To better understand the library’s role in student success, this research used student survey data to explore students’ reported library building use, library resource use, library instruction, as well as student perceptions of the library’s role in their success, and how these factors may vary by academic discipline. Cumulative GPAs were also matched with respondents. Quantifying the relationship between library usage and student success is one of the six areas recommended for further research by ACRL. This study focuses on the variation and the uncertainty of the measurement of this relationship across disciplines, using Bayesian multilevel regression methods. Levels of library resource usage and percentages of respondents believing the library contributes very much to the respondents’ academic success vary quite a bit by discipline. In this study, cumulative GPA is higher on average for students who use library resources more frequently, but not for students who receive library instruction. Although, for undergraduates, higher frequency of building usage predicted higher probability of believing the library contributes very much to academic success, it did not predict higher GPA.

The Iowa State University Library Assessment Plan was developed over the course of 2017, and adopted in October of 2017. The plan provides a framework for efforts related to the creation, assembly, and analysis of library data and information. The assessment plan and supporting information related to it can be found on the Iowa State Library Assessment Website.

The assessment plan is aligned with the library’s five-year strategic plan (2015-2020) and is intended to support strategic decision-making in the library. The assessment plan’s guiding principles are:

• Data-driven: Strive to stay objective, impartial, and grounded in research and analysis.
• Impactful: Focus on the usefulness and impact of library services on users and recommend library process changes based on expertise and findings.
• Productive: Produce and promote innovative, creative, user-friendly, trustworthy, and timely products.
• Efficient: Re-purpose assessment data to support the ongoing review of library operations and tell the Library's story.
• Integrated: Help all ISUL units tell their stories and promote their services. Find and present relevant data in the most valid and effective ways.
• Open: Advance library communication and evidence-based librarianship by sharing and promoting work with the ISUL community.


At the heart of the Iowa State University Library Assessment Plan is a strategy map (Figure 1). A strategy map is a diagram that is used to document the primary strategic objectives being pursued by an organization. The strategy map provides a logic model for the strategy of the organization.

A well-designed strategy map provides a condensed (one side of one piece of paper) view of an organization’s strategic objectives. By providing a simple visual representation of the organization’s most important strategic objectives, the strategy map is useful as a tool to enable discussions within the library related to those objectives, and consideration of measured progress towards those objectives.