page_title: Library assessment
section_title: USA, UK, Australia and Israel
hierarchical_section_title: Library assessment / USA, UK, Australia and Israel
caption_attribution_description: English: Receiving the Finkler Award for Information, University of Haifa Library Assessment Team
context_page_description: Library assessment is a process undertaken by libraries to learn about the needs of users and to evaluate how well they support these needs, in order to improve library facilities, services and resources. In many libraries successful library assessment is dependent on the existence of a 'culture of assessment' in the library whose goal is to involve the entire library staff in the assessment process and to improve customer service.
  Although most academic libraries have collected data on the size and use of their collections for decades, it is only since the late 1990s that many have embarked on a systematic process of assessment by surveying their users as well as their collections. Today, many academic libraries have created the position of Library Assessment Manager in order to coordinate and oversee their assessment activities. In addition, many libraries publish on their web sites the improvements that were implemented following their surveys as a way of demonstrating accountability to survey participants.
context_section_description: Although library assessment has become almost ubiquitous in United States, Australia, UK and some European countries such as Italy and Denmark since 2000, it is still relatively uncommon elsewhere. Below are a selection of library assessment sites that show the multitude of activities undertaken by assessment teams: University of Washington, USA; University of Virginia, USA; University of York, UK, Council of Australian University Libraries (CAUL).
  One notable exception is Israel whose University of Haifa Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library began a systematic process of library assessment in 2007, and has been conducting a Hebrew version of the University of Washington's 'In-Library Use' survey since 2008, and LibQUAL+ Lite (also in Hebrew) since 2009 in three-yearly cycles.
caption: University of Haifa, Library Assessment Team receiving the Finkler Prize for Information, 2012
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