders in assessment and continuous improvement on their campuses. Libraries must demonstrate their value and document their contributions to overall institutional effectiveness and be prepared to address changes in higher education. These Standards were developed through study and consideration of new and emerging issues and trends in libraries, higher education, and accrediting practices.

The Standards assume that libraries

1. adhere to the principles;
2. identify and select performance indicators that are congruent with their institution’s mission and contribute to institutional effectiveness;
3. add performance indicators that apply to the specific library type (for example, open access initiatives for research libraries, or workforce development support for community colleges);
4. develop user-centered, measurable outcomes that articulate specifically what the user is able to do as an outcome of the performance indicator;
5. conduct assessments that may be quantitative and/or qualitative;
6. collect evidence from assessments that demonstrate degree of success; and
7. use assessment data for continuous improvement of library operations.