Library Faculty/Staff Scholarship and Research

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/11

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Author: search.filters.author.Singh, Madhu

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    Reserves UNreserved
    (2017-03-23) Spangler, Emily; Negro, Toni; Singh, Madhu
    Academic libraries struggle with managing print course reserves and making them easily accessible to students, while also attempting to streamline their service desk operations. At a state university system regional center, the library provides academic support to students from nine institutions that offer graduate and undergraduate studies at the center, which includes course reserves for all programs. The library has initiated a pilot that provides open and easy access to course reserves. This pilot is an effort to improve services to students and faculty following the merger of our circulation and reference desks. When additional consideration was given to improving transactions that occur daily at the service desk, we arrived at the conclusion to make the “Reserves UNreserved.” The pilot is a transition from a traditional check out process to an open self-service, on site use, with no time limit restrictions. How can libraries best manage their course reserve collections, while making them easily accessible to students without hindering their service desk operations? Explore how to overcome this challenges as we discuss the preliminary results of a pilot project that moved course reserves from behind the barrier of a desk to an area in open stacks.
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    Thinking Big in a Small Library: Implementing Low-Cost Solutions
    (2015-03-19) Singh, Madhu
    Buying out-of-the-box applications for data collection can be an expensive prospect for small libraries and they may not have enough flexibility to meet your library’s needs. Even under budget constraints staff members can create tools that can have a big impact on the library. Learn how a small academic library is bringing together staff skills to develop practical, low-cost tools to improve customer service and decision making. We will discuss how we collaborated with the iSchool at University of Maryland to create a library usage statistics application, a course reserves system, and an equipment management system. These customizable systems have had financial benefits, facilitated evidence-based decision making, improved customer service, and streamlined staff workflow. For example, the automated hourly usage statistics application has enabled the library to collect data to assess staffing needs, monitor usage of a late night hours pilot, and save staff time by removing the need for additional data entry. At this session you will learn how the applications were envisioned, planned, developed, and implemented. We will brainstorm solutions for data collection challenges you may have encountered at your library. In addition, you will learn how to establish a team of enthusiastic and talented members, bring them on-board, and most importantly, how staff members can make big contributions to improve library services with limited resources.
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    Thriving in Tough Times Through Collaboration
    (2015-05-07) Singh, Madhu
    Expanding library services with limited resources can be challenging for libraries, especially in time of budget constraints. Not only the cost of library applications has gone up in the market, most often they are not flexible enough to meet your library’s needs. Here is an example of how a small academic library is being innovative and utilizing staff skill sets to design and develop tools with zero cost to improve customer service and decision making. Through collaboration with the iSchool at the University of Maryland staff created a library usage statistics application, a course reserves system, and an equipment management system. These customizable systems have benefited financially, facilitated evidence-based decision making, improved customer service, and streamlined staff workflow. This collaboration enriched graduate students’ academic experience as well helped library in accomplishing its goal!
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    Finding Meaning in the Madness: Unifying Your Library’s Data Collection with LibAnalytics
    (2015-03-18) Singh, Madhu
    Libraries have collected data across multiple platforms and areas and developed reports to inform their stakeholders to show the value of the library. As data collection methods have evolved, more assessment platforms have become available in the market. LibAnalytics can help you pull together an all-inclusive, real-time assessment of your library’s services. At the University of Maryland, Priddy Library, we implemented LibAnalytics in 2011 to centralize our data collection points on numerous library services. Learn how this personalized tool has helped the Priddy Library aggregate statistics on library services such as gate counts, circulation and acquisition statistics, interlibrary loan activity, reference statistics and library instruction sessions. The presentation will focus on how we developed a customized instance based on library services and the assessment needs specific to our library. Participants will brainstorm data collection points based on their library services and how to group data points logically. The presentation will discuss how to create a dataset, categorize data entry fields, develop questions, select data field types (i.e. numeric, single or multi option dropdown menus, or text fields), and edit existing datasets. In a few simple steps, learn how to filter your data, generate custom reports, create visualizations, analyze library usage instantly, and produce shareable dashboards to provide a comprehensive overview of your library’s metrics. Through these features, learn how your library can assess trends across multiple years, make data driven decisions to improve services and demonstrate the library’s value.
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    The ABCS of Strategic Assessment: Building Blocks for Creating a New Plan in Challenging Times
    (2015-06-28) Gammons, Rachel; Edwards, Jamie; Conlin, Kristin; Barnachea, LuLu; Singh, Madhu
    The University of Maryland Libraries embarked on a journey to create a new assessment plan while a leadership transition loomed and campus budget cuts promised new priorities. The Libraries needed to harness its many assessment activities into a strategic coordinated program. The foundation of the new program derives from key building blocks: research, stakeholder engagement, best practices, skills and resources, and integration with strategic planning. To support this growth, the Libraries created a new model for developing assessment capacity: Assess-Build-Cultivate (ABC). The ABC model defines how the Libraries will identify their needs for assessment skills and resources, build their capacity, and cultivate a culture of strategic assessment. Building the new plan and program from the ground up required extensive collaboration inside and outside the organization. The Libraries formed a task force to coordinate this work and recommend how assessment can be deeply integrated into both everyday work and the organization’s strategic planning cycle. The results of the task force’s internal and external research revealed a dire need for coordination, training, and resources. The task force recommended best practices, a new assessment development plan, and the framework for a strategic assessment plan—to be evaluated soon by library management and staff. These building blocks represent what a library in a challenging environment can potentially do moving from limited resources and rapidly changing priorities to the promise of a new vision supported by assessment. The poster will provide charts of the team’s research and figures illustrating the ABC model and strategic framework.