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.

The ISU Library’s Instruction Competencies Task Force reviewed and adapted the national ALA/ACRL Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians Standards to guide instruction-related professional development and teaching practices of ISU librarians who teach.

The Instruction Assessment Task Force was formed in May 2011, and charged to develop a standardized set of questions and standard scale to be used for all Instructional Sessions (IS), including primarily course-related instruction (CRI) sessions, workshops, and seminars. The Task Force was also charged with recommending a model for centralized IS assessment procedures, including collection (electronic and in print), analysis, retention, and reporting. The Task Force was also asked to recommend a model for data use for teaching improvement and annual professional development, and to consider privacy of data issues. The following is the Task Force’s Report on these respective issues.

The Iowa State University Library strives to be inclusive in our collections, services, programming, policies, procedures, and environment. This report to the ISU Senior VP and Provost provides a brief summary of the library’s major diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and achievements in FY19.

The following is a report which was presented to the Reference & Instruction Division of Parks Library summarizing the 2016 Distance Learning Committee's Distance Learning Student Survey findings.

The Iowa State University Library strives to be inclusive in our collections, services, programming, policies, procedures, and environment. This report provides an overview of the library’s major diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in FY18 and details the achievements of library staff individually and collectively in contributing to the Library’s efforts to advance DEI through collection development; instruction; outreach and programming; professional development; research and scholarship; and professional and institutional service.

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.